Southey Contracting

SOUTHEY CONTRACTING

SOUTHEY CONTRACTING

Prolonging the Lifetime of Industrial Assets PRODUCTION: Timothy Reeder

Southey Contracting is Africa’s number one industrial and engineering services company, whose industrial solutions are both cost effective and delivered punctually to exceptional quality and safety standards.

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Southey Contracting is possibly best summed up with those adjectives which form its mission statement: Reputable, Responsible, Engaging and Committed.

The company has set about building for itself a reputation founded not only on these key pillars, but also on a long and distinguished history, the beginnings of which came more than three quarters of a century ago in 1939.

At the outset Southey Contracting carved a niche as a painting and insulation contacting company for the mining industry, an offering which has since evolved and broadened to make possible its having branches in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Richards Bay. Now, its service provision still covers painting and thermal insulation, but these have been joined additionally by capabilities in high-pressure water blasting, thermal spray coatings and scaffolding, all of which it supplies to the heavy industries requiring large equipment and complex processes; typically, we might think of such fields as oil, mining, shipbuilding, steel, chemicals

machinery manufacturing as most representative of them.

Southey Contracting provides multiple services across the power generation industry, such as the maintenance, shutdowns and new build projects it undertakes at various Eskom coal powered facilities and at the Koeberg Nuclear power station, on the west coast of South Africa. The South African petrochemicals industry, meanwhile, is one of Africa’s largest and most advanced, with Southey providing contracting and ongoing maintenance at all SA refineries.

Its footprint and ability in this industry is complete and widely recognised, with a presence including operations at Sapref, Engen, Mossgas, Chevron, Sasol 1 & 2 and many others.

Southey Contracting’s oil and gas footprint stretches beyond the borders of South Africa, with permanent facilities in Walvis Bay (Namibia), Luanda (Angola) and Pointe Noire (Congo) to name but three. Its involvement in this industry dates back to the 1980s, and today it services the upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas value chain.

Southey Contracting forms part of Southey Holdings, a group known widely as the investors in excellence and a market leader in South Africa. Originally a contracting company servicing South Africa’s mining industry, Southey Holdings has since taken a series of key strategic steps to position it as the driving force behind a diverse network of businesses operating within a variety of industries.

The group represents one of the largest and most respected privately owned groups in Africa, and is a multi-disciplinary business with operations in a broad but complementary range of activities. It owns a diverse range of companies all focussed on servicing the mining, minerals, oil and gas, power generation and general industrial industries.

John Humby, Divisional Managing Director at Southey Contracting, describes the journey the company has taken from being a small business started nearly 80 years ago, to the 3500 employee international organisation we see before us today. “The company was formed in 1939 to provide painting and insulation services to the mining industry

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SOUTHEY CONTRACTING

throughout Southern Africa, particularly the northern regions of South Africa,” he says. “It grew with the development of the gold mining industry in the Free State; that was in the late 70s and early 80s at which point it had been bought by two trusts which decided to expand the field of influence from Johannesburg and branches were opened in Durban and Cape Town.

“The contracting division which started everything has grown to provide a number of other services like scaffolding, high-pressure water-jetting and cleaning as well as aluminium spraying. The services of the contracting division are provided throughout the country as well as into neighbouring countries in Southern Africa such as Namibia, Angola, Zambia, DRC, Kenya, Mozambique, Botswana, Tanzania, Ghana, Cameroon, Guinea etc so we have quite the influence in Southern Africa and beyond. In 2002/03, we bought a company called Tate & Nicholson which is a steel sheeting division who are one of the top companies in the country when it comes to roofing sheeting. The group is now quite big and prides itself on service delivery, fantastic safety records and superior training.”

Southey Contracting is Africa’s top industrial and engineering services company, a collection of project management specialists who are driven by technology, motivated by people

standard-setter. Corrosion protection is among the most vital preventative steps that can be taken, dually because of its significant financial benefits and the industrial disasters, like the MV Erika oil spill in 1999, that can be caused by corrosion failures. These of course present their own exposure to risk in terms of liability exposure and other indirect costs.

Southey Contracting Head of Corrosion Protecting & Coating explains that, “by bundling our scaffolding, insulation and coating services, we can provide the most cost-effective and safe approach.”

Southey Contracting is also positioned to provide the most powerful and environmentally sensitive cleaning techniques available today, in the form of High Power (HP) and Ultra High Power (UHP) water jetting. This is yet another example of the company’s fascination with creating innovative solutions for complex cleaning applications, with specialised cleaning services such as these employed in heavy industrial applications during systematic maintenance cycles, planned shuts and to provide solutions to unexpected waste-related breakdowns and blockages.

Water is used as a preferred alternative to abrasive blasting as it is safer and more environmentally sensitive, and able to be recycled if needed. Working with water jetting, UHP in particular, is a dangerous job that requires the utmost in skill, compliance and equipment,

// IT’S ALL ABOUT RISK MANAGEMENT AND ENSURING THAT THE RISKS ARE AS LOW AS POSSIBLE WHILE MAINTAINING MARKET SHARE AND PROFITABILITY // applications,” says Roddy Mills, HP & UHP Water Jetting Division Manager.

Humby concludes with an insight into how its adaptability, and the ability to continue to diversify, looks set to serve Southey Contracting well into the future. “At the moment, while Southey was founded on the mining industry, our exposure to that business is very small. Oil and gas and power generation is definitely a focus despite its shortterm issues. We are well positioned under current circumstances and that’s through planning and analysis of where we stand and what is out there. It’s all about risk management and ensuring that the risks are as low as possible while maintaining market share and profitability. You can never be entirely negative and you have to take opportunities when they come up.”

// THE GROUP IS NOW QUITE BIG AND PRIDES ITSELF ON SERVICE DELIVERY, FANTASTIC SAFETY RECORDS AND SUPERIOR TRAINING // and focused on performance. More than 77 years’ proven delivery in specialised services across key industries makes Southey experts in prolonging the lifecycle of industrial assets, a singlesource industrial services partner specialising in asset lifecycle extension services.

These are plenty, not least the corrosion protection service Southey offers which is renowned as an industry

both in terms of personal protection and the actual machinery itself. Executed professionally however the techniques offer many benefits that bring about efficiencies in terms of cost, water usage and environmental impact, among others.

“Southey Contracting offers a wide range of high pressure water blasting equipment that brings engineering and customer service together to create innovative solutions for difficult to clean

SOUTHEY CONTRACTING +27 11 579 4600 gauteng@southey.co.za www.southeycontracting.com

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DECEMBER 2017