COMPANY PROFILE
2014
John Thompson
+ 27 21 959-8400 | www.johnthompson.co.za
Boiler power set for African surge Editorial: Colin Chinery
Sixty years after John Thompson produced the first industrial boiler to be manufactured in South Africa, the region’s premier boiler and environmental solutions company in the power and industrial sector is upping the pressure for further growth throughout Africa and Asia Pacific.
The year is 1954. Roger Bannister runs the first four minute mile, rock ‘n’ roll kickstarts with Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock,’ the first nuclear-powered submarine ‘USS Nautilus’ is launched, and in the Western Cape the John Thompson company produces South Africa’s first home manufactured industrial boiler. Sixty years on and the Cape Town business – now the power
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division of ACTOM, Africa’s largest manufacturer and distributor of electrical equipment – is celebrating the anniversary with a R30 million expansion plan. The 2,000 m2 Greenfield site adjoining its Bellville plant – already the largest heavy engineering manufacturing facility in the Western Cape will see a new workshop for the manufacture of industrial
watertube boilers incorporating new machinery, including 15 ton lifting capacity cranes and, in a separate building, an additional furnace corrugating machine for package boilers. And in a nation with 25 per cent unemployment – more jobs. John Thompson focuses on delivering sector-best boiler and environmental solutions, and the record is impressive. In 60 years it has supplied over 4000
John Thompson (a Division of ACTOM (Pty) Ltd)
firetube, 300 watertube, and numerous waste-heat boilers to customers throughout southern Africa and around the world.
FAST START Arriving as a successful Wolverhampton company with roots in the Industrial Revolution of 19th-century England, John Thompson came to South Africa in 1935. And from the start, through agency agreements, contributed to the rapid industrial expansion of the country in industries ranging from sugar and paper to petrochemical, fishing and mining. Now Southern Africa’s premier boiler and environmental solutions company serving the power generation and industrial markets, the company designs - manufactures and services industrial watertube and firetube boilers with steam outputs of up to 350 t/h, as well as related
products such as heat transfer technology. “Our business is boilers and environmental equipment such as fabric filters, and our objective is to take industrial watertube boilers to the power industry in Africa,” says John Thompson’s Divisional CEO Andy Abbey. John Thompson‘s industrial watertube designs include coalfired boilers with travelling grate and CAD spreader stokers and fibrous fuel-fired boilers with CAD spreader stokers for dual-fuel firing, as well as pinhole and dump grates, industrial oil/gasfired and waste-heat boilers. Package firetube boiler designs include coal-fired boilers with chain grate stokers, wood-fired boilers with fixed grates, oil/ gas-fired boilers and custom designed waste-heat boilers. “We manufacture industrial boiler components and deliver them to anywhere in the world. In
South Africa we normally install and commission this equipment ourselves - whilst outside South Africa we normally engage others to perform the installation work and then commission equipment ourselves - whatever the most cost-effective solution is. We also undertake extensive engineering studies for South Africa’s industrial sector,” says Abbey. John Thompson designs and builds two core type boilers, namely package and industrial watertube boilers. “Package boilers with a steam capacity up to 32 tons per hour are built in our Cape Town factory and then installed in a fairly short period of time. We sell this type of boiler to customers all over the world. “Industrial watertube boilers, which again we design and manufacture in-house, have steam capacities of up to 350 tons per hour and pressures up to 110bar. The components
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Raysonics Inspection Test & Certification
RITC (Pty) Ltd Experts in non-destructive testing and inspection services We service a broad spectrum of industries including quality engineering, petrochemical, power generation, mining, marine, chemical, and construction
Phone: 021 556 4884 Fax: 021 556 6941 Email: accounts@ritc.co.za (contact person: Robyn Sultanie) Physical Address: 57 Williams Way, Racing Park, Table View, 7441 Postal Address: P.O. Box 60194, Table View, 7441
website: www.ritc.co.za
such as panel walls, superheaters, boiler tubes, drums, combustion equipment, headers, tubular airheaters, extended surface economisers etc. are transported to a site and erected, usually over a period of 10 months to two years. “It’s a massive on-site undertaking, and we work on construction and maintenance sites ranging from a sugar or paper mills, to numerous power stations including Matimba, Komati and Tutuka. “Much of our business is with Eskom, not in the supply of new plant - though we do supply new
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environmental equipment - but with the provision of maintenance services,” Abbey explains. John Thompson as a company place a lot of emphasis on providing their customers with a strong technical support. Hence, there is a continuous drive to grow their engineering capabilities using the latest state of the art, computer aided design packages and investing in the further education of engineers in the company.
GOING FOR GREEN With the manufacturing industry looking into ways of lowering
energy consumption and reducing energy costs with environmentally sustainable business practices, John Thompson provides equipment for the cleaning up of emissions resulting from the firing of fuels or other processes leading to waste emissions into the atmosphere. And with rising electricity and fuel prices coupled with a growing demand for green business practices steering many companies towards alternative energy sources, alternative fuel is a major area of the Cape Town company’s extensive R&D programme. “John Thompson design and build boilers that fire biomass and we work with customers to investigate the use of alternative renewable fuel,” Abbey explains. The development of the MicroGen watertube boiler is one response, catering for the growing demand for a small, mediumpressure, power boilers particularly suited to fibrous-biomass and coalfired co-generation applications. Configured to facilitate manufacture of the pressureparts in large subassemblies, the MicroGen can be containerised for transportation, minimising expensive and time consuming site construction work.
MAXIMISING EFFICIENCY “Among the reasons why we compete successfully with boilers built elsewhere - China for example, is the high thermal efficiency of our boilers,” says Abbey. “They are also extremely durable - we have many fully operational boilers in industry that are now 3550 years old - all made to the very highest quality standards.” Within a company focusing on retention and development of skills, Abbey says it is critical
John Thompson (a Division of ACTOM (Pty) Ltd) that employees are well trained and up to date with latest technological developments. An in-house training centre provides specialist and advanced training and the company also has close relationships with universities and engineering houses.
“Our business is boilers and environmental equipment such as fabric filters, and our objective is to take industrial watertube boilers to the power industry in Africa” “We have a number of graduate engineers and also take people from technical colleges who have technical knowledge but need the practical exposure which we give when we take them into our organisation.”
TARGET ON POWER The African market provides 40 percent of John Thompson’s export market, with a further 40 percent in Asia. Looking ahead, John Thompson is keen to expand its footprint into Africa, with development capacity in amongst others Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. “Up to now we have been selling mainly to the sugar mills and the paper and steel industries. Going forward our intention is to target power producers,” Abbey concludes
SARUM ENGINEERING C.C 24 Hour Refractory and Installation Service Boiler Repairs / Thermal Installation
Refractory Consultation and Material Supply to Boiler Manufacturer’s
John Thompson (Africa) Phone: 021 551 0054/021 551 0079 A/H 021 712 4122 Cell: 082 906 0701 / Fax: 021 551 0098 Email: sarum@intekom.co.za
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