SA Mag - Issue 1 - METSO FEATURE

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Metso ND FEATURE

Ocean to desert.... ...Durban’s world Metso supremo

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t was an outstanding feat of engineering, planning and logistics, and a South African global front runner. High as an eight-storey building, and each weighing 395 tonnes, the two converters shipped out of Durban harbour to Tamatave Madagascar in late 2008 was a world one-piece shipping ‘First’ in terms of size and weight.

Built for minerals and metals recovery, the sulphur dioxide converters were fabricated by Metso ND Engineering, turnover R350 million, the biggest engineering company in KwaZulu-Natal and among the top half dozen in South Africa.

What would have happened without diversification? To be quite honest I don’t think we would be around, in fact absolutely not Commitment to excellence has driven Metso ND Engineering to become one of the best stainless steel fabricators in the world. Far from Durban’s waterfront, on the far side of the continent, the company beat global competition to win the engineering projects 2

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From the Indian Ocean to the hostile Namib Desert, Metso ND of Durban are showing that South Africa is producing world class manufacturing.

Colin Chinery reports.

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Metso ND FEATURE

category of the Stainless Steel Awards with another converter project – this one for Skorpion Zinc Mine in the middle of the Namib Desert.

It was another contract exemplifying Metso’s Quality First philosophy, with the award judges commending the company’s exceptionally high quality, standards, workmanship and delivery.

“Our facilities right on Durban harbour gives us access to the world, and there’s very little we can’t do,” says Managing Director Elvis Green. “When I look at products that come in from other countries and compare their quality with what we are doing, I have to say our quality is superior.”

Metso ND is part of the Metso Corporation, global supplier of sustainable technology and services for mining, construction, power

generation, automation, recycling and the pulp and paper industries - 27,000 employees in more than 50 countries.

As a result of the Metso Corporation’s association with the pulp and paper industry, Metso ND concentrated initially on services and products in this sector.

But Green - who has been with the company 23 years, the last 12 as MD - saw that diversification was the key to both stability and expansion. “I argued that because of the company size and the issue of our ability to survive only on bulk and paper, we had a difficulty. And to sustain what we had we needed to diversify into other industries.

“I was allowed to do so and now as well as pulp and paper, we’ve moved into petrochemicals, mining, chemicals, fertiliser

The majority of those in management position are people we have brought through the ranks and trained

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Weusthoff has been servicing the engineering industry for nearly 30 years with a comprehensive range of steel products and non-ferrous metals.

The company has been a reliable and dependable supplier to the mining, petro-chemical, power generating, paper/pulp and general engineering industries of South Africa and the southern African region.

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Metso ND FEATURE

and now the power industry. The big benefit is that when one industry is quiet there’s activity in another, giving us steady growth in our turnover.”

It was a natural strategy. The Durban/ Queensburgh-based company are general engineering and process equipment fabricators, and the equipment and structures for all these new sectors are essentially similar.”

We are a jobbing shop with no specific production line. Every job is different.”

And says Green, stimulating and rewarding for its staff of 255. South Africa is challenged in the area of skills and their development. “But in our case we have over the past 20 years been very active in our training programme, a policy we have continued through the good and the bad.

“In terms of people skills we have derived great benefit. In fact the majority of those in management position are people we have brought through the ranks and trained. We

have an on-going training programme, and this year we are employing 25 apprentices.”

What would have happened without diversification? “To be quite honest I don’t think we would be around, in fact absolutely not.”

South Africa is emerging sluggishly from its first recession for 17 years, with the Government’s latest 2010 growth expectations put at 2.3% and rising to 3.6% in 2012. The overhaul of a substandard infrastructure – accelerated massively by the World Cup and the anticipated three million visitors - plus a strong 10% rise in the manufacturing sector have been critical influences.

But the 24.8% price hike in electricity charges by state-owned power firm Eskom is deeply troubling industry and commerce – as well as domestic consumers – already struggling to cope with the fallout of the recession and slow economic recovery.

A big increase in power prices had been expected. In recent years power rationing has caused shortages or blackouts, especially troubling for the mining industry - the big driver of the country’s economy.

Failing to meet growing demand, Eskom – provider of more than 90% of the country’s electricity – wants new funds to build more power stations. At first it wanted a green light for a 35% increase, but the government settled below that level, easing some of the Reserve Bank of South Africa’s inflationary concerns.

Even so Eskom has got the backing for a further 25% rise next year and again in 2012.

All of which will have “a quite significant impact on the South African economy,” says Dawie Roodt, chief economist with Efficient Group, an asset management firm in Pretoria, says

What would have happened without diversification? To be quite honest I don’t think we would be around, in fact absolutely not

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The country’s economy remains quite fragile, says Roodt, and “some sectors - for example manufacturing and most definitely the mining industry - will be quite hard hit by this huge increase in electricity prices.”

Up to now South Africa has had comparatively cheap power says Elvis Green “We have relatively cheap materials and a good labour force. And interest rates are at an acceptable level. But electricity pricing is one of the main issues of how the Government can get involved to assist manufacturing and the whole country.”

He cites another anxiety: “In 2010 there is an overall slowdown in new projects, and I think the challenge business is having in South Africa are the whispers we hear every so often of the nationalisation of mines and things like that. This would have a major impact on new projects and investment.”

Meantime Green is pushing the borders of

Personal Protective Equipment & Clothing

his company. Metso are building the world’s biggest ammonium sulphate crystalliser, and he expects to win new projects in the power – “huge activity”- and mining sectors. “Our prospects look very good.”END

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South Africa Magazine, Suite 9 and 10, The Royal, Bank Plain, Norwich, Norfolk, UK. NR2 4SF TNT Magazine, 14-15 Child’s Place, Earl’s Court, London, UK. SW5 9RX Enquiries Telephone: 0044 (0)1603 343267 Fax: 0044 (0)1603 283602 emailus@southafricamag.com Subscriptions Call: 00441603 283573 subscriptions@southafricamag.com

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Metso ND Engineering (Pty) Ltd. Postal Address: P.O.Box 1081, Durban 4000, KZN, South Africa.

Physical Address: 60 Carrick Rd, Queensburgh, 4093, Durban, South Africa.

Tel.: +27 31 464 0510 Fax: +27 31 464 0625 Email: cquinn@metsond.co.za

www.metsond.com