The current skills shortage in the engineering industry, in South Africa and internationally, is a source of concern for engineering company Bateman Engineering, says pyrometallurgical business development manager George Farmer.

“The current requirement for skills in the industry is substantial, and the amount of skilled resource is rapidly dropping,” says Farmer. He adds, however, that the workforce in Bateman’s pyrometallurgical department is fairly well balanced in that it has an experienced team of specialists which has been complemented by the addition of new blood to the industry.

In addition to the industrywide skills shortage, Farmer comments that the current commodities boom is stretching engineering services and supplies, placing even further pressure on local skills.

In response to this, Bateman has had to look outside of the country to source skilled labour. This has led the company to establish offices in countries formerly without offices, but with a ready skills base, such as India.

The booming commodity market has also influenced the development of equipment being supplied to projects. “Because of this demand, the sizing of furnaces and kilns has increased dramatically. This means that technology has to keep abreast of industry requirements and change. We are also finding that materials preparation and pretreatment systems also require constant improvement. This means extra work for the company,” says Farmer.

Bateman reports that the two countries where rapid economic and technical change is taking place, specifically in the ferroalloy industries, are China and India. Most furnace and kiln applications are generally of a small scale, but Farmer reports that the size of their operations is now increasing.

Bateman is also resolving the issue of the shortage of engineering skills by implementing various initiatives, some of which include, but are not limited to, leaderships, bursary schemes, continuous professional development endorsed by the Engineering Council of South Africa, in-house formal development by the Bateman Training Academy and in-house knowledge sharing sessions directed at engineering students.

Process engineering GM Mike Burks tells Engineering News that Bateman also supports the Minerals Education Trust Fund. The fund was set up to ensure that institutions such as the University of the Witwatersrand and the Univer-sity of Johannesburg retain their status as quality educators.

Meanwhile, Farmer says the company has completed a number of large projects.

In April this year, Bateman successfully completed a 400 000 t/y chromite pelletising and sintering plant for International Ferro Metals. This plant pretreats chromite fines prior to feeding to alternating current (ac) furnaces. The core technology of the process is provided by Outokumpu, while the balance of the technology, equipment and management are supplied by Bateman.

Bateman secured a contract for the basic and detailed engineering of an ilmenite smelter for China Yunnan Metallurgical Group. The key technology package is for a direct current furnace to produce high-grade titanium oxide and a premium- quality pig iron by-product. The project involved close cooperation with the client and Chinese design institutes to customise the flow sheets, thereby maximising local equipment supply content. Bateman will assist with installation and commissioning, and operator training. The project is scheduled to be commissioned in 2008.

Farmer reports that Bateman’s pyrometallurgical department has successfully commercialised high-intensity refractory cooling systems in Australia over the past four years. The technology, termed composite furnace modules (CFM), was originally developed by Melbourne University. It has been demonstrated to be capable of significantly increasing refractory life, especially under arduous operating conditions, ranging from superheated and chemically aggressive slags to radiation and corrosive, condensable vapour exposure.

Initial success was achieved with a copper slag-cleaning furnace at BHP Billiton’s Olympic dam operations, in Southern Australia. The lower sidewall lining in contact with the molten furnace contents, which previously achieved a campaign life of less than a year, has been in service for almost four-and-a-half years to date. Routine inspections as well as a lining monitoring system installed at the same time as the upgrade indicate that the lower sidewall refractory will exceed the life of all other wearing components of the furnace. The slag-cleaning furnace upgrade was followed by an upgrade of the flash furnace at the same facility in August 2006. Besides the design and installation of the CFM in the highwear areas of the furnace, a novel copper cooler configuration was developed to inhibit acidic vapour condensation and subsequent corrosion of coolers in the cross-over duct between the flash furnace and waste heat boiler.

More recently, Bateman received a contract to customise the CFM elements to replace high-wear areas of the reaction shaft roof at BHP’s Kalgoorlie nickel smelter flash furnace.

Bateman Pyro Technologies specialises in a wide range of services to the worldwide pyrometallurgical ferroalloy industry. This includes ac and dc furnace components, complete ac and dc furnaces, complete smelter plants, furnace upgrades and retrofits, slag and alloy granulation systems and other post tap-hole services forming part of feasibility studies, engineering services and lump-sum turnkey contracts.