JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - Securing sufficient scrap metal of the correct quality in order to ensure the efficient and sustainable operation of numerous electric arc furnaces is a key challenge currently faced by the Scaw Metals Group of Ekurhuleni.

Another challenge also being addressed by Scaw CEO Markus Hannemann and his team – who featured prominently at last week’s Electra Mining Africa Exhibition – is sluggish demand from South Africa’s construction and rail sectors.

Scaw, which has manufacturing and distribution facilities in South Africa and Australia and bases in Ghana, Zambia and Namibia, markets a wide range of products that include grinding media, rolled products, cast products and wire rod products, which are supplied to the global construction, railway, power generation, mining, concrete, marine, engineering and agricultural markets.

Scaw’s products have found their way into prestigious sporting arenas like the Olympic Stadium, in Sydney, and the stay cables that support the Nelson Mandela Bridge, in Johannesburg, are the products of Scaw, the majority shareholder of which is the State-owned Industrial Development Corporation, which has a 74% interest in the group.

Black economic-empowerment consortium Main Street 510 Pty, which is made up of Inzingwe Holdings, Shanduka Resources and the Southern Palace Group, holds a 21% stake and the company’s employees own the remaining 5% of the company through an employee-share ownership plan trust.

Hannemann is hoping that the promulgation of new scrap metal regulations in this month’s government gazette notice will close the loopholes that allow strategic ferrous scrap metal to leave South Africa’s shores and frustrate access to it by local manufacturers like Scaw, which operates large scrap collection and processing facilities that house Africa’s the largest scrap shredder.

As 100%-recyclable steel is arguably the most recycled material on earth, every new steel product contains steel scrap.

Ninety-three-year-old Scaw produces more than of half-a-million tons of liquid steel a year from scrap and directly reduced iron (DRI) from its three DRI rotary kilns.

“We’ve created a South African gem in many respects,” Hannemann tells Mining Weekly.

Eagerly awaited by Hannemann is the implementation of the government’s planned infrastructure development programme, into which Scaw is standing by to supply a wide range of niche steel products and services.

The company’s cast products division, which produces specialised cast-steel products used in the mining, railway, power and engineering industries, is currently experiencing excess capacity that Hannemann would like to see taken up in the near term.

Its five South Africa-located foundries have distribution facilities across Australia and an extensive network that enables the cast products division to streamline production of a wide variety of products, including large-girth gear segments; large high-chromium iron coal-pulverising wear parts; mill liners; slag pots; locomotive frames and cast mono-bloc railway wheels.

As an energy-intensive manufacturer with a large reliance on electricity, the need to ensure stable electricity supply at competitive prices is another challenge Scaw is tackling.

The company’s grinding media division is the largest producer of cast, high-chrome grinding media in the southern hemisphere and the leading producer of high-chrome and forged grinding balls, serving primarily the African platinum, copper and gold mining industries.

The high-chrome ball and forged steel grinding media plants are both located at its Union Junction base in Germiston.

The platinum, copper, cement and power generation industries are the main users of high-chrome ball grinding media, for which Scaw holds a technology licence with industry leader Magotteaux.

With the platinum-mining sector beginning to ramp up again after suffering the impact of the five-month strike, Hannemann expects demand from the platinum-mining sector to progressively return to normal.

The gold mining and copper industries are the main users of forged grinding media, of which Scaw is Africa’s supplier of choice given its expert technology and total cost offering. 

Billets produced by Scaw’s rolled products division are rolled into reinforcing bar, grinding media feedstock, sections, low-carbon wire rod, high-carbon wire rod, reinforcing coil, mining bar and rounds, products which are either sold externally to a range of customers in the construction and manufacturing industries, or used internally in grinding media and wire rod.

Wire Rod Products

Formerly known as Haggie Rand, Scaw’s wire rod products division manufactures and distributes specialised steel rope, wire, strand and chain for mining, industrial, construction and offshore oil drilling applications. Its three sub wire rope, wire and strand, and chain products divisions each operate their own manufacturing facilities.

Steel Wire Rope manufactures ropes for shaft  and surface mining, offshore oil and gas exploration, marine applications, conveyors, aerial ropeways, staywire for power lines and earthwire for electrical purposes under the Haggie® brand.

The Wire and Strand subdivision, the only South African producer of prestress concrete strand, used to improve the strength of concrete in the production of beams, floors and bridges, produces a range of high-carbon wire products for the construction, mining and industrial sectors.

A significant proportion of prestress concrete strand is exported worldwide as Scaw has achieved the necessary accreditation in all major markets.

The Chain Products subdivision, which is based in Vereeniging, produces the highly regarded McKinnon and Max-Alloy products, which are exported to more than 40 countries worldwide. The Chain Products factory also exports a large percentage of its product range into premium markets such as Europe given the business’s various prestigious accreditations and innovative products.

Scaw also owns the Australian PWB Anchor chain business, which has a manufacturing facility in Melbourne and a distribution network throughout Australia.

Scaw turns over R7-billion to R8-billion a year and employs 7 000 people including contractors.