Vitrex has completed another major Igoda Coal (Sasol Mining) contract for its Vitraflex modular cloakroom cubicles.

South Africa’s leading producer of enamel steel products for architectural applications supplied and installed 240 shower cubicles for the refurbishment of the hostels at Igoda Coal’s Twistdraai Colliery near Secunda in Mpumalanga. The order followed Vitrex completing a contract for the design, supply and installation of 520 shower and change room combination cubicles - fitted with new integral Vitraflex vitreous enamel steel benches - for Sasol Mining’s Igoda Thubelisha mine at Trichardt in 2012.

Cristian Cottino, Sales and Marketing Director of Vitrex, says the Vitraflex shower cubicles for Twistdraai - fitted with telescopic leg anchors - were supplied in “Graphite Grey” as specified by Leon Venter Architects. The cubicles feature Vitrex’s special stainless steel telescopic anchors, provided for ease of installation, an important consideration for such a large contract. The anchors also eliminate conspicuous floor mountings, facilitate ease of cleaning, and improve hygiene through the reduction of bacterial growth at the base of the stiles.

“As for the first, equally large-scaled, Thubelisha contract successfully completed by Vitrex, Leon Venter Architects specified our Vitraflex cubicles for reasons that included durability, ease of cleaning, and hygiene - all of which were regarded as important factors in a mining environment,” Cottino stated.

The main contractor for the Twistdraai hostel refurbishment is Mesure Facilities. The 2012 Thubelisha contract was handled by Group Five Housing.

The Twistdraai mine and washing plant forms part of Igoda Coal’s Secunda Collieries complex. It was opened in 1980 by Sasol Mining to produce coal for Sasol’s Secunda synthesis plant and since 1995 has been a three-shaft complex producing low-ash steam coal for export, as well as a middlings product for Sasol feed. In 2006, ownership of Twistdraai was transferred to a new BEE company, Igoda Resources, a joint venture between Sasol Mining and Exxaro Resources. 

Cottino says the extreme hardness and durability of Vitrex’s vitreous enamel steel ablution cubicles have for decades impressed specifiers throughout southern Africa. “These sought-after qualities are derived from the fusing of three layers of glass to sheets of steel at temperatures of over 800 degrees Celsius at the Vitrex plant in Jet Park.

“In addition, vitreous enamel surfaces are corrosion-proof, impervious to chemical spillage, graffiti- and fade-proof. Tests in Europe, involving as many as nine different materials, have shown that vitreous enamel steel provides the best anti-bacterial protection,” Cottino added.

Vitrex completed the extremely challenging supply and installation of the new shower cubicles at Twistdraai in just over four weeks. “We were working to an extremely tight  installation schedule, involving several progressive deadlines that had to be met,” Cottino recalls.