JSE-listed ELB Group is having its busiest project bidding period ever, and is seeing a strengthening in base metals and great opportunities in gold.

“In the last six months, we’ve experienced our busiest bidding period ever,” ELB Group CE Dr Stephen Meijers tells Mining Weekly in an interview.

Meijers describes the potential volume of infrastructure spend in Africa on everything from rail to bulk port development as massive, and told of junior mining companies being enabled for quick entry into gold through the availability of mobile modular- type plants.

ELB – which has a tremendous history dating back to the formation of the group in 1919 by Edward L Bateman, who brought the first Allis-Chalmers crushers out to South Africa – continues to represent world-class technologies, know-how and products.

One of the longest surviving engineering companies on the JSE, ELB last raised capital there when it listed in 1951.

“There are not many engineering companies that have been around since 1919 that are still going strong,” says Meijers, a University of the Witwatersrand graduate with a doctorate in mechanical engineering, specialising in materials handling, who spent time at Harvard University in the US doing management courses.

The group has minimal debt and its business model has always centred on having a very strong balance sheet. “Keeping sufficient cash on the balance sheet has always been a strong philosophy of the group and will continue to be going forward,” says Meijers.

“When you go through tough years – and we went through a particularly tough year last year – you need a strong balance sheet, in order to survive,” he says.

Even in the current tight business environment, the ELB Engineering Services business unit has an order book that provides it with project work for the next two or so years.

Its turnover of about R2.5-billion a year arises out of equal contributions from the Engineering Services business unit and the Equipment business unit.

ELB Engineering Services employs 1 000 to 1 200 people at present and the equipment business has a staff complement of about 250.

In minerals and metals, the sub-Saharan Africa-focused group takes on all projects from small modular gravity separation projects through to large mineral processing projects.

Its current flagship project is the Gamsberg zinc project, in the Northern Cape, which is being developed by Vedanta Zinc International’s Black Mountain Mine.

The scope of supply to this engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project involves the provision of everything from the run-of-mine tip through to the stockyard, milling, flotation and final product, as well as providing the water pipeline from the Orange river to the processing plant, as well as overhead power supply.

The greenfield Gamsberg project consists of an opencast mine, an ore beneficiation plant and associated infrastructure, and is located on one of the world’s largest known zinc deposits, where Vedanta is investing $400-million in developing the first phase of the opencast zinc mine, concentrator plant and associated infrastructure.

The first phase encompasses a four-million-tonne-a-year zinc and lead concentrator.

Another of its exciting projects is the world’s longest single-flight overland conveyor project, for which the front-end engineering and design are close to completion. This 27 km overland conveyor project is to be implemented in Ghana for Asanko Gold.

ELB’s longest-standing project, which is still ongoing, is its contract at Eskom’s Medupi power station, in Limpopo.

The company is doing the coal distribution right up into the bunkers for the boilers and then collecting the bottom ash and taking it out to the dump.

Also under way are several other projects in South Africa and Zimbabwe for a cement company, projects for Unilever, which ELB has been serving on an ongoing basis for the last six years, and a number of projects across South Africa for Nestlé.

ELB continues to be active in the manganese, iron-ore and coal sectors.