Besides its baseload work for the mining industry in South Africa and beyond the country’s borders, Johannesburg-based Parnis Manufacturing has made great strides into the energy sector, where it has identified expansion opportunities in the design, fabrication and assembly of mobile switch rooms and mobile E-houses, which are fully equipped electrical substations. The E-house concept saves costs, space and time, compared with traditional methods of building substations.
Established in 1975 by CEO Mario Guerini, the company, which is located at 165 South Rand road, in Tulisa Park, Johannesburg, is focused on the fabrication and machining of medium to heavy engineering components for a variety of local industries. It also undertakes container conversions.
The vertical boring capacity at Parnis extends to a table size of 4.5 m, a turning diameter of 5.3 m and a turning height of 3.2 m, with a maximum load of up to 50 t. Other equipment includes horizontal borers and milling machines.
The 19-employee company was awarded several contracts during the past 12 months, including one for the delivery of a completely refurbished mine winder to a gold mine in Zimbabwe. The winder, which dates back to the early 1950s, had been used on a South African gold mining operation for years and needed to be restored to a high operational standard. Parnis was also awarded contracts to manufacture two E-houses for a customer in Mauritania and to fabricate a new mine winder for a mine in Canada. It also supplied three mine pit skids and cages to a mine in Panama and a mine pit skid and container to a mine in Botswana.