Engineering News

The Thos Begbie group has been involved in the manufacture and emergency repair of smelting and metallurgical components across the globe for the last 123 years.

The components the company makes include water-cooled copper elements that are often coated with refractory material.

While the company specialises in water-cooled components for the pyrometallurgical industry, its heavy engineering division and spare capacity in the foundry place it in a position to expand its range of products and services deeper into the mining industry.

The company’s premises in South Africa are in Middelburg, in Mpumalanga province, South Africa’s coal-mining and power generation hub. The site has its own power generation plant, which is fired by gas from Sasol, and the 33 000-m² factory is equipped with a copper and stainless steel foundry. The copper casting capacity is in excess of 3 600 t/y.

Copper with a purity of 99,99% is the only material used for copper castings, while special alloys containing nickel, tin, aluminium and steel, besides others, are used to achieve critical properties.
The entire Thos Begbie operation is ISO 9002 certified, and non- destructive testing is carried out on all manufactured items.
The South African operation, which employs 320 people, is 70% foreign-owned, with stakes of 20% and 10% held by local investors and a staff trust respectively.

During the last two years, turnover exceeded R250-million a year, and the company’s order book currently stands at 50% of yearly turnover.

Thos Begbie’s customers include the top five mining companies in the world, and the company recently supplied components for the Norilsk nickel mine, in Siberia; the Pobuzhsky smelter, in Ukraine; the Vale Inco nickel smelter, in Canada; and the Olympic Dam copper and uranium smelter, in Australia.