Growth at home and abroad

Thomas Holtz Group Chief Executive Officer & Chairman

Mineral processing firm Multotec is looking to balance its South African heritage with global mining demands, and, on the international service side, has got ‘ahead of the curve’ with the offer of productivity-based aftermarket contracts, according to Group CEO, Thomas Holtz.

“Some of our service contracts are based on cents per tonne contracts and therefore significantly reduce the administration for our clients,” he told International Mining. “We produce one invoice once a month for the labour and equipment used for the month, and the common denominator is the tonnage that was processed in that part of the plant.” This is quite an extensive practice in South African operations, but not yet widely offered by OEMs elsewhere, according to Holtz.

The company’s R&D efforts, meanwhile, have recently expanded from pure customisation for the desired application to attempting to back up industry intent around the themes of ESG and sustainability. Holtz explained: “In any of our branches, in South Africa or outside of the country, we do a number of things to support this concept. We see ourselves as offering a value-add service to our clients in the mineral processing operations and, thus, support them in upgrading and keeping their plants running as efficiently as possible.” This focus has been witnessed in the local diamond sector where, for one client, Multotec developed a pulping chute to replace a rotating disagglomeration drum at a mine site. This solution simplified the break-up of clay and will be well received in any diamond mining operation across the globe, according to Holtz.

“We also see ourselves as integrating into the local business and community ecosystem,” he said. “Here we will make use of local citizens that we employ and train up; we use local sub-contractors and service providers where available. We also take on several SED (social and economic development) projects within the community such as adopting a school or making use of our workshops to assist some community scheme.”

Multotec is helping clients keep its equipment running for longer by developing “pragmatic and robust technology-based solutions” that focus on improving plant up-time and efficiency. “The benefit of technology is that it does not sleep and offers repeatable, consistent results and can augment the human operator’s job,” Holtz said. “We do not see technology taking humans off, or out of the plant, but replacing some of the more mundane tasks that running an operation requires.”

Multotec, as a company that complies with B-BBEE requirements, has benefitted from the Mining Charter’s focus on local suppliers and procurement, but, as Holtz pointed out, the company still needs to deliver “world-class and competitively priced products” to meet client expectations.

“At Multotec, we believe that we have met both these requirements and, hence, we have currently seen quite a significant growth in the local markets despite the lack of new mining projects. We are simultaneously also seeing quite a substantial growth in our export business as a result of the global resources boom."

Courtesy of International Mining