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Richard Gundersen, MD of BBE Projects
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Technology onslaught for mining companies
Richard Gundersen
Posted: Mon, 07 Apr 2008

[miningmx.com] -- MINING houses, both locally and internationally, have been reducing in-house expertise in favour of outsourcing to specialist consultants.

The reason for this is the increasingly complex and sophisticated nature of technologies within the mining industry. Mining houses cannot expect to keep up with all the advancements in the various technical fields, so it makes sense for them to call in experts who continually focus on these systems.

Whereas 20 years ago or so, the South African mining industry used to collaborate to a much greater extent in research and development — primarily through bodies like the then Chamber of Mines Research Organisation (COMRO) — this is no longer the norm and consultants like BBE enjoy a greater share of the action.

Mining houses continue to sponsor a mixture of individual and collaborative research programmes.

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So for the foreseeable future, given the current buoyant mining industry, it looks like more of the same on a global scale. Already one quarter of our consulting work is related to overseas mines — with new enquiries rolling in from places like Australia, Canada, USA and South America — and 75% in Southern Africa.

We’re also pretty excited about a new initiative bubbling under here at BBE — energy saving systems developed specifically for the mining industry, which focus on ventilation, refrigeration and cooling systems.

In response to Eskom’s demand side management incentives, BBE, which is a registered Energy Services Company, is already busy with a number of ice-based thermal storage systems and fan control systems and are exploring more adventurous systems.