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A fresh and integrated innovative approach to technical mining consulting services by VBKom

Manie Kriel – CEO of VBKom

George Olivier – VBKom director : principal mining engineer

Frans Van Daalen – VBKom director : principal mining engineer

Eduan Pieterse : VBKom project and risk manager

31st August 2015

  

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VBKom Consulting Engineers, known for its specialised bouquet of technical engineering and decision support consulting services, particularly to the mining sector, is launching its newly renamed seamless turnkey consulting expertise under the ‘VBKom’ umbrella. Previously known for its individualised specialities such as VBKom Project Management, VBKom Consulting Engineers, VBKom Deep and VBKom Rehab, the restructuring process will enable clients to access the company’s specialised skills within a one-stop-shop culture, making the process to manage projects easier, due to VBKom’s centralised and integrated pool of expertise.

The official launch of VBKom takes place September 2015 after thorough and intensive internal and external research with all of its stakeholders.

Restructuring for a Fresh New Future
Manie Kriel, CEO of VBKom, said “Since VBKom’s inception in 2008, we have always had an entrepreneurial culture, and the current restructuring and rebranding is in recognition of that fact. The mining industry is no longer the same industry we knew in the past. Times have changed, and for us to embrace those changes, we need to be nimble, innovative and adaptable. In the past, we had distinctive operational divisions, going forward, we have unlocked all the talent and synergies to create a ‘turnkey’ of consulting services available under one roof which gives us a greater competitive edge”.

“We believe that VBKom is the African consultancy firm for Africa: we have the knowledge and the experience, particularly within the mining sector. We are committed to investing in the African continent and its people, but most importantly, we have the benefit of a fresh, youthful skills base that can drive solutions using advanced technology in engineering applications not previously considered – we are the thinkers of innovative solutions,” said Kriel.

VBKom’s partnership with the University of Pretoria, where selected VBKom members lecture, not only enables VBKom to identify progressive engineers of the future and the benefits of new technologies to the engineering profession, but keeps the company in-tune and abreast of the latest research available and its modern day applications. Kriel said “Our investment in training is shown through our recruitment and retention of these dynamic graduates who not only bring continuity to our company, but innovative engineering and technological methodologies to the table, meeting VBKom’s customer requirements in a modern, yet cost effective way, while adding a youthfulness and freshness to the skills base of the VBKom team”.

The newly consolidated VBKom will be seeking opportunities outside of the mining industry, specifically in terms of its risk and project management capabilities. “The petrochemical, agricultural and construction industries are all sectors which can benefit from our simulation and decision support expertise, and we believe they offer immense opportunities for VBKom,” said Kriel.

“The days of the tried and tested old solutions can no longer be accommodated within an industry that is trying to ‘refresh itself’, and there is a shift to more openness regarding industry innovations. We are passionate about what we at VBKom can offer our customers, but also realistic about the difficulties industry is experiencing in the short-term. We have positioned ourselves, through the restructuring of VBKom, to be in the right place, with good capacity in technical excellence and skills for when the upturn commences,” concluded Kriel.

Our Commodity Base and Menu of Expertise
VBKom’s experience in commodities covers base metals (copper) and precious metals (platinum and gold), industrial minerals, ferrous metals (iron-ore, manganese) and energy commodities (uranium, coal) and they have a strong presence in South Africa (Northern Cape), West Africa, Central Africa and Namibia.

The newly restructured VBKom offers a menu of expertise that includes: risk management, project management, industrial and mining engineering, simulation, financial modelling, geology and geotechnical services.

“We offer specialist skills that assist clients in finding value for their projects in the base and precious metals and industrial sectors. We are well equipped in terms of skills and experience to assist them in making informed decisions whether they are formulating a long-term or short-term survival strategy, in fact, any developmental strategy,” says VBKom director: principal mining engineer, George Olivier.

Olivier continued “The rapid pace of change in the modern day global economy makes flexibility a necessity for mining concerns when needing to down-or-upscale their operations. Our innovative survival strategies play a crucial role for the success of our customer’s enterprises. VBKom will address such issues as operational efficiencies and cost cutting activities through simulation in order to improve processes, practices, equipment and sustainability programmes”.

Good opportunities exist for VBKom to apply its “across-the-value-chain”-methodologies to optimise mining operations in the gold and copper regions. VBKom’s optimisation strategies can assist their clients in pursuing different corporate goals based on cash flow, net present value, market share or country exposure.

“The benefit of the ‘new’ VBKom structure is that it makes our service a seamless offering, supplying a more tailor-made solution with greater flexibility in finding the real economic drivers of the project and how these can beneficially optimised,” said Olivier.

“In addition to our fresh out-of-the-box approach in the application of technologies and risk management, we know Africa, and we know it well. We are logistically better placed to serve the African continent than other players. From blue chip companies to junior miners and exploration companies, no-one is too big or too small to benefit from our specialised menu of services.”

“With Kathu in the Northern Cape holding approximately 80% of the world’s manganese reserves it made sense to open a VBKom office there to increase our presence and availability. The iron-ore, manganese and minerals sector forms a large part of VBKom’s portfolio of industries,” said Frans van Daalen, director and principal mining engineer, VBKom. Relationship building is a key element to VBKom’s success, and the new company dispensation will enable the creation of integrated multi-discipline teams suited to meet client requirements from the various disciplines that the ferrous metals industry seek.

“No-one else is offering what we offer in terms of locality, experience, integration and co-ordination. We lessen the burden of external project management via our in-house expertise because we focus on how we can add value to our client’s business in this ever changing environment. The mining sector, like many others, has to change and utilise new technology in innovative ways – drones for example are becoming more popular for their cost-effective and ease-of-use aerial survey capability.

“It is time to ditch the old style consulting and embrace the new. We practice what we preach, because we are young, fresh, go-getting engineers, who consult to your benefit,” said van Daalen.

“VBKom has the edge in the uranium sector, we have participated in virtually all the uranium feasibility studies for uranium mines in Namibia and recently conducted the entire mining plan for a major uranium mining project in that country and believe we are the consultants of choice in this sector based on our track record,” said project and risk manager, Eduan Pieterse.

“Blue chip as well as smaller coal ‘juniors’ have contracted VBKom to conduct front-end mine planning, but we also undertook a very successfully implemented back-scheduling rehabilitation plan for a major player in the coal sector,” commented Pieterse.

African Focus
“VBKom is already on the ground in the Southern African Development Community, West and Central African, Zambian and Namibian regions, and we continue to seek and expand our partnerships there. We believe our skills transfer agreements benefit not only our customers, but also the communities within which we are operating.

“South Africa is a mature economy, investing in the African continent is the way forward, of that we are confident. The ‘new’ VBKom, with its focus on relationship building, its fresh and innovative technical engineering solutions is in Africa for the long haul because we have the capabilities, the technologies and most of all, belief in the African opportunity,” concluded Pieterse.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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