Since being acquired by crushing, mining and mineral processing entity B&E International in 2012, Comar Plant Design and Manufacturing has ramped up its business activities to a new level and is on track to achieve its ultimate objective of becoming the biggest asphalt plant manufacturer in Africa. 

Comar technical manager, Brian Henning says becoming part of a strong and well established organisation will propel the company’s presence into the African continent. To date Comar has supplied asphalt plants to Malawi, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mauritius and Madagascar. Beyond Africa, the company has also supplied its equipment to Iran and continues to monitor potential opportunities in the international market. Now into its 26th year of operation, Durban-based Comar is a well-known and respected brand across the region. After its founder Fernando Correia’s passing in 2009, the company continued to operate under the guidance of other Correia family members until being acquired by B&E International.

Comar designs and manufactures complete batch and continuous asphalt plants as well as a range of plant components. These include cold feed bins and systems, recycling facilities, emission control systems and hot storage facilities, any of which can be adapted for use in mobile or fixed facilities. In addition to its plant and associated components offering, Comar builds ancillary equipment such as bitumen storage tanks, bitumen drum heating and decanting facilities, base course mixers, brooms, tank sprayers (distributors) and chip spreaders. “As a B&E International company, we now have access to the necessary resources to expand our research and development efforts into the development of new data and energy management technology,” Henning comments. “This is the direction the global market is taking and we intend to align with these trends and introduce the latest technology to the African market, with a view to simplifying the operator’s role, while capturing an array of critical operational information that will support the customer’s business.

“In terms of environmental innovations, at present we’re setting the pace in the African market in the arena of manufacturing environmentally friendly asphalt plants. All new asphalt plants being produced by Comar are already compliant with the stringent 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter (dust), that will see the present acceptable dust aspect of 120 μg/m3 being reduced to 40 μg/m3 from 1 January 2015. At the same time we’re striving to assist the operators of existing asphalt plants, those purchased from us and from other suppliers, to upgrade their plants to meet the imminent new limits with retrofitted dust suppression systems.” Comar has also initiated a strong drive to handle recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) in its asphalt mixtures. RAP is the term given to removed or reprocessed materials containing asphalt and aggregates and the company has successfully developed three twin drum mobile plants capable of running at 40% RAP, achieving huge savings on bitumen costs. These three mobile plants are currently deployed in Margate, Umzinto and Mandini in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Our competitive advantage lies in the fact that we are a well-established wholly South African company with longstanding staff who have an intimate knowledge and understanding of the local market,” he says. “We manufacture 99% of our products in-house from locally sourced materials and we deploy erection and back-up field service teams to client sites across the region.

“As a local company not only are our plants designed for local conditions, but prompt technical support anywhere in the region is just a phone call away. In addition, Comar can assist with retrofitting and upgrading existing older asphalt plants, not necessarily our own, and provide competent maintenance and repairs. “Despite being acquired by a bigger organisation and having our sights set on corporate growth, Comar continues to maintain its name, brand and company ethos. We’re committed to maintaining existing customer relationships in the market and to offering them support for the life of the equipment purchased from us.”

Ken Basson, director responsible for the Plant & Engineering Division of B&E International, remarks:  “What we have in Comar is very exciting and we’re proud to be building and improving an already great company that will continue to deliver top quality asphalt equipment into the African market.”