Prefabricated building supplier Speedspace delivered 4 256 m2 of mobile preassembled building solutions to Botswana government-owned nickel and copper producer BCL last month.

Company MD Hennie Wiggett notes that the 135 units, including housing, ablution facilities, offices, security units and steel storage containers, are being used for contractors working on BCL’s smelter plant shutdown programme to upgrade and refurbish the smelter in Selebi-Phikwe, Botswana, which started in July. Production at the smelter is scheduled to resume next month.

The mobile units were constructed using 40 mm polyurethane core panels with external chromadek cladding mounted onto a steel chassis.

Wiggett points out that the preassembled units are equipped with electrical fittings, air conditioning and plumbing. “Once the units arrived on site, all that was needed . . . was to connect them to the mine’s electrical, waste and water service.”

He explains that the units are put in position using trucks and trailers. The units are then lifted with a crane, the trailer is removed, and the units are lowered onto the supporting bases or jacks.

Wiggett states that the most difficult aspect of the project was meeting the tight one-month delivery deadline. He notes that the contract was awarded to Speedspace Botswana; however, to meet the deadline, the company’s South African office was commissioned to deliver about 70% of the order, as it has the capacity to execute large orders.

He adds that the size of the order resulted in a significant logistics challenge, with between 12 and 16 trucks from the company’s transport division, Speedspace Transport, having been used to deliver two to three loads a week from South Africa to Botswana. Wiggett highlights that the turnaround time for delivery of each load was between two and two-and-a-half days.

Meanwhile, Speedspace completed a proof-of-concept project in June at iron-ore major Kumba Iron Ore’s Sishen mine, in the Northern Cape, where the company installed wind-bracing technology on three of the mine’s modular buildings.

Wiggett explains that the iron-ore mine has been subjected to unusually high speed winds in recent years, which pushed some of the buildings off their jacks, creating a significant safety risk.

Speedspace was required to develop a solution to prevent the buildings from toppling over. Wiggett notes that the company used concrete railway sleepers, which are in abundance at Sishen, with stainless steel cable to anchor the buildings.

The railway sleepers were placed underneath the units and tied to the building chassis at an angle. Speedspace’s appointed engineering team and Sishen’s engineers completed a number of load tests to determine the downward weight-bearing factor of the solution. The solution successfully proved its efficacy in resisting the wind forces and has resulted in the mine specifying this solution for all future installations.

“The process was interesting because of the way in which the engineers we appointed and the mine engineers worked together to develop a solution that is workable and safe, and requires very little site work to complete,” Wiggett concludes.