Metallurgical engineering company MDM Engineering has kept its head above water and has been able to secure new contracts despite the depressed market conditions in the mining industry, MDM executive director and founder George Bennett tells Mining Weekly.

He attributes the company’s sustainability to its merger with multinational engineering consultancy Amec Foster Wheeler, which has enabled MDM to pursue and secure projects in Africa that it might otherwise not have been able to bid on, as Amec Foster Wheeler has further enhanced MDM’s capability and service offering.

One such bid, which will be finalised during the course of 2016 after completion of the bankable feasibility study (BFS), will be for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a projected $300-million processing plant for a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Foster Wheeler acquired MDM in October 2014 and, since then, MDM has had access to experts in fields, such as geology and mine management; previously, these services had been outsourced.

Foster Wheeler merged with construction and engineering company Amec a month later; however, Bennett says neither merger affected MDM’s day-to-day operations. “Amec Foster Wheeler wanted MDM to stick to its key strengths, which meant sticking to its style and ethos.”

MDM hopes its beneficial relationship with Amec Foster Wheeler will continue to aid the company as it shifts its attention to projects north of the South African border in the coming years. There are viable opportunities in gold, copper and unusual metals, such as niobium, in the Southern African Development Community region, adds Bennett.

MDM is stewarding five projects through the BFS process and is fairly confident that all of them will be converted to executable projects within the next year. These studies pertain to a niobium project in Tanzania, tin and copper in the DRC, platinum in South Africa and a uranium project in Spain.

In South Africa, MDM is executing three projects. For its $195-million Kalagadi Manganese Umtu project, in the Northern Cape, Kalahari Resources appointed MDM in July 2011 to handle the engineering and construction management of a three-million-tonne-a-year crushing and screening plant, scheduled for completion next year.

Royal Bafokeng Platinum’s $30-million Merensky project at the Bafokeng Rasimone platinum mine near Rustenburg, in the North West, is also scheduled for completion next year. MDM conducted the project’s definitive feasibility study and has been contracted for the EPCM of the project’s 250 000 t/m concentrator expansion.

In addition, MDM is involved in diamond miner Petra Diamond’s $113-million mill upgrade at its Cullinan mine near Pretoria entails replacing the current crushing system and introducing new milling processes. Commissioning of the mill upgrade is expected to start in the first quarter of 2017.

These enhancements are expected to improve the recovery of the full diamond spectrum and, thus, increase the number of stones recovered, protect large stones from breaking during the recovery process and boost the efficiency of the material flow, thereby significantly lowering operating costs.

MDM and Amec Foster Wheeler will be exhibiting at the 2016 Investing in African Mining Indaba, which takes place in Cape Town from February 8 to 11.