Johannesburg-based thermal engineering solutions provider Industrial Water Cooling (IWC) is involved in a new rare earths project, in the northern territories of Australia, where it is determining the cooling requirements for the processing systems.

The project is anticipated to be awarded by the end of August and entails the supply of a multicell, induced draught, open circuit cooling tower, comprising a pultruded fibreglass structure.

The company also supplied a modular cooling tower to a gold mine site in Queensland last year. This is the third tower supplied to the mine by IWC.

Further, IWC supplied a modular cooling tower to a gold mine in Victoria last year, having collaborated with its business partners and its customers in Western Australia during the development process of its PLT range of modular cooling towers.

These towers are suitable for numerous applications and, in the knockdown form, lend themselves to be installed in hard-to-reach area’s such as roofs of buildings, or remote sites.

“We have tried to use local Australian suppliers to mitigate delivery issues; however, this isn’t possible in all cases. We have experienced some delays, owing to the lack of availability of shipping containers, but this seems to be improving in general,” adds IWC MD Roger Rusch.

The company provides cooling towers, bulk air coolers or complete solutions on an engineering, procurement and construction basis.

IWC is repairing a large, field-erected and timber cross-flow cooling tower for a power generation plant for the Muja power station in Collie, Western Australia.

The repairs involve the inspection and replacement of timber structural elements because the original structure of the cooling towers has deteriorated over time.

Rusch says IWC’s experience in mining applications allows for engineered solutions that are “suitably robust” for most mining operations and require minimal maintenance.

“We aspire to be the cooling tower company of choice in Australia, not just in the mining space. We are looking to increase capacity at our Perth office to better serve our existing and future customers,” he concludes.