Local company and forerunner in the latest grease-recovery technology, Oblique Engin-eering has recently added a new member to its product family: the GB400, a counterflow rotating grease belt used in the recovery of diamonds. Oblique also offers complete mining solutions to the diamond-mining industry, from plant design, manu-facturing and commissioning to technological solutions for mining problems to security and final hand-sorting of diamonds.

In addition, the company handlesmining engineering projects in other fields such as platinum and chrome.

Oblique MD Gary Da Silva tells Mining Weekly that the company is presently handling two contracts within South Africa’s borders and another three in other African states, Angola, Botswana and the Central African Republic, whose representatives have seen the GB400 and have ordered the unit for their operations. “Other countries such as Canada and Australia have also recently shown interest in our company and its products and requested a visit,” says Da Silva. He adds that one of the challenges facing Oblique is the education of diamond-miners in the benefits of grease recovery. “In dealing with competition in the market, the company ensures that it is always on top of new technologies that can be incorporated in its grease recovery systems,” he elaborates. It ensures that Oblique keeps its research and development programme alive.

On future plans, Da Silva points out that the company intends to spread its footprint internationally. “We also plan to expand into other mining fields to the extent that we are as proficient in other min-ing fields as we are in diamond-mining.” Oblique already has an office in Australia, called Oblique Australia headed by Geoff Wilkinson. For skills development, the company has set up a training programme where both young and old metallurgist and mining engineers are trained on the grease recovery units for operation on the mines.