ROSS McLEAN Dow established operations in Ghana in 2013 and in November 2014 it also opened a facility in Ethiopia
US-headquartered chemicals company Dow has targeted sub-Saharan Africa for commercial growth and is expanding its footprint across the region to achieve maximum market penetration, Dow sub-Saharan Africa president Ross McLean tells Mining Weekly.
“Since 2011, we have undertaken a geographic expansion strategy, starting with re-entry into East Africa by establishing a distribution centre in Nairobi, Kenya,” he points out.
Dow established operations in Ghana in 2013 and opened a facility in Ethiopia in November 2014.
“We are also . . . setting up in Nigeria and, hopefully, by the end of this year, we will have established operations in Angola,” states McLean.
He adds that these sales and distribution hubs are platforms to enable Dow to take its products and solutions to market.
Further, Dow mining global business leader Karen Dobson points out that the company used the 2015 Investing in African Mining Indaba, which took place in Cape Town this week, as a platform to showcase its technology offering to the African mining sector.
She highlights that mining is a key industry across Africa and Dow has been using its integrated solutions to help customers in the mining sector achieve operational efficiency for many years.
“The . . . indaba afforded Dow the opportunity to cement relationships with existing customers, while [affording] us enough time to connect with new and potential customers.”
He adds that the event was significant because it drew mining’s most influential stakeholders and decision-makers globally, and provided networking opportunities that solidified important business relationships.
Meanwhile, Dobson points out that Dow’s reverse-osmosis, nanofiltration membranes and ion-exchange resins technology can play an important role in managing a mine’s water footprint.
“Our technologies enable mine operators to enhance their water management and extract, separate and purify metals, while also assisting them in reducing waste and recycling reagents,” Dobson explains.
She adds that the company’s ultrafiltration membrane technology is being used to treat a coal mine’s wastewater at a power station in Mpumalanga.
“The wastewater is treated to a level suitable for use as feed water for the power station. This highlights how our technology is being used to efficiently treat and reuse scarce resources such as water,” she emphasises.
Moreover, Dobson notes that Dow is applying ion-exchange resins technology at a uranium mine in Namibia to extract the uranium resource in an “optimally efficient fashion”.
She believes that this technology could also be applied for extraction purposes with other commodities such as copper and gold.
Acid mine drainage (AMD) is another area on which the company is focusing, and Dobson tells Mining Weekly that Dow has successfully operated several nanofiltration pilot treatment plants in Latin America over the past five years.
“I believe that our nanofiltration technology could play an important role in tackling the local environmental challenge posed by AMD,” she avers.