Mining Weekly

Welding Alloys South Africa (Pty) Ltd, “WASA” is a South African subsidiary of Welding Alloys Ltd who holds 74% equity and the balance of 26% is held by the Welding Alloys Employee Trust. Welding Alloys is a global company, registered in the UK. The Welding Alloys Group covers more than 150 countries and territories throughout a network of over 30 subsidiaries. Over 25 Integra Service Centres operate worldwide and offer extensive and established expertise across a number of industries.

In 1976, WASA commenced production of tubular welding wire as the third member in the Welding Alloys group. WASA’s tubular welding wire is produced in a wide range of alloys from mild to stainless steel and hardfacing products and is used in open arc, submerged arc and MIG/MAG welding processes. WASA is the only producer of flux-cored wires in Africa.

WASA installed and commissioned a fourth cored wire production mill in September 2008 thereby increasing production capacity to 75 ton per month (at the Roodepoort branch). Welding wire is produced to ISO standards by incorporating and maintaining state of the art technology, sourcing globally the best raw materials, investing in our people and equipment.

The Integra workshop was established in 1995 in Springs which has since been moved to Apex, Benoni. WASA Integra division undertakes automatic welding and hardfacing of mild steel plates to produce chromium carbide overlay plates of various dimensions and thickness combinations. The workshop has rolling and bending facilities and can produce cut to size or turnkey fabrication as per the customer’s requirements.

The product range consists of:

• Mild Steel,
• 400 and 500 Brinell, Quench and tempered steels,
• HardplateTM 100 - (wear resistant chromium carbide overlay plate for applications from room
• temperatureto300C̊ ,
• HardplateTM 200 - (Sliding abrasion applications to 300 C̊ ),
• HardplateTM 300 - (abrasion applications from RT to 500 ̊C),
• HardplateTM 600 - (abrasion applications from RT to 700 ̊C),
• TuffplateTM - (wear resistant chromium carbide overlay plate for sliding abrasion with impact
• resistance),
• HardliteTM - (Thin wear resistant chromium carbide overlay plate with ultra-high hardness,
• from6to8mm),
• 3D-Carb - (High impact and sliding abrasion applications),
• Rebuild - (worn components are rebuilt by means of welding using similar welding consumables as original components or improved hardfacing consumables to weld them back to original dimensions. Such components can be steel mill rolls, earth moving and mining machine parts and crushing components in ore and rock crushing mills.)

In 20 years, WASA (Integra) is still the only company in South Africa which is successfully rebuilding and hardfacing coal crushing rolls and tables in vertical spindle mills in our workshop or in-situ.

With eight automatic drum welders and a fully equipped Boiler Shop, WASA is the largest producer of chromium carbide overlay plates in the Southern hemisphere.

In the 40 years since commencement of business, WASA has shown positive growth in mostly difficult economic times. We have excelled especially in the engineering and manufacturing sectors and have become a market leader in Africa for the supply of chromium carbide overlay plates and flux cored hardfaced welding consumables for the mining sector and the repair and rebuild of crusher/mill wear components in the cement industry.

WASA is striving to be at the forefront of engineering products, more especially with regard to wear resistant applications. WASA also recently acquired a controlling stake in KRAM Engineering Proprietary Limited, a preferred supplier and installer of ceramic wear products. The company also supplies and installs a range of pump impellers, expeller rings and valves. WASA has also increased its African footprint through this acquisition.

Welding Alloys is a responsible company and is strategically looking to supplier and enterprise development in line with Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment.