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North American Nickel Punta Cana International Airport

MONTHLY EDITION

Adrok

Vale Canada

Nickel in demand With demand for nickel on the up and prices 30 percent higher than six months ago Vale is sitting on highly strategic resources

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contents

8 Recruitment

Hiring trustworthy directors

We keep hearing in the news about directors whose standards fall below that which was expected of them.

How can an organisation minimise the risk of such people emerging?

10

operations

Employee engagement, retention and communication

10

Creating company engagement drives employee retention. Retaining great employees keeps hiring and training costs low. Retaining employees can only be achieved with consistent and effective employee communication.

20

operations

The information Olympics Spreadsheet use is a habit that many commodity traders find hard to break. But the tools that proved adequate for running a trading operation a decade ago are no longer fit for purpose

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operations

Top tips for making your meeting more productive

By focusing on meeting productivity, individuals and businesses can greatly reduce time wastage.

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leadership

Why leaders need to ask for feedback

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Leaders who ask and receive feedback can utilise it as a vital ingredient for their own development.

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strategy

NED: The first 100 days

With the increased focus on the role and accountability of Non-Executive Directors it seems that their whole mindset needs to change along with the other board members, expectations.

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34

technology

Managing the Cybersecurity Challenge - Boards must be able to hack it!

With the increasing occurrence of cybersecurity breaches, what must executives do to find the optimum formula to prevent future violations.

42 Executive insight

Neil Ritson - CEO, Leni Gas and Oil

Neil discusses his biggest achievements, learning from past mistakes and who inspires him professionally.

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contents

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70

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54

Vale Canada

Nickel in demand With demand for nickel on the up and prices 30 percent higher than six months ago Vale’s operations in Canada is sitting on highly strategic resources.

North American Nickel (NAN)

6

Adrok

Exploring new possibilities Over the last twelve months Adrok has experienced significant gains to its presence in key North American markets and its acceptance into important sectors of industry.

[ Aug 2014 ] BE monthly

Central Rand Gold

energy

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TRESCA

96

Geothermal Development Company (GDC)

Put a lot more nickel in The nickel resource NAN expects to define could be a game changer for the countries that depend on this vital mental.

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Sulphide and oxide in golden harmony Alacer operates the world-class Çöpler gold mine that produced a record figure gold during 2013: this is the company’s primary asset and of strategic importance for Turkey’s growing mining industry.

All that glitters is gold By utilising innovative methods and technologies Central Rand Gold is bringing commercial gold mining back to the City of Johannesburg.

mining & minerals

46

Alacer Gold

Lighting up the isthmus Guatemala’s energy network is undergoing a revolution that is bringing power to the Central American country’s remote communities.

A vision for Kenya’s future Electricity derived from geothermal resources will play a key role in Kenya achieving its Vision 2030 objectives. Responsibility for this rests on the shoulders of the GDC.

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138 Primefuels

Fuelling growth Primefuels has taken advantage of every opportunity to provide a much needed logistics service across East and Central Africa and has grown into a partner for major mining, aviation and O&G customers.

146 Tata Zambia transport & logistics

104 Punta Cana International Airport

Welcoming passengers to paradise Punta Cana International Airport has grown to become not only the Dominican Republic’s leading destination for travel, but also one of Latin America’s premier airports.

118

CEPA

Eyes to the east CEPA has the job of seizing the opportunity to transform the new Port of La Unión Centroamericana into a Central American logistics and distribution hub.

128 DHL Nigeria

Delivering growth to Nigeria DHL has been present in Nigeria since 1979. Today its unrivalled service and expertise is helping to drive Africa’s largest economy to new heights of prosperity.

A deep partnership The Tata group has a long-standing association with Zambia which it chose many years ago as its gateway into Africa.

152 Quattro

Driven to succeed From a single eight seat minibus, Quattro has grown into one of Zambia’s most important transportation businesses, proving along the way that hard work and perseverance can see anyone achieve their goals. manufacturing

158 Kansai Plascon

Why green is more than just a colour With a legacy dating back 125 years, Kansai Plascon not only remains one of South Africa’s premier companies, but also one that committed towards a sustainable, environmentally considerate future.

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Hiring trustworthy directors We keep hearing in the news about directors whose standards fall below that which was expected of them. How can an organisation minimise the risk of such people emerging?

Words by

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Stephen Archer

Recruitment

H

iring the right people is immensely complex – it is no surprise that so many mistakes are made. Getting recruitment right will pay huge dividends, but is enough rigor applied to the process?

Though luck will play its part, businesses need the right people to be available and attracted to your organisation. If there are two things that are critical it is to assess people’s values and leadership.

Values must come first. Underlying nearly all the failures of directors will be inappropriate values. These are the things that define how a person behaves and in turn, the culture of the organisation. Values also have a big part to play in the way that a person ‘fits’ an organisation. They may have a different style or character to that which you imagine and may even have a slight mismatch of background and experience; but the values must come first. Always.

Remember, ‘hire the smile, and train the skill’ – the same simple rule applies to values. ‘Hire the values, train the expertise’.

Values are the inner beliefs, the things that define behaviour in individuals. They define how people approach work and how they relate to colleagues – and in a director they define how they behave as leaders. They can and should be defined, but rarely can this be achieved with a five-point list that is hung in reception; these speak to an aspiration, designed by committee.

So how do you define the values that you seek in a new recruit? It is not as hard as it may sound.

The starting point is analysis of what constitutes the existing organisational culture – the blend of beliefs and behaviours that makes the people effective and the company successful.

Do not treat this lightly – in competitive markets the most important differentiator that you have will be your culture and how employees behave. Those involved

in the recruitment process must use this defined value set as a basis for candidate assessment in the interview process.

They need to ensure that candidates are assessed in a balanced and objective manner. It sounds obvious, but candidates can all too easily be seized on with too much enthusiasm by senior colleagues when they see the experience on paper.

HR and other directors should be looking beyond experience to ensure that the personal fit is matched.

In addition to the formal processes, there are two other ways to assess candidates. Firstly, telephone them at home, out of hours. Catching people off guard and away from the mentality of the interview ‘performance’ can be very revealing. Heed the findings because these often represent the real person.

Secondly, ensure that many other people in the organisation meet the candidate before they are appointed – especially those that will come into direct contact. Ask these people for their views.

They will be most revealing and if this process is used frequently the employees own empowerment will increase. They will also help the new director more when they do arrive and increase the chance of the fit working and lasting.

About the author

Stephen Archer Stephen is a UK-based consultant and business analyst and in 2003 founded Spring Partnerships LLP. He is a consultant to various multi-national companies at CEO level, and has been called the ‘Jeremy Clarkson’ of business speakers, for his amusing and insightful perspectives on the changing business environment. www.spring-partnerships.com

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Š 2014 PDP Solutions

Employee engagement, retention and communication Creating company engagement drives employee retention.

Retaining great employees keeps hiring and training costs low. Retaining employees can only be achieved with consistent and effective employee communication Words by

Thomas R. Cutler

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operations

E

ngaged employees stay with companies for a long time. They are part of the company team, company culture, and company value.

Creating company engagement drives employee retention. Retaining great employees keeps hiring and training costs low. Retaining employees can only be achieved with consistent and effective employee communication.

This is not a tautology. Each element will be examined independently, yet engagement, retention, and communication are not mutually exclusive.

All three conditions are required to produce the best working environment, the best relationships between management, labor, vendors, suppliers, and customers.

“To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace”

This article will expressly consider how employee engagement, retention, and communication are most profoundly impacting the manufacturing and industrial sectors today.

Former Campbell’s Soup CEO, Doug Conant, once said, “To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.”

Kevin Kruse, a contributor to Forbes magazine, concluded that engaged employees leads to higher service, quality, and productivity, which leads to…higher customer satisfaction, which leads to… increased sales (repeat business and referrals), which leads to…higher levels of profit, which leads to… higher shareholder returns.

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Workforce magazine cited a manager of organizational effectiveness and employee engagement at a Fortune 100 company who suggested, “The typical organization today views talent management as three building blocks: attract, develop, and retain. These are solid building blocks. The challenge is that these blocks won’t stick together unless there is mortar. And that mortar is employee engagement. A robust, worldclass talent management process has to put the mortar between those three key building blocks.”

Quantitative research reinforces the relationship among customers, employees, and the bottom line. The two-decade classic 1994 Harvard Business Review article, “Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work” established relationships among profitability, customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, and productivity. The decade old article from Journal of Applied Psychology, “Which Comes First: Employee Attitudes or Organizational Financial and Market Performance?” found consistent and significant positive relationships over time between overall job satisfaction and financial and market performance (as well as reciprocal relationships).

These data, while still applicable are pre-technology when most plant floor workers are inundated with text messages, emails, and have been conditioned to 145 character tweets. How information is translated to create employee engagement on the manufacturing workforce has changed and continues to change at a very rapid pace.

Gallup Consulting proved the critical role of employee engagement (when the Q12™ Meta-Analysis hypothesis was tested). The theory was postulated and confirmed that business-unitlevel employee engagement has positive average correlations with the

Louise Dickmeyer, President of PDP Solutions Š 2014 PDP Solutions

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“job satisfaction plays a big role in how a given employee feels about getting to work each and every day”

business-unit outcomes of customer loyalty, productivity, and profitability; research demonstrated negative correlations with employee turnover, employee safety incidents (accidents), absenteeism, and shrinkage (theft).

Employee Engagement Drives Plant Floor Safety On the plant floors of manufacturing, distribution centers, and warehouses are some of the most dangerous locations for employees; yet the Gallup research reports that work floor accidents in manufacturing improve 62% when employees are fully engaged.

The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported other safety benefits resulting from high levels of employee engagement, “Disengaged employees are five times more likely to have an accident than fully engaged employees are, and a whopping seven times more likely to have a lost-time accident.”

Engaged Employees Reduce Absenteeism According to the Journal of Occupational Psychology, job satisfaction plays a big role in how a given employee feels about getting to work each and every day, even when they feel ill or disinclined. The cost is absenteeism is rarely calculated in OEE (overall equipment effectiveness), which measures the degree to which a

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piece of manufacturing equipment is performing to capacity. If that machine has optimal production capacity of 100 units per hour, anything less is lost, wasted, or unproductive. All the solutions, technology, data metrics, do not calculate absenteeism as a rationale for a plant floor idle machine. A multi-million dollar machine is measured on speed to ROI (return on investment), yet when a second and third shift employee calls in sick that ROI suddenly takes weeks, months, and even years longer to recoup the capital equipment purchase. The operations managers understand the pain point; cost of a day’s absenteeism may be more than a day’s wage of a single employee. Lost production time, missed delivery dates to customers, over-time to offset absentees cannot be overlooked. Absenteeism is a message to management – healthy communication is lacking.

Automation is often touted as the primary driver of productivity improvement. PDP (People Driven Performance) Solutions suggests that employee engagement is a better benchmark for productivity. Louise Dickmeyer, PDP Solutions’ President, suggested, “Engaged employees produce quality products causing a direct impact on manufacturers’ bottom line. Increased employee engagement can be evaluated by the attention paid to customers, product quality, colleagues, and employer’s interests. Engaged employees are healthier, take fewer sick days, arrive for work on time more often, spend less time looking at the clock, and focus more on work excellence.”

In the manufacturing environment, plant floor workers who enjoy work are more likely to recommend the place of employment to friends, get more work done on any given day, and are more likely to remain long-term loyal employees.

operations

Manufacturing workers with a positive attitude are less likely to gossip.

Just as engagement is contagious, so is disengagement, especially when managers get disengaged. Recent data revealed that manufacturing employees reporting to a disengaged manager are four times more likely to be disengaged than if working for an engaged manager. When an employee is kept in the dark about a manufacturing organization (current state, future state, and the big picture), they become more isolated, less enthusiastic about work and the employer.

People Driven Performance Leads to Employee Engagement Dickmeyer insisted, “When manufacturing and industrial employees know why their job exists, why products and services

function in a certain way, and where they personally fit into the big picture at the place of employment, they simply do better work. The quality of everything they touch improves, and that directly affects the company’s bottom line.”

Bob Kelleher offered a video titled, “Employee Engagement, Who’s Sinking Your Boat?” and there were powerful takeaways from the presentation, namely that employee engagement requires

“Engaged employees produce quality products causing a direct impact on manufacturers’ bottom line”

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“employee engagement requires capturing employees’ heads... and hearts, releasing ‘discretionary effort,’ the magic dust of high performance”

capturing employees’ heads... and hearts, releasing ‘discretionary effort,’ the magic dust of high performance. He suggested that in doing so plant floor workers are 480% more motivated to succeed and 250% more likely to recommend improvements.

Employee Engagement Drives Employee Retention The Manufacturing Institute recognized many U.S. manufacturers are regaining momentum, yet for years manufacturers have reported a significant gap between the skilled labor needed to keep growing businesses, and the skilled labor available. Deloitte Consulting LLP and the Manufacturing Institute have renewed the Skills Gap Study; the survey findings are remarkably consistent with previous Skills Gap studies, with 67% of respondents reporting a moderate to severe shortage of available, qualified workers and 56% anticipating the shortage to grow worse in the next three to five years. In addition, the survey indicates that 5% of current jobs at respondent manufacturers are unfilled due to a lack of qualified candidates.

These results underscore the tenacity of a worsening talent shortage that threatens the future effectiveness of the

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U.S. manufacturing industry.

When asked to look ahead three to five years, respondents indicated that access to a highly skilled, flexible workforce, is the most important factor in effectiveness, ranked above factors such as new product innovation and increased market share by a margin of 20 percentage points.

Manufacturers are concerned about talent today and into the future.

Manufacturers are having the hardest time filling skilled production jobs that fuel their ability to innovate and grow, even in the face of high unemployment.

Efforts to develop the skills of current employees are falling, and technology advancement without a future workforce puts manufacturers at great risk.

The Manufacturing Institute detailed that the shortages in skilled production jobs – machinists, operators, craft workers, distributors, technicians, and more – are taking their toll on manufacturers’ ability to expand operations, drive innovation, and improve productivity. Seventy-four percent of respondents indicated that workforce shortages or skills deficiencies in skilled production roles are having a significant impact on the ability to expand operations or improve productivity. Unfortunately, these jobs require the most training, and are traditionally among the hardest manufacturing jobs to find existing talent to fill.

While recognizing the importance of recruiting and developing talent, many manufacturers depend on outdated approaches for finding the right people, developing their employees’ skills, and improving performance. At a time when finding the right talent for the job has become so difficult, the spotlight shines even more brightly on recruitment

operations

and development efforts. After all, if manufacturers cannot bring in talent with the skills needed, steps can be taken to expand the skills based on the existing workforce.

Harold L. Sirkin is a Chicagobased senior partner of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, noted in BusinessWeek, “The average age of a highly skilled U.S. manufacturing worker is 56. Now is the time to train the next generation. With all the unemployed and underemployed college graduates now living in their parents’ basements, we’d be foolish not to recognize this as a tremendous talent asset. We need to recruit them and train them to create the skilled workforce U.S. manufacturing will need as the baby boomers retire.”

Sirkin offers the notion that retention requires a shift, “Maybe U.S. factories will have to change a bit to accommodate their interests: lattes, rather than lunch pails. But that’s not a bad thing.”

Dickmeyer at People Driven Performance suggested that employee retention is the measure of how long employees stay with a manufacturing or industrial company. Although personal reasons may inspire a skilled plant floor worker to depart his/her place of employment, most often these experienced company employees (often with a decade of dedicated service to a company) leave because they do not like where they are working. The cause might be colleagues, atmosphere, culture, compensation, the management, the boss, or any of the above. Employee engagement activities raise employee retention within an organization. Employees stay because they are more fully engaged and do better work. Dickmeyer noted, “A high level of employee engagement will always keep

your staff on board for longer. And a high rate of employee engagement goes hand-in-hand with a robust employee communications solution. A high rate of employee retention has no downside.

You get better work out of an employee and for longer, as well as save money on recruitment costs.”

According to th e Corp orate Leadership Council, driving performance and retention through employee

“a high rate of employee engagement goes hand-inhand with a robust employee communications solution”

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•E ngaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their organizations than disengaged employees are.

• E mployees with lower engagement levels are four times more likely to leave their jobs than those who are highly engaged.

© 2014 PDP Solutions

engagement can be easily verified by relating to the financial impact of employee retention and employee engagement. Some of the key findings cited include: • 70% of companies say that retaining talent is their top HR challenge this year.

• 4 4% of employees in North America say they may or will leave their current organization within the next 12 months.

• L osing an employee can cost an organization up to 213% of the employee’s equivalent annual salary.

“A high level of employee engagement will always keep your staff on board for longer”

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Dickmeyer suggested that companies perform a value stream map of the time, effort, and costs to replace a single plant floor worker. “The whole process of someone deciding they don’t want to work for the company any longer, their departure, interviewing and hiring a replacement for the position, utilizes more company time and resources than most management team members ever considered. It is wasteful and as far away from a lean best-practice,” argued Dickmeyer.

Employee Communication the Engine that Drives Employee Engagement and Retention People Driven Performance (PDP) Solutions is a software development company providing an internal, innovative, and interactive communications system for manufacturing plant floor employees.

A patented combination of software and touch-sensitive employee information kiosks bring vital and important information to the plant floor in a nondesk employee environment. As discussed earlier employee engagement results in quantifiable productivity improvement.

The impacts of improved internal communications, via interactive design, delivers an employee-centric engagement system driving improved employee retention, best-practice lean productivity, and increased bottom-line profitability.

Dickmeyer was adamant that the efficacy of employee communication has much to do with how the information

operations

is shared: “Unlike desktop solutions p ro mising b et te r e ng a g e m e nt , communication tools must be uniquely suited to on-the-move plant floor production employees ensuring a simple and straightforward way to access key company metrics and other information.

The result is full participation and understanding of the functions, status, and standing of the company. Employee communication ensures a personal responsibility for the well-being of management and colleagues with whom they work each day.”

Just as plant floor employees may express fear or resistance when new automation equipment is brought onto the plant floor, senior management is equally challenged by dynamic, interesting, and frequent communication messaging. Just as management expects the employee to adapt to the technology changes, employees have the right and the need for effective communication.

Progressive manufacturers are usually lean, often ISO certified, bestpractice oriented, utilizing Six Sigma or Theory of Constraints. These leading industrial organizations have workforces keenly aware that consistently poor communication costs money and devastates profits.

“Employee engagement drives financial performance, and communication is the cornerstone of an engaged workforce”

Employee engagement drives financial performance, and communication is the cornerstone of an engaged workforce. The challenge for businesses is to create an environment where employees understand why they do the work they do in order to commit to the company’s direction, strategy, and goals. Leaders need to tell employees the plan and employees must be on board before committing to the results.

Dickmeyer urged, “All manufacturers must explore products and services enabling organizations to deliver timely, news, and real-time performance metrics to employees on the production floor. It requires a combination of SaaS software, variety of display options, and expert guidance to bring corporate communications to life…engaging employees, resulting in creating highperformance cultures.”

About the author

Thomas R. Cutler Thomas is the President & CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based, TR Cutler, Inc. Cutler is the founder of the Manufacturing Media Consortium including more than 5000 journalists, editors, and economists writing about trends in manufacturing, industry, material handling, and process improvement. Cutler authors more than 500 feature articles annually regarding the manufacturing sector. Cutler is the most published freelance industrial journalist worldwide. trcutler@trcutlerinc.com @ThomasRCutler www.trcutlerinc.com

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The informati

Spreadsheet use is a habit that hard to break. But the tools that trading operation a decade ago Words by

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Michael Schwart

ion Olympics

many commodity traders find t proved adequate for running a o are no longer fit for purpose

tz & Roger Schaffland

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R

elying on spreadsheets to compete in today’s commodity markets is like running against Usain Bolt while wearing lead boots – and businesses, like great athletes, need the best tools and conditions.

The evidence is hard to refute: swapping spreadsheets for specialist commodity management solutions helps create a winning business that makes better decisions, faster, and with more confidence.

Eight reasons to unhitch and make the switch: 1. Meet new regulatory requirements The sense of complacency about spreadsheets is becoming almost impossible to sustain in the light of a tough new regulatory framework. Underpinning both Dodd-Frank in the US and EMIR in Europe is the need to increase the amount of transaction data to be recorded and stored, speed up its availability, and deepen the level of detail required. Timely reporting across all regions and markets is the minimum requirement to stay on the right side of the regulator.

Spreadsheets were never developed to collate and export large, comprehensive and unified data sets from multiple sources. They do not easily offer real-time responsiveness or enterprise-wide visibility.

They do not support current needs for comprehensive risk mitigation, reporting and audit requirements and the regulations are only going to get more onerous;

“Spreadsheets multiply; firms that rely on one, tend to rely on a dozen”

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businesses need to adopt better toolsets than spreadsheets to be compliant.

Fortunately, commodity management vendors have worked closely with regulators to develop the necessary features within their solutions so that organizations can be more compliant.

In contrast, a trading operation run on spreadsheets is just one fat-finger error away from a compliance breach, fines and even jail time.

2. Break down the corporate silos Spreadsheets multiply; firms that rely on one, tend to rely on a dozen. By their very nature they silo information when having a portfolio view of total exposure is the only way to manage risk and make decisions effectively. A critical spreadsheet with a single owner/author is an accident waiting to happen, and it happens frequently, different people owning or enabling their own part of the business through one or more uncontrolled, unsecured documents has been proven to be “the weakest link” when it comes to financial accuracy, regulatory transparency and risk management.

Trust and transparency is key to the current/future business model; the use of spreadsheets is an indication that information is inadequately shared. The inevitable lack of data integration between the number and variety of spreadsheets usually results in different parts of the business running and reporting on incomplete or even inaccurate data sets. At critical stages of the value chain the left hand often doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

Where a commodity management system is in place, however, it shows that integrated, front-to-back, business processes have been developed, and are supported by common data and rules. This

operations

business is more efficient and less prone to the information stove-piping that plagues their spreadsheet-dependent rivals.

3. Make the right decisions every time Consider all the information that has to be recorded for each individual deal.

Purchase, sale, and transportation costs; complex structured transactions, financial instruments and hedges; contract terms, collateral arrangements and currency fluctuations; inventory lists, prices and schedules, not to mention invoices and settlement statements. Add to that the benefit of netting cash-flows across deals, aggregating exposures to the parent companies for collateral coverage, and managing to policy limits. A spreadsheet is not an effective system of record. It is too laborious, too disconnected from policy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and too prone to error.

On the other hand, commodity management systems can accurately record all transactions from order through to cash to create a single, trusted, centrally available, version of the truth across all deals, different commodities and geographies. As these specialist systems evolved over the past ten years, they have honed this capability. Smart, nextgen systems like those available from commodity management specialist Eka can provide a single view that helps increase awareness among senior managers of how defined strategies are performing, the potential financial impacts and options for risk mitigation. Consolidated exposures,

â&#x20AC;&#x153;When deals are captured in spreadsheets, records of the associated costs will often be added separately to the ERP or financial systemsâ&#x20AC;?

cash flow forecasting and single-truth reporting offer a new level of predictability and proactivity when it comes to managing financial performance, which in turn enables smarter risk taking. It supports real-time understanding of counterparty credit risks and exposures, enhances strategic planning and business-planning processes and allows for better allocation of resources and increased operational efficiency.

4. Get a grip on your real profitability: Pay for Performance When deals are captured in spreadsheets, records of the associated costs will often be added separately to the ERP or financial systems. But the final costs for physical deals in particular can be significant and vary greatly in real-time.

Fees for transportation, brokerage, and inspection, plus premiums, demurrage and invoice adjustments can soon wipe out the predicted profit of an individual deal.

Spreadsheets have no means to formally link deals with their costs in a timely manner, and offer very limited capability for accurate reconciliations and tracking of trends. In contrast, commodity management systems allow traders to record and analyze all-in costs to ensure a proposed transaction is as profitable as first appears. They make clear the full commercial value of a transaction as it evolves over the life of the deal from a single report.

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Traders can compare the forecasted pre-deal costs with actual post-deal costs to assess real profitability, and can slice and dice profitability data by trader or, container, or business unit to support and improve future-decision making. For a realtime view of true profitability, commodity management is crucial.

5. Secure your data and your business Spreadsheets are almost always the private domain of individuals who set them up to meet an immediate or specific need, with no thought to the wider demands of system management or the business need for risk management best practice. They are by definition, uncontrolled, free-range tools which people try to maintain as best they can despite changing business rules and

“Spreadsheets are almost always the private domain of individuals who set them up to meet an immediate or specific need, with no thought to the wider demands of system management”

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market data, but often these owners leave, forget some part of the logic, or use the wrong version of the spreadsheet. Thus they are a huge security risk primarily because the calculations in those spreadsheets is are vulnerable to unintentional errors or purposeful interference. Audit controls are often insufficient to prevent these data integrity issues because of the variety and subtlety of the problem(s).

In contrast, commodity management systems demand both user and group security protocols to be established. They provide for effective user permissions and access, detailed audit trails, and management approval of activity. Wellimplemented commodity management systems can enforce operational controls and so reduce opportunities for fraud.

Configurable business rules allow organizations to instantiate business processes and risk policies, and to monitor compliance on a real-time basis through detailed and logical dashboards and alerts.

6. Overcome the information management hurdles For businesses that depend on spreadsheets, managing data requires Herculean effort.

The accurate monthly closing of the books is just one example. The number and variety of sources to be mined, combined and validated mean that data is often cut and pasted from one spreadsheet to another, spreading errors through the organization.

The task then has to be re-invented each time: with randomly created spreadsheets involved, there is no repeatable process – and the end-result is difficult and timeconsuming to query. And there’s no let up: as soon as one month’s books are complete, the information Olympics start all over again for the next month.

In contrast, commodity management gives organizational productivity and accuracy. It reduces the amount of time

operations

and effort spent on manual reconciliations of internal and external data. Information completeness can be ensured and repeatable processes created to further reduce the chance of errors rippling through the organization. Businesses that have made the transition to commodity management wonder how they ever managed without it.

7. Secure the best business results Smart commodity management systems give traders and risk managers the ability to simulate new transactions in the current book, analyze multiple scenarios and then optimize portfolios and execute on the best outcomes. Although spreadsheets can provide some of this functionality with some advanced programming, the circumstances in which spreadsheets are normally deployed suggest it is unlikely.

More to the point, commodity management systems provide this outof-the-box and in a multi-user, real-time environment. Add in advanced analytics that are embedded in next-generation solutions like Eka, and traders suddenly have real-time access to accurate P&L, VAaR, and mark-to-market exposures.

These, and other metrics, can be continuously updated, with optimized scenarios being ranked to allow a trader to quickly identify the most profitable outcomes before entering a deal.

8. Keep stakeholders on side Like it or not, there is no escaping the corporate governance agenda. Commodity management technologies have evolved to fill this need and are increasingly seen by investors, creditors, rating agencies and shareholders as an indication that governance and risk management is being taken seriously.

The latest incarnation of commodity management systems have been designed

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The latest incarnation of commodity management systems have been designed from the start to provide a secure, official and timestamped version of eventsâ&#x20AC;? from the start to provide a secure, official and time-stamped version of events that can be verified against external data in case of audit, research or investigation. It is a critical design feature of systems like Eka, rather than an accidental add-on.

Not only do commodity management systems ensure better, more competitive business decisions but they also provide reassurance to the markets on the validity of all financial statements and disclosures.

This increases confidence at a time when it has never been more valuable.

Not surprisingly, external and internal stakeholders like the demonstrable commitment to transparency that commodity management systems offer, as well as the visibility that helps mitigate multiple types of risk in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s global and volatile markets.

About the authors

Michael Schwartz Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer of Eka www.ekaplus.com

Roger Schaffland Managing Principal at Axcelerus, a commodity advisory and risk management specialist www.axcelerus.com

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Top tips for making your meeting more productive All too often meetings take up an inordinate amount of time. But by focusing on meeting productivity, individuals and businesses can greatly reduce time wastage Words by

Lloyd Snowden

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very businessman and woman knows the importance of meetings.

A necessary evil they may be, meetings are vital for providing and receiving updates, communicating, planning, brainstorming and making decisions.

All too often, however, meetings take up an inordinate amount of time. But by focusing on meeting productivity, individuals and businesses can greatly reduce time wastage. In a business climate where time is precious, that’s an advantage many of us can’t afford not to take.

So how do you make sure every meeting is effective? Follow these simple tips:

1) Always have an agenda with defined expected outcomes from the meeting Good meetings are managed events, they do not just happen. I am constantly amazed at how many organisations allow their most precious resource - their people - to sit in meetings with no predefined purpose or outcomes. It is akin to letting a machine in a factory run idle or produce parts to no set specification.

Always have a clear agenda and expected outcomes to ensure the meeting stays on track and produces results. This relies on proper meeting preparation, executing the meeting to plan, and then good follow-up. A useful tip in making sure the meeting has been a success, is to simply ask yourself at the end of every meeting ‘did we do what we said we would do?’

“Good meetings are managed events, they do not just happen”

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2) Assign clear roles and responsibilities One way to make sure your meeting has an agenda, and achieves what it is supposed to, is to assign clear responsibilities to the meeting attendees. Have an allocated meeting leader to prepare material for the meeting, who is responsible for making decisions and designating other meeting responsibilities, such as taking minutes, and assigning actions as an outcome.

A facilitator or chairperson, whose role it is to assist in the preparation, control the meeting process and keep an eye on the time, should support the meeting leader.

It is this person who is responsible for ensuring the meeting stays on course and achieves the expected outcomes.

Other meeting attendees will then be expected to generate ideas, provide recommendations, build on the ideas of others and add expertise to the meeting.

3) Ask ‘So what?’

Focus on the presentation of information rather than data. If you include too much data, significant time is lost whilst the meeting attendees try to determine what the numbers mean, or even argue over them.

Use headlines to tell a story and get your point across, and make sure everything passes the ‘so what?’ test, i.e. that it is contributing to the desired outcome of the meeting. If it’s not directly relevant, leave it out.

4) Don’t plan ‘back-to-back’ meetings The cost of having 9 people sitting in a room for 10 minutes waiting for a tenth attendee to arrive so that a meeting can start will run into £100s.

Multiply that number by the number of times meetings start late in most

operations

organisations and the annual ‘productivity opportunity’ is significant. One common cause of late meeting starts I have observed is the scheduling of back-toback meetings. The larger the building or site in which a business operates, the more problematic this usually is.

For one of my clients it takes 10 minutes to walk from one side of their site to another. Executives with consecutive meetings scheduled at different locations across the site were regularly arriving late for meetings.

The simple solution this organisation adopted was to set their meeting calendars so whilst meetings start on the hour they are scheduled to finish at quarter to the hour, i.e. 9am-9.45am rather than 9am-10am. This allows for the 10 minutes participants may need to get to their next meeting location.

5) Prevent distractions Unfortunately poor meeting etiquette is common. Mobile phones should be turned off/set to silent and attendees should be dissuaded from ‘multi-tasking’ during the meeting.

It is impossible to focus on a task at hand or to “actively listen” during a meeting if you are typing up an unrelated report or email on a tablet or laptop.

The chairperson of a meeting must take on some responsibility for ensuring all participants remain engaged. If a meeting wanders off track then attendees disengage.

If individuals don’t need to be there let them go and focus on some value added activity elsewhere.

6) Stand up Where meetings are scheduled for a short period of time, one way to make sure the meeting is as productive as possible is to take away the chairs. ‘Stand up’ meetings are a great way of maintaining the energy

in the room. Plus, attendees are unlikely to drag out the meeting if it means standing up for a longer period!

7) Understand the impact of ‘poor meeting behaviour’ on others Naturally, meetings are most productive when people practice positive meeting behaviours: contributing, clarifying, mediating, supporting and facilitating.

In a lot of organisations, however, it is fairly common for individuals, including those in very senior roles, to exhibit negative meeting behaviours - to be late, to dominate the meeting, or not focus on the task at hand, for example. Whilst they may not be aware of the demotivating impact this has on their peers and subordinates, it can be very disruptive and counterproductive. This type of behaviour needs to be dealt with in a firm, but friendly manner.

Suggest alternative behaviour, utilise non-verbal contact, i.e. eye contact, and reinforce positive behaviours. If necessary, the meeting facilitator should speak to the individual privately. It can be useful in this instance to reflect on the old adage “treat others as you wish to be treated yourself”. In this period of increased time pressure, no one wants to have his or her time wasted.

These are simple tips, but can make a real difference to the amount of time spent (and wasted) in meetings, and greatly improve their effectiveness. Can your organisation afford not to follow them?

About the author

Lloyd Snowden Associate at business improvement specialists, Oliver Wight. www.oliverwight-eame.com

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Why leaders need to ask for feedback Leaders who ask and receive feedback can utilise it as a vital ingredient for their own development Words by

Marielena Sabatier

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o matter how well senior executives are performing at work, they all tend to dread their annual performance review. Whilst many are trained in the art of giving feedback to their teams, how do they cope when the tables are turned on them?

Receiving feedback and acting upon it is a vital ingredient in the development of leaders in business today.

A recent study from leadership development firm, Zenger Folkman1, found that leaders who ask for feedback are substantially more effective than leaders who don’t. Leaders who ranked in the bottom 10% in asking for feedback were rated at the 15th percentile in leadership effectiveness. Conversely, those in the top 10% of asking for feedback from their employees were ranked in the 86th percentile in overall leadership ability.

Asking for feedback can give leaders vital knowledge and understanding of how they need to improve their performance.

However, it seems that few people really know how to react to the feedback they are given. The reasons for this are often down to low self-confidence. If someone has gone for a big promotion only to be rejected, do they really want to know why they failed to get the job?

However, it is crucial for executives to find out where they went wrong to

“Asking for feedback can give leaders vital knowledge and understanding of how they need to improve their performance”

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discover what they could do better in the future. No matter how senior a person is, it is important for them to ask for feedback post interview or when they have an annual review because everyone has blind spots.

Sometimes feedback can be vague so it is important to ask the person providing it to clarify what they are saying using specific examples.

Executives need to ask the person providing the feedback what they could have done differently. This will not only show they are confident and open, but most importantly, willing to learn from experiences and understand what behaviours they may be presenting that make others form an impression.

It is important for business leaders to take feedback too personally or be defensive about it, although it could be validated by asking for further feedback from other people. It can also be helpful to ask the person giving the feedback for their advice.

People often dismiss feedback because they don’t like what they hear or it’s not in line with the view they have of themselves.

However, being open to feedback, whether it is positive or negative, will enable a person to improve their self-awareness and adjust their behaviour accordingly.

A good example is one particular client of mine who was told she needed a new haircut. She was understandably upset that her hairstyle could affect her chances of promotion. She reflected on the feedback and realised that probably she looked too young, and although she could not do anything about her looks, she could behave in a more serious manner. Sometimes it’s important to look beyond the comment, and understand the overall message.

Often people don’t like giving feedback because they fear they may hurt or upset the person receiving it. In anonymous

leadership

written feedback, people tend to be more honest as they are further removed from the situation. Similarly, if people request written feedback they will have more time to consider what questions to ask. Face to face it may be more difficult to be “curious” without being defensive, however, it gives the opportunity to ask qualifying or clarifying questions.

One way leaders can maximise the potential of face to face feedback is to give the person conducting the review the questions in advance to give them time to think them over properly. The questions should not be vague but targeted at relevant areas such as, ‘What’s one thing I can do to improve X?’.

It is worth bearing in mind that asking for feedback is only useful if there is a genuine intent to act on it and for executives to take action to work on any areas for improvement highlighted in the feedback. Further feedback sessions are recommended too, to ensure the selfimprovement measures put in place have been successful a few months further down the line.

Adobe, a company of 11,000 employees, believes so strongly in the importance of feedback that it has replaced its traditional performance management system with a new simple but effective process.

Either an employee or a manager may request a “check in” every three months.

Before the meeting occurs a group of employees provides feedback on the employee’s performance.

The results form the basis of a conversation about performance

“Being able to ask for honest feedback is one of the hallmarks of a great leader”

improvement and the goal is to make coaching and developing a continuous, collaborative process between managers and e m ploye es .

Since rolling out the new approach worldwide Adobe have experienced a 30% reduction in voluntary turn over.

Being able to ask for honest feedback is one of the hallmarks of a great leader. Whether choosing to adopt an official ‘check in’ system like Adobe’s or taking a more ad hoc approach, feedback is an important tool in enabling leaders to be successful in their roles.

1. Zenger Folkman carried out a study of 51,896 executives in December 2013

About the author

Marielena Sabatier Executive Coach and CEO of Inspiring Potential works with businesses and executives to develop and boost their confidence to improve their performance at work. www.inspiring-potential.com

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NED:

The first 100 days With the increased focus on the role and accountability of Non-Executive Directors it seems that their whole mindset needs to change along with the expectations from the other board members Words by

Stephen Archer

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n my experience the NED is still seen as an outsider and NED’s also view themselves as outsiders. Whilst their degree of detachment from the day to day life of a business can be a healthy thing, the detachment caused by episodic intervention can be very unhealthy and greatly restricts the ability of the NED to deliver value and exercise their governance duties.

The first 100 days is something of a cliche for executives, but for NEDs it is assumed that they just step straight in with their ‘experience’; listen in and contribute when they see fit. For the first 100 days and beyond to work, the executive board must know 100 percent why the NED is there and what the NED plans to contribute. Any board must be serious about taking on an NED and unless they are it should not happen.

Assuming that the board has accepted the NED and their role then what should the NED do?

1. Meet each board member face to face to understand what their roles are and how they see their role. This is also the time to find out the ‘elephants in the room; the ‘sacred cows’ and the underlying strengths and weaknesses of an organisation that don’t appear on paper.

2. Meet each board member’s direct reports or at least some of them to see where the pressure points are in middle management. If the organisation is stressed it will be most apparent at this level, not, paradoxically at the board level.

3. Spend some days at the ‘coal face’.

Meet a number of people and spend some time with key new employees and long standing employees but not those in between to gain the perspectives on changes over time and the fresh eyes of new people. From this the NED will gain invaluable insight that even other board members will not have on the strengths and weaknesses of each function be it, sales, marketing, finance, HR, IT, operations, logistics, legal etc.

4. Start as soon as possible testing the board members with the NED’s impressions of the organisation from the inside. This might not sound like the most popular move but an NED’s authority is so often weakened because they are not seen as having a real understanding of the business.

5. NEDs tend to have specific domain expertise and be expected to comment on the technical side of that domain quickly.

However, the NED must gain very quickly a sense of the strength of leadership by the board and next levels down.

6. Understand the strategic plan. This is not just the 12 month business plan, this is the longer term roadmap of achieving step changes in commercial performance and place in the markets. This should be thoroughly interrogated and challenged for robustness of examination and thought for reality rather than fantasy.

“For the first 100 days and beyond to work, the executive board must know 100% why the NED is there and what the NED plans to contribute”

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strategy

7. Having learned about the people and the functions the NED must consider the operating structure and whether this is fit for the purpose of meeting the objectives.

8. The NED must look at the ‘informal o rg a n i s a ti o n ’: th e b e h av i o u r a l norms, patterns of influence and communications, politics and other aspects of the team culture. This provides the framework within which guidance should be executed and indeed a set of aspects of the business that may also need to be challenged even if they are mostly not spoken about.

9. NEDs should act and think as if they are full time executives in order to take the role to the level of suitable responsibility but stop short of accountability.

10. Heed the red flags and shout early.

The NED is expected and most able to anticipate or spot problems early on.

While this can be a tremendous strength, it can be a double-edged sword if taken to the extreme. They must refrain from taking on all the issues and resist the tendency to be the organization’s saviour.

In the end the executives must listen and act. This will be most effective when the NED has spent the first 100 days establishing knowledge, respect and understanding.

About the author

Stephen Archer Business Analyst and director of UK business consultancy, Spring Partnerships www.springpartnerships.com

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Managing the cybe

Boards must be

With the increasing occ breaches, what must e optimum formula to p Words by

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Robin M

ersecurity challenge -

e able to hack it!

currence of cybersecurity executives do to find the prevent future violations

Murray Brown

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he increasing occurrence of cybersecurity breaches – such as the recent case at eBay when it is believed more than 145 million user accounts were infiltrated – is causing executives around the globe to seek ever more sophisticated solutions to prevent future violations . As they review their procedures, tighten their operational environment and add additional levels of security, finding the optimum formula is still proving elusive.

Advances in security architecture and cyber-defence tactics have helped address some risks, but they are inefficient and unsustainable when faced with the more adaptive, embedded and interconnected capability of the current threat. Strengthening network resilience is important but management responses seem overwhelmingly reactive. The criminal cyber threat is nimble and intensely focused and, thanks to its financial success to date, has the wherewithal to invest in innovation and scale, often leaving corporate security trailing in its wake.

Given that the cost of cybercrime to the UK is currently estimated to be between £18 billion and £27 billion, it is essential that boards play a more proactive role. At an operational level, working on the basis that they will be faced with a cyber-attack at some point, leadership teams need to anticipate the business risk and develop counter-measures and business continuity plans which will minimise the disruption.

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But how do they do this and who should be in charge of driving the corporate agenda on cybersecurity?

As boards acknowledge that technology on its own is not enough, companies need the addition of strong, well-organised management with a broad range of technical and non-technical capabilities.

In many instances, the responsibility for cybersecurity falls on the CIO. This is perfectly understandable but IT risk and information security have now become business issues and not simply technical ones. Additionally, there is no department that is immune to a cyberattack, or that shouldn’t consider that certain activities undertaken within that department may give rise to a security breach, generated either internally or externally. The challenge here is to oversee the organisation’s enterprise-wide risk management in an effective way that balances managing risks while adding value to the organisation.

In an increasing number of companies, we are starting to see the creation of a new senior role on the leadership team, that of the Chief Security Officer (CSO). Whilst the position of Head of Security is not new, the role has changed considerably in scope of responsibility. Some organisations are also distinguishing between the Head of Physical Security and the Head of Data Security.

Working alongside the CIO, the CFO and others, one of the CSO’s responsibilities is to advise the board and senior executive team on existing risk management procedures. He/she must be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of these procedures in identifying, assessing, and managing the organisation’s most significant enterprise-wide risk exposures.

As boards consider these risks, they must decide whether their current risk oversight and governance processes enable

technology

them fully to understand the potential impact on corporate strategy.

The CSO’s position must interface with other business areas such as IT, Legal, Human Resources, operations and corporate communications. Therefore, even though heads of IT possibly could take on this role, suitable candidates must have a strong commercial ethos as well, with a global view on the impact of the cyber threat and a solid understanding of the changing threat landscape.

The scope of this level of awareness needs to encompass a range of assets, systems and activities, including some perhaps not previously considered as ‘at risk’. These will include assets held by external organisations – such as suppliers – since attacks frequently come indirectly through these third parties.

Earlier this year, Target, the USA’s second largest discount retailer reported that the personal information of as many as 110 million customers was compromised after hackers reportedly installed malware onto the retailer’s point-of-sale machines through one of its suppliers.

Given the need to establish a balance between creating and sustaining a secure environment, whilst also enabling end-users to work unhindered, an experienced CSO should also be a strong team player capable of embracing and managing change and collaborating with others through information and intelligence sharing. Finding someone with the right credentials for the role is a challenge. Growing demand is already outstripping supply of the most qualified people, so CEOs may need to consider executives who have some – but maybe not all – the skills required, and provide the time and facilities for that person to develop accordingly.

How the board views and responds to the cyber threat is equally important. As

“the cyber threat is a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’, and organisations need to prepare accordingly”

with many aspects of the board’s role, this is as much about knowing what questions to ask – and being satisfied as to the quality of the answers – as it is about expert or technical knowledge. Indeed, discussing the technical minutiae is almost certainly not the best use of the board’s time.

Rather, and this will become increasingly an issue to be reviewed in annual reports and regulatory processes, the board will need to demonstrate to stakeholders – investors, customers, employees and regulators where relevant – that they are fulfilling their responsibility of assurance: setting the strategic framework and holding management to account.

In the final analysis, the cyber threat is a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’, and organisations need to prepare accordingly, even though the nature and target of the threat are constantly changing . What hasn’t changed, however, is the responsibility of security specialists, management teams and boards to provide technical capability, business resilience and strategic oversight respectively.

About the author

Robin Murray Brown Partner at executive search consultants, Tyzack. www.tyzackpartners.com

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Neil Ritson CEO, Leni Gas & Oil

Executive insight

Nobody’s perfect. What quality or ability do you wish you had?

Who or what do you think is overrated?

I wish I was someone who could function perfectly well on 4 hours, sleep a day. There is so much to experience and achieve that sleeping 8 hours a day seems a waste.

Social media! I think the internet is the greatest invention in my lifetime. It provides a massive resource, but its popularist offshoot is I believe overrated and will not be seen as a long term benefit in the way the underlying architecture has been such a boon.

What is the best business book you have ever read, and why?

I don’t as a rule read business books, but Who Moved My Cheese provided some valuable insights when I first read it in the 1990’s and those lessons have stayed with me.

Someone you would most like to have met, living or dead, and why?

I have always been fascinated by complex people, polymaths, who manage to accomplish huge amounts in their lifetimes. Winston Churchill is therefore an obvious candidate.

What do you consider to be your major achievement (in life or business)?

I find this quite hard. Life is actually a series of small steps and on their own none is that memorable; but when you look back hopefully they have led somewhere useful. Perhaps, if pushed, I would say raising a family of five great sons.

What mistakes have you made (professional or otherwise), and what did you learn from them?

This is surely too long a list! The only way you move forward is to take risks, accept mistakes and move on with the lessons they provide.

One mistake I have made more than once is to make things too complicated. If it seems too complicated then stand back and look at it a different way; there is probably a much simpler solution.

Which one piece of wisdom would you pass on to your successor?

In recent years I have certainly learnt that the court system doesn’t necessarily provide justice. So never take anything to court; if it can’t be settled in another way, just drop it; because you can’t afford the time to pursue things through the courts. There is too much else that can be achieved with the time and money you could waste.

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“La vie est trop courtE pour boire du vin mauvais” {life is too short to drink bad wine}

And always treat people with respect, since that way you may not win, but you always retain the moral high ground..

Who has been your inspiration professionally?

This is an easy one as I spent my early career in BP working for John Browne, now Lord Browne, at a time of transformation. John had many admirable quantities and there was much to be learnt from him and indeed he was not Business Man of the Year for nothing!.

How would you like to be remembered after you retire?

As someone who worked hard, did their best and gave the rarest of all resources, time, generously to others.

Do you have a quote or motto you live (or work) by?

I spent a significant part of my career in France and the expression “La vie est trop courte pour boire du vin mauvais” {life is too short to drink bad wine} always seemed very apt both philosophically and in practise.

Learn more about Leni Gas & Oil www.lenigasandoil.com

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Executive insight

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Vale C

Nickel in

Valeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s operations in Canada are carried out in some of the m on the up and prices 30 percent higher than six months words by

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John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon

Canada

demand

most challenging environments, but with demand for nickel ago the company is sitting on highly strategic resources research by

Robert Hodgson BE Monthly [ Aug 2014 ]

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Flash vessels inside the leaching plant building at Long Harbour

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Vale Canada

he Vale do Rio Doce in Brazil is doubtless an idyllic place beauty as its name, valley of the peaceful river, implies. However the now more prosaically named Vale is a global company with which readers of Business Excellence are very familiar, most recently in our coverage of Vale’s coal mining operations in Mozambique – and indeed, Wales.

However since its 2006 acquisition of Canadian nickel mining operator Inco Vale has been a major player in Canada, where it now has a dozen mines and operational sites.

To give an idea of the scale of the Canadian operations, now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian major, its base metals headquarters in Toronto alone employs 850 people at three sites that administer

T

people in processing nickel, electrocobalt and precious metals, exporting finished nickel products throughout the world.

Over in northern Manitoba , the operation at Thompson (named after John F Thompson, chairman of International Nickel when a significant body of ore was discovered there in 1956) is located 740 kilometres north of Winnipeg and is known as Vale’s northern hub.

Operations, there consist of the Thompson and Birchtree Mines along with the Thompson mill, smelter and refinery, which between them employ about 1,500 people and cover some 250 acres.

From there we can proceed to an area where Vale is currently making major investments.

St. John’s, the province’s capital city, is home to Vale’s Newfoundland and Labrador

“Since its 2006 acquisition of Canadian nickel mining operator Inco Vale has been a major player in Canada” Vale’s countrywide operations and house the company’s technology development department. Base metals in this context covers almost everything apart from gold, silver and platinum, and definitely includes nickel.

Also in Ontario, though about 400 kilometres to the north of Toronto, Sudbury has enough untapped nickel deposits to support mining for decades to come. In total, Vale has six mines, a mill, a smelter and a refinery in Sudbury, making this one of the largest integrated mining operations on the planet, employing approximately 4,000 people. Raw materials from Vale’s Sudbury operations are shipped to The Port Colborne nickel refinery, a vast 360-acre complex on the shore of Lake Erie in southern Ontario.

The refinery dates back to the early days of Inco nearly 100 years ago and employs 170

corporate office from which its operations in Voisey’s Bay and Long Harbour are controlled.

These two sites produce nickel and copper concentrates, employing 580 full-time staff supported by more than 3,000 contractors.

The main features of the Voisey’s Bay site, which is remote by any standards and during the winter very cold indeed, are the open pit, the concentrator, waste rock storage areas, sedimentation ponds and tailings disposal areas. The mine opened in 2005, and the site also includes vast deposits with potential for future underground operations.

Vale has committed to developing deeper mining, creating hundreds of jobs. However most of the workers need to be brought in.

They generally work on a two-week rotation at the fly in/fly out operation. While at site, workers live in an accommodation complex

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Protective Coatings, Inc.

Protective Coatings, Inc. has diversified greatly since its foundation in 1958 and its knowledge and experience make it a role model for the rubber lining industry

www.proco-fwi.com

Protective Coatings Inc.

Role Model Protective Coatings, Inc. was founded in 1958 in Fort Wayne, Indiana as a tank lining applicator. The lining business historically has been one of fluctuating volume. With these fluctuations in mind, the company determined that it would be wise to diversify into related business areas. This diversification has permitted it to develop a highly skilled and stable work force ready to react to its customers lead time requirements.

Protective Coatings, Inc. has remained an active, growing company since its foundation, with its knowledge and experience making it a role model for the rubber lining industry. The company has flourished by adhering to a number of important principles. The first of these is safety, something that always comes first for the company and sees each of its employees receiving OSHA 30 Hour or greater training.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The company has flourished by adhering to a number of important principles.â&#x20AC;?

Honesty, integrity and ethics are other key principles, with Proco always operating with the desire to be fair, straightforward and sincere in its conduct, firm in its adherence to a code of high moral values, and with the intention of never trying to win business by making negative claims about its competition. Rather it wants to earn business based solely upon its owns merits.

The other principles at the heart of the business are quality, value, dependability and service. Proco offers excellence in the services and products it provides and manufactures.

Said services and products offer marketability

through their craftsmanship and the high quality of the ingredients used, while Procoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more than 50 years of business operations is a result of its continued reliability in meeting or exceeding the needs of the rubber industry. Last, but not least, Proco desires to be a company that serves and contributes to the welfare of its customers through not only its products but with its labour working safely in outside environments.

In addition to rubber lining applications, some of the products and services Proco provides include, epoxy lined pipe and tanks, moulded rubber parts, moulded parts with fabric and rubber, moulded parts with both steel and fabric, tubewinder belts, single-ply roofing systems, custom poly tanks, drop-in liners and surface preparation products.

(260) 424-2900 Proco-FWI@Proco-FWI.com www.proco-fwi.com

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Mammoet employee operating a self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT)

that contains cafeterias, recreational areas, shops, offices and medical facilities. To get the ore out, the company makes use of a purpose built polar-class ice breaking bulk carrier, the Umiak I. This is the world’s most powerful ice breaking cargo ship powered by a 30,000 horsepower engine, large enough to drive an oil tanker ten times as big. Making twelve trips a year, the ship brings supplies in, and carries up to 30,000 tonnes of nickel ore to Quebec City from where it is sent by rail to Vale’s Sudbury smelter.

That’s for now. But Vale is building a major complex much nearer, on a partially brownfield site near the port of Long Harbour in Newfoundland and Labrador that will be fed from Voisey’s Bay. Vale’s objective for the nickel processing plant is to process concentrate from the mine and concentrator in northern Labrador to produce finished nickel product and associated cobalt and copper products. The $4 billion plant includes concentrate offloading, crushing, and grinding facilities located near the wharf. The main processing plant is located approximately 2 kilometres south of the port facility and additionally there is a pipeline to supply process water, an effluent discharge pipe and diffuser into the harbour and a residue pipeline into a nearby disposal area. The plant site will house a complex process in which concentrate is pressure-levelled in acidic solutions to separate iron, sulphur, and other impurities from nickel, copper, and cobalt.

A joint venture of Alberici and Black and McDonald has erected 263,000 square foot steel building modules for the nickel/ cobalt electrowinning building and the

“Vale has committed to developing deeper mining, creating hundreds of jobs at Voisey’s Bay”

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Vale Canada

Long Harbour main processing plant site

182,000 square foot neutralization building at the new facility, and Fluor is performing engineering, procurement and construction management services . The plant, scheduled to start production in 2013 but delayed by labour problems, should be in operation this year. Vale is committed to providing a safe work environment for all employees and subcontractors. As part of that commitment, the companies involved produced a safety video to be shown to all employees working on the project.

As an operator in Canada, including some of its most environmentally sensitive areas of pristine wilderness, Vale is committed to the challenges of climate change. In 2008 it launched its Carbon Program, a set of global actions that promote the strategy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by using new technologies and less carbonintensive processes. Canada has benefited

from this commitment with initiatives such as the Clean AER project, which will not only help the environment, but it will â&#x20AC;&#x2039;also increase the quality of life in the city of Sudbury. With funding of US$ 1 billion, this is the largest single environmental investment in the history of Sudburyâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; and one of the largest in Ontario. The core of the project is an 85 percent reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions from Valeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smelter in Sudbury, and a significant reduction in metals and particulate emissions. The project is expected to be complete in 2016.

Vale Canada

(1) (416) 361-7669 cory.mcphee@vale.com @valeglobal www.vale.com

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North America

Put a lot mor

The resource that North American Nickel (NAN) property could be a game changer not just for G this vital metal to develop thei words by

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John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon

an Nickel (NAN)

re nickel in

) expects to define this summer on its Greenland Greenland but for the countries that depend on ir industries and infrastructure research by

Andy Turner BE Monthly [ Aug 2014 ]

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ickel may be one of the most common elements in the earth’s crust but that does not mean that it is the most accessible. Unlike some metal commodities, the global supply of nickel is concentrated in a handful of regions of the world. According to the US Geological Survey, in 2011 Russia was the world’s largest producer of nickel followed

by Canada, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. It is generally believed that ‘major igneous events’ cause this otherwise inaccessible element to appear close to the earth’s surface – well igneous events don’t come much larger than the 20 mile diameter meteor that smacked into Greenland three billion years ago, tearing open a crater some 60 miles wide. It’s the oldest and biggest meteor impact identified on earth so far and its discovery in June 2012 by researchers from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) may help to explain the abundance of nickel in the Maniitsoq area 100 miles to the north west of Nuuk.

When the meteor hit Maniitsoq, it caused nickel-rich magma from the earth’s mantle to flow up into its crust. These nickel-rich magmas are preserved as the Greenland Norite Belt, which is the focus of North American Nickel’s exploration programme.

On August 15, 2011 the company was granted an exploration license by the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum of Greenland

N

“When the meteor hit Maniitsoq, it caused nickel-rich magma from the earth’s mantle to flow up into its crust”

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Helicopter-assisted off-loading of equipment and supplies at North American Nickel’s Maniitsoq property in Greenland

North American Nickel (NAN)

“We hire local people not just for camp administration work but also for the more technical jobs” (formerly BMP, now the Mineral Licence and Safety Authority or MLSA). This gave the company exclusive exploration rights over an area totalling nearly 5,000 square kilometres located near Sulussugut. As Dr Mark Fedikow, NAN’s President and Interim CEO explains this was a massive area, and it was important to reduce it to a more manageable size once the most productive areas for drilling had been identified by helicopter-borne surveying. “Initially we held the largest ground position in Greenland, but part of the regulatory process requires that you diminish your asset progressively.

We have reduced ours to a little over 3,600 square kilometres now.”

NAN is probably spending more within Greenland than any other company this year – around $9.5 million. This is a very significant project for the nascent Greenlandic mining industry, and Dr. Fedikow is enthusiastic about the level of cooperation he has encountered from the government and local communities. It is tempting to compare Maniitsoq with the Sudbury Basin in Canada, whose nickel deposits are related to a meteor impact, but in fact it is geologically different and in many other ways Greenland has advantages over Canada. The first of these is in the terrain. “There is virtually no soil or tree cover, so from a helicopter you are always looking at bare rock.” This suits modern airborne geological mapping

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Emplacement of a survival hut at a North American Nickel drill site

techniques like VTEM (versatile timedomain electromagnetic system) used for identifying electromagnetic conductors such as semi-massive to massive sulphide mineralisation. NAN has flown more than 5,700 kilometres of survey, and in these conditions Fedikow says you can maintain a constant height over the rugged terrain with the helicopter-borne geophysical survey, looking a couple of hundred metres into bedrock.

Working with the government in Greenland is a pleasure compared with many jurisdictions, he continues, because of the steps the authorities have taken to achieve transparency. The regulatory regime is straightforward, the rules clear, and the culture enabling for a responsible mining company. And Greenland has to be unique in that there is no such thing as private ownership of land – it all belongs to the state. There are no special interest groups or layers of administration to contend with.

This does not mean that local communities are any the less respected and involved, he hastens to add. Best practices are in place for consultation, maximising the level of local subcontracting and employment just as they would be anywhere else.

So on the ground the company has a crew of 34, including a number of Greenlanders.

“We do try our best to hire local people, despite the fact that there are only 60,000 people in the entire country!” There is a government supported programme that is training Greenlanders for the mining industry, he notes. “They are moving ahead

“Helicopters are critical for us to get to and from our drill sites on the property”

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North American Nickel (NAN)

North American Nickel’s Project Manager James Sparling examining a norite rock sample, Maniitsoq property

with that, and we do hire significantly impact time in the Did you know? the people according to our air for helicopters. “Helicopters are critical for us to get to needs and the skills available. and from our drill sites on the We also hire local people not 20 miles property, he explains, so the just for camp administration Diameter of the weather impacts everything. If work but also for the more meteor that created it is kind and the sky stays clear technical jobs, helping us by the Maniitsoq till September and the results cutting and sampling of the nickel deposit we are expecting are realised, core and preparing samples the staff, the equipment and for analysis. They are doing an 10 kilometres the finance is in place to excellent job.”

This year’s optimum complete 10,000 metres.”

This summer, NAN is drilling target The three targets mentioned drilling intensively, with one will get most of the attention, eye on the weather. The 2013 says Fedikow, because NAN’s drill programme led to the clear goal is to build tonnage based on recognition of the Imiak Hill Conduit Complex nickel, copper cobalt and platinum group (IHCC) which includes Imiak Hill, Imiak North metals (PGM) mineralisation at the IHCC and Spotty Hill, three mineralised zones and potentially define an inferred resource. within 1.6 kilometres of one another. “This “Ultimately the simple question is, can we year we will drill a minimum of 4,700 metres build a resource with sufficient tonnage at a of core. That could be increased to as much grade that will allow us to go into production?” as 10,000 metres, but that depends on That question is being addressed through results and the weather. In August fog can

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Dr. Mark Fedikow President & Interim CEO

Cecil Johnson, North American Nickelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s senior prospector examines a gossanous norite outcrop, Maniitsoq property

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Mark has 35 years of industry and government experience as an exploration geochemist and mineral deposits geologist.

He has worked for major and junior mining exploration companies and the Manitoba Geological Survey completing his employment at the Survey as Chief Geologist of the Mineral Deposits Section. In 2001, Mark was the recipient of the Provincial Geologists Medal, a Canadian national award for outstanding g e o s c i e ntif i c achievement. Mark is also a Fellow of the Association of Applied Geochemists.

North American Nickel (NAN)

“As time went on the results were so promising that we thought again and said perhaps we would build a mine ourselves”

the drill results, and constrained by a conceptual economic scenario that is being prepared in collaboration with global mining consultancy Golder Associates.

This will provide an estimate for the necessary nickel resource and the feasibility of building a mill, starting mining, , and marketing the product. The next steps will depend on what the Golder preliminary economic scenario concludes.. Originally the game plan was to define the resource and then involve a major nickel miner to come in and take the project over, he says. “As time went on the results were so promising that we thought again and said perhaps we would build a mine ourselves. That is one reason why we contracted Golder Associates to give us a picture of how we might proceed and how the economics would stack up.” It will depend on what is in the best interests of the NAN shareholders, he says, but he is looking at a precedent that was set with the discovery of the Reed copper deposit in Manitoba in 2007 by NAN’s sister company VMS Ventures. In that case a 70/30 joint venture with Hudbay Minerals was established, with Hudbay building and operating the mine and VMS retaining a minority interest. “That might be the route we take in Greenland.”

Regardless of the manner in which NAN moves forward its intention is to build a

Massive pentlandite-chalcopyrite mineralization in drill core from the Maniitsoq property

nickel-copper-cobalt-PGM resource that will lead to an exploitation licence application.

The Greenland government is supportive and keen to see this become one of the early producing mines – one that will put Greenland firmly on the world nickel map at a time when stalled infrastructure in developing economies is expected to get under way. Nickel demand is directly linked to infrastructure growth, a fact that will not be lost on investors as they look at North American Nickel.

North American Nickel (NAN)

604-986-2020 info@northamericannickel.com @NAmericanNickel www.northamericannickel.com

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Adr

Exploring new

Over the last twelve months Adrok has experienced sig its presence in key North American markets and words by

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Will Daynes

research

rok

w possibilities

gnificant gains, not just in terms of turnover, but also its acceptance into important sectors of industry

research by

James Boyle BE Monthly [ Aug 2014 ]

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Opening of our Canadian office with Prince Edward Islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Provincial Minister, Allen Roach (left)

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Adrok

usiness since we last spoke has been good for the company,” enthuses Adrok’s Managing Director, Gordon Stove. “We have been growing steadily and in the process increased our turnover for last year compared to that achieved in 2012.

At the heart of this has been our ability to win more clients, and with this they have brought us fresh contracts and new sources of revenue. What that means is that at this time we are well on course to increase that turnover again for 2014, so things are going very nicely for us indeed.”

That last time we spoke which Stove refers to was in March of last year. It was then that we spoke at length about Adrok’s plans to expand its international presence in core markets, specifically the United States through

B

North America through the opening of a new Canadian office. Since then, Adrok Canada has provided the business with a base from which to service existing clients in the region and develop relationships with the country’s prosperous mineral exploration industry.

“Canada is unique in that it possesses all of the land attributes we can use to demonstrate the versatility of our Atomic Dielectric Resonance (ADR) technology and its capabilities,” Stove says. “There is ice, snow, dry areas, water and high mountainous areas all present within the country, and one of our key unique selling points is that our technology is very portable. This means that we can take our technology and survey crews into areas that other large geophysics techniques, large seismic trucks for example,

“We have been growing steadily and in the process increased our turnover for last year compared to that achieved in 2012” the opening of a new office in Houston, Texas.

This office has been operation for well over a year now and is today helping to facilitate some of Adrok’s strongest areas of growth.

“In truth we planned for a relatively slow start when it came to our activities in the US, what with it being traditionally a more conservative market,” Stove explains. “With that being said we still challenged ourselves to obtain a certain number of clients and with the two new clients we secured at the turn of the year we have already reached our targets with only a quarter of 2014 behind us. Needless to say therefore that we are quite happy with the progress we have made in this important market to date.”

In July of last year the company also made the decision to increase its presence in

won’t necessarily want or be able to go. As a company we pride ourselves on our ability to be very nimble on the ground, as it were, and that makes Canada an ideal playground for us to grow into.”

Adrok’s bases in Canada and Houston also present the company with the perfect springboard into other key regions of North America. Its Canadian office will allow the business to test the waters of markets such as Atlantic Canada, Alberta, Colorado and California, while its Houston base will allow it to target the Southern US and Central America in the months to come.

By offering a faster, cheaper and greener alternative to traditional seismic exploration methods, Adrok has been able to draw together a portfolio of clients including those specialising

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Gordon Stove Managing Director Gordon has over 10 years’ experience in developing and applying geophysical and remote sensing diagnostic technologies. He is co-founder and shareholder of Adrok Ltd and has helped in the development of Adrok’s intellectual property portfolio. Since Adrok’s inception, Gordon has managed Adrok’s technology developments and managed its global services business. Gordon is currently a member of the Energy Institute, Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain, European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers, Society of Exploration Geophysicists, American Association of Petroleum Engineering, Society of Petroleum Engineers, the Scottish Oil Club, Institute of Directors and the Caledonian Club. Gordon supports young entrepreneurs as a Business Mentor for Business Mentoring Scotland, as well as for the Prince’s Trust Youth Business Scotland. Gordon holds a BSc (Hons) in Geography from the University of Edinburgh and is a PRINCE2 Registered Practitioner.

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in geophysical exploration and research. Indeed, the company’s record for winning contracts and projects in the mining sector has continued to gather pace, however a particular area in which it has been earning more business as of late is the oil and gas sector.

“Traditionally the oil and gas sector has been very slow to adopt new methodologies or technologies, with the average timeline in this sphere being anything up to 24 years,” Stove highlights. “While we have been around for 15 years, giving us a certain degree of legitimacy, the simple fact is that we are being approached for work because we have a proven history of saving our clients money.”

What the company is doing is providing a service to its oil and gas clients before

Adrok

Field crew scanning for oil in Oklahoma

they embark on drilling programmes and Adrok’s technology is being used to guide said clients to the best places to drill for success. Additionally it is helping to reduce the number of drill holes required, thus increasing clients success rates.

“With our success to date in the oil and gas sector we have begun to turn our attention towards also getting involved in projects of our own making, almost becoming something of a pseudo oil company ourselves,” Stove reveals. “At present we are working to pick up such projects and are embarking on negotiations with several companies in the US about coming together to operate joint undertakings. It means that our business focus will increasingly turn to not just

providing expert services to certain clients, but also towards taking an active interest in what we find in the ground.”

The oil and gas sector also provides the base for a field of expertise that Adrok and Stove are very excited to progress into. “I believe that a real breakthrough for the company in the near future will come from delivering advanced monitoring solutions for existing oilfields,” he says. “Within the vast majority of oil companies one will find an advanced oil recovery programme and we want to be a part of that. By installing a permanent installation in the ground, complete with our sensors and scanners, we will be able to monitor levels of oil and water in the ground, as well as steam injection, water injection and

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Field crew scanning on ice in Canada (on Atlantic Ocean)

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Adrok

“I believe that a real breakthrough for the company in the near future will come from delivering advanced monitoring solutions for existing oilfields” CO2 injection, which are all techniques for enhancing oil recovery. Being able to provide monitoring and surveillance services during the production phase is something we are very interested in capitalising on going forward.”

In addition to increasing its turnover last year Adrok also doubled its workforce to 25 people in 2013 and it expects both these facets of the business to continue along the same upward trajectory this year.

“Other immediate plans for ourselves include growing our bases in North America, while longer term we can work with the view of perhaps setting up a permanent presence in Australia and perhaps China, which are both markets we see great long term potential in,” Stove concludes. “In the meantime we will continue to provide our services to both existing and new clients, while increasingly utilising our technologies to identify projects of which we could ultimately become part or full owners.”

Adrok

+44(0) 131 555 6662 info@adrokgroup.com @AdrokLtd www.adrokgroup.com

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Alacer

Sulphide and oxide in

Alacer operates the world-class Çöpler gold mine that pr a record figure achieved with exemplary safety performa importance for Turkey’s g words by

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John O’Hanlon

r Gold

in golden harmony

roduced more than 271,000 ounces of gold during 2013, ance: this is the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s primary asset and of strategic growing mining industry research by

Abi Abagun BE Monthly [ Aug 2014 ]

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The first gold was poured at Ă&#x2021;Ăśpler in December 2010

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Alacer Gold

t puts the current gold market into perspective when one looks back just a couple of years. In 2012 when we last looked at Alacer Gold’s Çöpler gold mine gold prices stood at just over $1,000 an ounce. Since then they have risen of course to as high as $1,800 in mid-2011 before setting out on a steady decline. Nevertheless at the time of writing, at a level of £1,246 an ounce they are still above what was then considered a very positive level for the TSX listed company, which in 2014 expects to produce at Çöpler 160,000 to 180,000 ounces of gold at all-in cash costs of between $730 and $780 per ounce.

Alacer owns an 80 percent interest in the mine, with the remaining 20 percent held by its minority Turkish partner Lidya Madencilik

I

$322 per ounce. Mining of the Manganese Pit commenced during 2010, and mining of the Marble and Main Pits commenced during 2012.

The Manganese Pit has provided the greater part of ore thus far, however, the balance is planned to shift to the Main Pit from the second half of 2014. Processing of oxide ore started in 2011 with a three-stage crushing circuit nominally rated at 15,500 tonnes per day (tpd). Toward the end of last year a parallel clay handling circuit was commissioned to enable processing of ore with a higher clay content. The Çöpler plant now has a capacity of 17,000 tpd. The crushed ore is then delivered to the heap-leach pad.

To extract the gold from the ore, a lowconcentration cyanide solution is applied to the agglomerated ore on the leach pad using

“Following necessary changes Alacer is now well placed to execute our new strategy in a cost-effective manner”

San. Ve Tic, AŞ (Lidya Mining). Lidya Mining is owned by Çalık Holding AŞ, a multi-billion dollar Turkish conglomerate that is enthusiastic about Turkey’s mineral potential. Alacer first acquired an interest in Çöpler more than twelve years ago, and by 2004 it had acquired 100 per cent control of the property. At that stage, all it really owned were the rights to mine what was still virgin territory, however in 2009 it entered a strategic relationship with Lidya Mining, and construction of the mine began not long after, with the first gold being poured December 2010 and full commercial production announced a few months later. Çöpler exceeded expectations during its first year of operations. Commercial gold production came on stream earlier than planned and in total the mine produced 185,418 ounces of gold at a cash operating cost of

a low-pressure irrigation drip system. Doré bars are produced on site and transferred to third-party refineries for final recovery of gold and minor amounts of silver. Over the life of the current heap-leach project, approximately 63 percent of the gold contained in the oxide ore is expected to be recovered.

It has been a very successful low cost operation, in some contrast to the mines Alacer owned in Australia. The latter returned a poor operating performance, which coupled with the declining gold price last year convinced the directors that the best course of action would be to sell the Australian assets and focus the company’s efforts on Turkey. This was an opportunity for further restructuring and cost reduction, said CEO Rodney Antal in his review of last year’s performance. “The restructuring of our

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Alacer Gold

business has also included reductions in the management team and corporate overheads.

Following these necessary changes Alacer is now well placed to execute our new strategy in a cost-effective manner.”

He claims that better than expected oxide ore grades and a steady improvement in heap leach gold recoveries will contribute to making Çöpler one of the lowest cost gold mines in the world during 2014. There are

“I am very excited about the progress being made during 2014”

Securitas Turkey Securitas Turkey has been providing security consulatancy and private security services to Anagold Madencilik since 2008. The utmost proirity for Anagold is to ensure a process complaint with local employment and procurement policies in this project that hasn’t faced and security breach or occupational accident. With no occupational accident during the last year, sustainability of training to the security team of 46 persons is ensured by a company in Erzurum. Offering diverse solutions to each segment, Securitas takes its services further by procuring different perspectives to Occupational Health and Safety thanks to risk analyses. www.securitas.com.tr

The mine is high in the mountains

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two forms of mineralisation at Çöpler, oxide and sulphide forms, making the ore amenable to conventional open pit mining. The oxide ores are being processed in a simple crush, agglomeration and heap leach circuit. For the deeper sulphide mineralisation, Alacer is at an advanced stage of a definitive feasibility study (DFS) to evaluate the treatment of sulphide ore via a system known as whole-ore pressure oxidation (POX). It is notable, he adds, that the grade of sulphide ore mined during 2013 was significantly higher than had been predicted,

with positive gold reconciliation averaging 39 percent on a contained ounce basis. An extensive work programme is currently being undertaken, in conjunction with the DFS, to understand these positive gold reconciliations.

During 2013 Çöpler Gold Mine proved that it is truly a world class asset by producing 271,063 ounces of gold at total cash costs of just $429 per ounce from heap leaching of oxide ore. The mine has very substantial proven and probable reserves of 3.6 million ounces of contained gold and measured and

“Alacer is in an excellent position to capitalise on the transformational changes made during 2013”

271,063 ounces Gold produced in 2013

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Alacer Gold

The remote Çöpler Mine

indicated resources of 8.5 million ounces.

Located in central eastern Turkey, roughly 550 kilometres to the east of Ankara and 120 kilometres south west of the city of Erzincan, the nearest population centre is the town of ĺliç (population 3,000) which is just six kilometres from Çöpler. In 2013, the Çöpler joint venture started to fund a regional school in ĺliç. It is estimated that $2.8 million will be invested in this project by the end of 2015.

A surface gold mine is very different from an underground coal operation but there is no denying that the recent horrifying accident at the Soma mine in western Turkey has focused world attention on safety in the industry. Safety programmes include training for all employees, special training for exploration and emergency response teams, recognition for safety achievement, and a steady flow of information that keeps people focused on continuous safety

improvement. It is gratifying then to be able to record that in 2013 more than three million man-hours were worked at Çöpler without a single lost time incident (LTI) up to March this year – during a period when the mine hit record production, 28 percent better than had been predicted. “I am very excited about the progress being made during 2014 and the direction in which the company is now headed,” says Antal. “Alacer is in an excellent position to capitalise on the transformational changes made during 2013.”

Alacer Gold

+1-303-292-1299 info@alacergold.com www.alacergold.com

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Central Rand Gold

All that glitters is gold By utilising innovative methods and technologies Central Rand Gold is bringing commercial gold mining back to the City of Johannesburg words by

Will Daynes

research by

Robert Hodgson

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etween 1886 and the early 1970s the Central Rand Goldfield was intensively mined, with overall gold output estimated to have reached around 250 million ounces. All good things, as they say, must come to an end however and by the mid-70s a combination of factors including depressed gold prices, ageing infrastructure and the reduction in the availability of high grade reefs meant that the area was declared â&#x20AC;&#x153;worked outâ&#x20AC;?.

Truth be told, many lower grade areas of

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the Central Rand Goldfield were not mined at all during the aforementioned period of mining, thus leaving behind substantial quantities of gold-bearing ore. In more recent years these areas have becoming the focus of the exploration and mining activities of one Central Rand Gold.

An unhedged gold exploration and production group, Central Rand Gold today employs some 113 staff across its various administrative, mining and metallurgical operations. Having comprehensively

Central Rand Gold

researched the geology of the Central Rand Goldfield, tested various mining methodologies and devised a strategy to commercially extract viable gold despots from the area, the company received its first New Order Mining Right from the South African Department of Mineral Resources in August 2008.

To date the company has acquired a number of New Order prospecting rights. These assets are respectively known as Consolidated Main Reef, Western Areas A, B and E, Langlaagate,

Crown Mines, Anglodeeps, Village Main, Robinson Deep, City Deep, and Simmer and Jack. Central Rand Gold’s prospecting rights extend over an area of approximately 40 kilometres from west to east and seven kilometres from north to south.

Much of the company’s focus today is on its Consolidated Main Reef (CMR) operations, which has been split into CMR West and CMR East, and the Crown Mines development. CMR West is Central Rand Gold’s first mining target area, comprising

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SSC GROUP

Together we grow The services that we offer at Sekgwa Mining are: Backfilling • Primary service spans from backfilling to deep-level mining practice • Sekgwa mining can design and build of various backfill systems to a depth of 2200m below surface and with reticulation systems in excess of 50km Mining • Sekgwa Mining is able to supply the complete package for both conventional as well as mechanised mining

Why Sekgwa Mining Services?

• The mining solution is tailored to the mining method in place; • Risk assessments are undertaken prior to the design to ensure that all safety requirements are met; • Good safety and strong industrial relations track record; • 109 years of combined mining management experience; • Offers personal service by dynamic and passionate managers and staff +27(12) 665 5336 fred@sscgroup.co.za www.sscgroup.co.za

Sekgwa Mining is a black majority owned company and offers an environmentally friendly Backfill engineering service which allows companies to move some waste underground and mining services.

Our Core Values • Safety, Health and Wellbeing of our people and their families • Trust, loyalty and respect for all our stakeholders • Honesty, integrity and transparency in the way we conduct our business • Mutually beneficial, value-adding partnerships Contact Details: Sekgwa Mining Services (Pty) Ltd CEO – Fred Arendse Operations Director – Harry Becker Tel: +27(12) 665 5336 Mobile: +27(83) 455 1663 (Fred) Mobile: +27(82) 045 5980 (Harry) PO Box 68925, Highveld, Centurion, 0169

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Central Rand Gold

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Central Rand Goldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prospecting rights extend over an area of approximately 40 kilometres from west to east and seven kilometres from north to southâ&#x20AC;? an operational underground and opencast gold mine that utilises conventional opencast stopping and extraction methods.

This particular mining operation processes its own run-of-mine output through its own in-house processing facility that can operate at a capacity of up to 20,000 tonnes per month with an average recovery rate of around 95 percent.

In 2011, CMR West was responsible for producing 14,856 ounces of gold from underground and surface operations,

compared to 9,321 ounces in 2010. With a proven methodology, more than 6,000 metres of development in place, and mine depth down to 225 metres below surface, this mine has sufficient underground ore availability and is estimated to have increased underground production to 12,000 tonnes per month during later 2012.

Late 2012 also saw the company conduct feasibility studies on the CMR East mining right area. CMR East is expected to be the first additional project to be developed by

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Central Rand Gold. A significant benefit in the development of this as a new mining site is the fact that the current infrastructure at the adjoining CMR West mine will be able to be utilised. This will provide major cost advantages for the viability of mining the CMR East prospect.

Following the anticipated development of CMR East, it is expected that the Crown Mines West deposit could be the next to be developed. It is also undergoing pre-feasibility testing and a scoping study before any development decisions are made. The Crown deposit has a resource base of over one

million ounces in the indicated and inferred categories, and has the potential to produce in excess of 50,000 ounces of gold a year once fully developed.

It has been estimated by independent mining consultants Venmyn Ltd that, from the surface to approximately 450 metres below, Central Rand Gold’s current resource base is a level of 26.2 million tonnes of ore and 4.51 million ounces of gold, at an average grade of 5.34 grams per tonne. Furthermore it is estimated that from 450 metres down to a depth of 3,000 metres, another 120 million tonnes of ore exists. This ore is thought to

“Central Rand Gold’s mining activities within the vicinity of the Johannesburg metropolitan area requires a completely unique and environmentally rigorous mining plan”

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Central Rand Gold

well as the Social and Labour comprise of around 32.2 million Did you know?

Plan, which has to be carefully ounces of gold at a grade of integrated into the Johannesburg 8.34 grams per tonne.

Metropolitan City Councilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Central Rand Gold adheres 2008 Integrated Development Plan. rigidly to international best The year the For its part the company is also practices when it comes to company was conducting an Environmental sustainable development. To awarded its Impact Assessment and devising this end it pursues a policy of first New Order an Environmental Management openness and transparency in Mining Right Plan which involves widespread all its dealings with legislators, public participation. Affected affected communities and 133 communities and groups other stakeholders.

People employed have been broadly consulted All of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mines

by Central Rand throughout this process to are required to develop a Social Gold across its ensure a beneficial outcome and Labour Plan to demonstrate operations today for all concerned. how the mine will comply with In addition to the above, the objectives of social and Central Rand Goldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mining economic development and activities within the vicinity of the empowerment that are laid out in the Mining Johannesburg metropolitan area requires Charter for the South African mining industry a completely unique and environmentally in terms of the MPRDA. Central Rand Gold rigorous mining plan. To this end the company has indicated that it is committed to develop has been working to establish a new standard and implement the Mining Work Program, as

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Central Rand Gold

for environmentally safe, clean and nonintrusive mining in South Africa.

This new standard will see mining taking place within narrowly contained â&#x20AC;&#x153;slotsâ&#x20AC;? initially, proceeding to depths of 30 metres at first, and up to 900 metres within a matter of a few years. It is believed that this will be unlike any other mining operation in South Africa due to the novel mine design and the use of cutting edge mining and environmental technologies, many of them successfully in use in Australia and elsewhere today.

Great care has been taken in the planning of the proposed mine to ensure that environmental impacts are minimised and contained. The potential environmental impacts have been analysed in detail and the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) will incorporate state-of-the-art mining and environmental technologies. Slot mining methods will be used to access outcropping ore so as to minimise disruption to the surface, and mining voids will be systematically backfilled and rehabilitated.

Portions of the proposed mining area comprise disturbed land due to old mining activities which, due to the presence of old underground workings and disused shafts, pose a safety threat to nearby communities.

Central Rand Gold will strengthen some of these old workings and make safe old shafts, and will rely for the most part on a new underground network using state-of-the-art technology. The company will backfill some of the old disused tunnels and workings that currently make a rabbitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s warren of the area underlying the Johannesburg central business district, thereby making it safer.

Central Rand Gold

+27 (0)87 310 4400 info@centralrandgold.com www.centralrandgold.com

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Lighting up the isthmus Guatemalaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s energy network is undergoing a benevolent revolution that is bringing power to the Central American countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remote communities, transforming lives and catalysing business development words by

Will Daynes

research by

David Brogan

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ransportadora de Energía de Centroamérica S.A., or TRECSA for short, is a Guatemalan company dedicated to the business of energy transmission. The company was incorporated in 2010 following the award of a contract by Guatemala’s Comisión Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (CNEE – the National Commission for Electric Energy) for the construction, management, operation and maintenance of the first phase of the country’s Energy Transmission System Expansion Plan. This first phase is named PET-01-2009.

As a part of one of Latin America’s largest energy companies, Grupo Energía de Bogotá, TRECSA started the PET-01-2009 project in 2010, which will palt a big part in building a more cost effective, reliable and affordable energy service. As the company’s CEO Edgar Loaiza expresses it: “We are a relatively new company, but are able to draw on the commitment and world-class practices of a business group with 117 years of experience in the electricity sector, and 22 years in the natural gas sector, to deliver a modern power transmission system to the people of Guatemala”.

Guatemala is the largest economy in the Central American region. With a population of 14.7 million, the country accounts for 35 percent of the regional economy. However as recently as 2012, according to CNEE, the country was only obtaining ten percent of its

T

“We are able to draw on the commitment and world-class practices of a business group with 117 years of experience in the electricity sector”

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Steel gantries rise over the forest

TRECSA

“This is a nation-wide project and once it is built and in operation, it will benefit all families and companies in the country” power needs from electricity – 63 percent was still dependent on firewood. This is clearly an economy that stands to benefit massively from wider access to power. Growing demand, diversifying the energy matrix, and strengthening the power transmission system are among the main targets of the energy policy. According to CNEE’s demand projections, an increase of 80 percent is expected in the next ten years.

The generation sub sector is highly diversified. It includes hydroelectric, geothermic, biomass, solar and wind energy plants. According to official data, in 2011 Guatemala had a total installed energy capacity of 847 megawatts. “Taking this diversification of the energy matrix into full account, it is still necessary to develop a plan for increased generation capacity. In turn this will create a greater need to build and operate new energy transmission lines and substations, allowing electricity to be transmitted with high standards of quality and reliability from its production point to where it is consumed,” says Loaiza.

Over the years, Grupo Energía de Bogotá, as well as rolling out expansion projects to the major population centres in Colombia, has become recognised as a major player in the Latin American energy sector. Its role in Guatemala is an important step in its strategy to expand its influence, as acknowledged in the recent appointment of its President Sandra Stella Consecrate, as the head of the

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Comisión de Integración Energética Regional (CIER), an international organisation that works for energy integration and technical cooperation in South and Central America and the Caribbean. It is proud to be one of the 54 Lead Group companies in the UN’s Global Compact, recognised in the 2013 Dow Jones Sustainability Index under the emerging markets category. It was the first company in Colombia and one of the few in Latin America to receive a certification in energy efficiency, responsible use and consumption on completion of the ISO 50001 Certification.

Now all of this experience is being put behind the task of progressing an expansion plan that will deliver sustainable value to the people of Guatemala. By June 2014, PET-01-2009 was 79 complete (with 43 percent of construction in place), and the goal is to finish it in September 2015, with the construction of more than 850 kilometres of electricity transmission lines,

TRECSA

A new substation

“TRECSA is committed to sustainable development on a long term basis in Guatemala and the communities where the PET-01-2009 is being constructed” which will reach 74 of the 338 municipalities of Guatemala, at a cost of around $377 million. In addition to these lines, the company will build twelve new substations and expand twelve more in 340 rural communities. According to Edgar Loaiza the expanded system will be able to carry more than 200 MW. Of course, this is a highly technical project involving key international partners like Siemens, which is providing power, control, protection, measurement and communication equipment for the substations, and the Turkish group Mitas

whose expertise in steel pylon fabrication and erection has been key to the project. “We already have four substations constructed and ready to be energised and another 14 under construction. More than 900 towers have been erected and we are on target for completion of the project in 2015,” says Loaiza.

Community engagement has been one of his main concerns. “Because so many people are not used to electricity they have doubts about the project. Our commitment is to show them its benefits and scope. We do have the

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Power line under construction

task of helping people understand that access to electric power will transform their lives for the better. This is a nation-wide project and once it is built and in operation, it will benefit all families and companies in the country.

However it has already generated around 4,000 direct and indirect jobs”.

Additionally, he points out, TRECSA has implemented social programmes in the communities involved, in the areas of education, health, environment and productivity areas.

To date, TRECSA’s community volunteering arm Proyectos Voluntarios de Beneficio Comunitario (PVBC – slogan ‘You bring your time, TRECSA brings the materials!’) has benefited more than 8,146 families and over 4,858 elementary school students in 73 locations close to the network. “TRECSA is committed to sustainable development on a long term basis in Guatemala and the communities where the PET-01-2009 is being constructed, which is why we work daily to build trust and long term relationships with our stakeholders, acting with transparency, respect, trust, integrity and fairness” He is equally proud of the expansion project’s environmental credentials. “We aim to mitigate every kind of impact during construction, and of course we follow Grupo Energía de Bogotá’s guidelines on environmentally sustainable development, incorporating eco-efficient targets in our energy performance, waste management and water consumption, as well as the protection of biodiversity and climate change management”.

Among the initiatives undertaken in the last four years are LED lighting and stand-by solutions that turn the system off

“More than 900 towers have been erected and we are on target for completion of the project in 2015”

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TRECSA

Brand new control room

when is not in use, and collaboration with Guatemala’s Conservation Study Centre (Centro de Estudios Conservacionistas) in collecting samples of flora in the field and transferring them to the Centre for sorting, and expansion of the national database.

Another is monitoring particulate matter and noise at the construction site, and continuous archaeological oversight at substations and pylon sites in order to ensure protection of the cultural heritage of Guatemala.

The project has a fundamental role in the diversification of the energy matrix, emphasises Edgar Loaiza. “As from 2015 more than 30 power plants, most of them renewable, will be connected to the new transmission system, making Guatemala less dependent on oil by-products as an energy resource. PET-01-2009 will also contribute to strengthening the power transmission system by reducing outages”. It will also help bring electricity generation a lot closer to homes, businesses and industries

in scattered communities, enabling them to take a fuller part in the economic life of the country, he says.

Looking to the future, he anticipates TRECSA getting involved in many more projects in Guatemala – certainly the company has had a good start since it arrived, and is fulfilling its role as a much needed provider of infrastructure that will grow the economy and raise the standard of living of millions of Guatemalans to levels many of them have never dream of. He sums up in the simplest way: “We are proud of the ground covered and we expect to become a major player in the national electricity sector!”

TRECSA

(502) 2312 300 info@trecsa.com.gt www.trecsa.com.gt

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A vision for

Kenyaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future Geothermal Development Company (GDC) Electricity derived from geothermal resources will play a key role in Kenya achieving its Vision 2030 objectives.

Responsibility for this rests on the shoulders of the Geothermal Development Company (GDC) words by

Will Daynes

research by

Stuart Platt

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Geothermal Development Company (GDC)

t was in Larderello, Italy, back in 1904 that the world’s first geothermal power plant was constructed, a facility that continues to produce green energy to this very day. In the 110 years since then more than 20 of the planet’s major countries have integrated geothermal power into their respective energy portfolios, countries including the US, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, Cost Rico and Iceland. Kenya, meanwhile, holds the distinction of being the first country in Africa to generate electricity from geothermal sources.

A clean and renewable source of power, geothermal energy possesses a number of important environmental and economic advantages over traditional fossil fuel sources.

This particular form of energy is commercially

I

geothermal energy contributes approximately 209MW towards Kenya’s power mix, a figure which amounts to around 22 percent of the country’s total production, while its geothermal potential has been estimated to reach up to 10,000MW in the long term.

GDC came about as a result of the Kenyan Government’s policy on energy, which un-bundled all of the key players in the electricity sector in order to ensure greater efficiency. GDC’s role from day one has been very much tied to Kenya’s Vision 2030 initiative, one which it expects to contribute towards Kenya becoming a stable middle income economy. In order to attain Vision 2030, the government wants to be able to reach a scenario where the country is able to generate 15,000MW of electricity annually,

“A clean and renewable source of power, geothermal energy possesses a number of important environmental and economic advantages over traditional fossil fuel sources” produced from naturally occurring steam and hot water which lays trapped in reservoirs of permeable rocks below the surface of the earth.

Headquartered in Nairobi, the Geothermal Development Company (GDC) is a 100 percent state-owned business, formed especially by the Government of Kenya to act as a special purpose vehicle to fast track the development of the country’s geothermal resources. An indigenous, abundant and reliable source of electricity, Kenya’s geothermal resources are concentrated within the country’s Rift Valley.

It is here that some 14 fields can be found extending from Lake Magadi to Lake Turkana.

In addition to these fields Kenya also hosts several low temperature fields outside the rift at Homa Hills and Massa Mukwe. At present

5,000MW of which it expects to be derived through geothermal means. This will require a significant step up from Kenya’s existing total effective installed capacity of 1,533MW. For many years Kenya has relied heavily upon hydroelectricity, with perennial power outages forcing the government to invite emergency power producers who use diesel in order to generate electricity. The stopgap measure has been very much a double edged sword for the country, answering the immediate need for emergency power, but at the same time increasing the cost of electricity for the consumer and causing significant damage from pollution.

For its part the Kenyan Government has known for a while that the aforementioned negative issues cannot be allowed to

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Geothermal Development Company (GDC)

remain a factor as the country continues to grow. To that end it has commissioned GDC to take advantage of the country’s untapped geothermal potential and has provided the company with the mandate and means to drill as many as 1,400 steam wells to provide the required 5,000MW of geothermal power by 2030.

In addition to being tasked with promoting the rapid development of geothermal resources in Kenya, GDC is also responsible for promoting alternative uses of said resources.

Such alternatives include greenhouse heating, the drying of grains, the pasteurising of milk, and the cooling and heating of rooms.

Given the wide number of possible uses for geothermal resources it is unsurprising that GDC’s customer base reflects a variety of stakeholders from different walks of life, all of whom share a strong interest in the development of geothermal technology in Kenya. These customers fall into categories such as government ministries, development partners, independent power producers, investors, governments from the East African Rift System countries and local community groups.

Understandably, GDC is immensely proud to be spearheading growth in the geothermal energy sector. Since day one it has been the creed of the company to actively pursue all practices that are deemed capable of saving the environment from pollution. By committing to provide affordable, safe and reliable energy to as many Kenyans as possible, GDC by extension will be saving on the use of wood

National Oilwell Varco NOV, after successful delivery of drilling equipment to Menengai field, will partner with GDC drilling engineers to ensure they receive optimal performance from the equipment.

NOV will provide the BHA design, use of the downhole telemetry BlackBoxTM recording system, field-testing of a new PDC drill bit, and a team of expert drilling engineers to ensure optimal performance for GDC. www.nov.com

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fuel and will thereby be assisting in the efforts to protect Kenya’s forests.

As well as contributing towards the protection of Kenya’s natural environment GDC also makes every effort to highlight the work it conducts in supporting local educational needs, economic empowerment, the provision of water and health, and the preservation of art, culture and sport.

GDC supports the achievement of education for children in the areas in which it operates, while also equipping and rehabilitating educational institutions to establish model schools. These efforts are helping to contribute towards the Millennium Development Goal of increasing access to education at the primary level by 2015.

The Millennium Development Goal on

“GDC makes every effort to highlight the work it conducts in supporting local educational needs, economic empowerment, the provision of water and health, and the preservation of art, culture and sport”

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Geothermal Development Company (GDC)

the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 creates the imperative for all sectors, the corporate, civil society and government, to collaborate towards income generation, food security, job creation and poverty alleviation initiatives. GDC actively engages innovative young people from its areas of operation to improve the economic status of the communities.

When it comes to the health and wellbeing of these aforementioned communities, GDC recognises that clean water not only sustains life, but prevents water-borne diseases. GDC supports projects that conserve water sources and explore new methods of harvesting rain and underground water. GDC also supports the rehabilitation of water pans and sink boreholes for the communities. With regard to health, GDC

is working to facilitate access to affordable health care among local communities.

Last, but by no means least, GDC is also making every effort to work with individuals and groups to preserve and promote local art and culture for future posterity. The company also encourages and supports sporting activities which it and others realise helps to foster peace between communities.

Geothermal Development Company (GDC)

+254 719 036 000 info@gdc.co.ke www.gdc.co.ke

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Punta Cana Inter

Welcoming passeng

In the space of 30 years Punta Cana International A Republicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading destination for travel, but words by

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Will Daynes

rnational Airport

gers to paradise

Airport has grown to become not only the Dominican t also one of Latin Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier airports research by

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Frank Elias Rainieri, Director of Grupo Puntacana

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Punta Cana International Airport

overing an area of approximately 48,445 square kilometres, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation by area and is home to an estimated ten million people. Today it also represents the second largest economy in the Caribbean and Central American region and has the ninth largest economy in all of Latin America, one that was long known for agriculture and mining, but is now dominated by services.

The Dominican Republic can also lay claim to the much sought after title of being the most visited destination in the Caribbean, with tourism now being the driving force behind the nation’s economic growth. Increased tourism over the last several decades has brought with it a need

C

tourists within 30-45 minutes of the area.

Indeed the journey towards realising Rainieri’s vision was a drawn out affair with the passage of three governments occurring before permission was finally granted in 1982 to build what would become the first privately owned international airport in the world. Two years later, in 1984, Punta Cana International Airport officially opened its doors.

“In our first year of operations we received a total of 3,893 passengers,” Rainieri continues. “Since then we have grown at a rapid pace, experiencing a consistent yearly growth rate of around ten percent, to get to the point where today we service some 5.1 million passengers on an annual basis.

In that time we have also transformed into the most well connected airport in Latin

“We have grown at a rapid pace, experiencing a consistent yearly growth rate of around ten percent, to get to the point where today we service some 5.1 million passengers” for modern infrastructure across the nation, capable of servicing the ever expanding volumes of people visiting it.

One of the best examples of this improved infrastructure and of a development that encapsulates the prosperous state of the Dominican Republic in the 21st century is Punta Cana International Airport.

“The idea of building an airport in Punta Cana was first envisioned back in the early 1970s,” explains Frank Elias Rainieri, Director of Grupo Puntacana. Despite struggling at first to receive government approval for his plans, Rainieri realised that with the nearest airport to Punta Cana being some four hours away in Santo Domingo, the only way to develop tourism and bring revenue from tourism into Punta Cana was to bring said

America hosting many of the world’s leading airlines that today fly and from numerous destinations across Europe, South America and the United States.”

The incredible growth of the airport has also been a direct contributor to the increase in tourism to the Dominican Republic, and the positive impact this has in turn brought to the nation. Prior to the opening of Punta Cana International Airport the Dominican Republic is estimated to have possessed between 4,000 and 5,000 hotel rooms across it. Today, 30 years later, the figure stands at an impressive 55,000 hotel rooms. The explosion in tourism is believed to now contribute towards some 800,000 direct and indirect jobs, while tourism in the Punta Cana area alone is

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In 1992 the idea of creating a company that would provide the Dominican Republic with world class air transportation was born. The challenging idea at that time was to supply a demand for helicopter service otherwise non-existent in the country.

For this reason, HELIDOSA was created and since then has become the largest helicopter and jet service company in the Dominican Republic, and a pioneer in the regions aviation industry.

HELIDOSA has become a synonym of prestige in national and international markets, obtaining high brand recognition, based on its record of excellence in customer service and the highest safety standards supported by Argus Platinum.

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OTHER SERVICES National Premium Charter Service Striving to reach the highest standards of safety, quality and luxury using modern helicopters such as Bell 429 and 407GX, available to our premium clients for charter flights in the national territory and Haiti; departing from any heliport, airport or landing area the client requires.

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United States Jacksonville, Florida 1-904-655-4283 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic La Isabela International Airport, Hangar #1 and #14 1-809-826-4100 www.helidosa.com

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The leader in cargo handling Dama offer the following services: ≠ 24/7 services with excellent operations ≠ Cargo handling, palletizing and de-palletizing ≠ Charter flights authorized by the Board of Civil Aviation ≠ (Import-Export) and cold room. ≠ Terminal Services in Santo Domingo (Las Americas) Santiago-Puerto Plata - Punta Cana and La Romana

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T: 1(809)549-1703 E: administración@mcl.com.do jquintana@mcl.com.do

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said to represent around nine percent of the Dominican Republic’s total annual GDP. Over the last three decades one particularly admirable trait of the airport has been its commitment to careful expansion, growing in size and modernising in line with both the changing nature of the aviation sector and the demands of its passengers.

Less than two years ago, in November 2011, the operators of the airport went about expanding the facility with construction and integration of a new runway and air traffic control tower, while at present $100 million is being invested into the airport’s newest terminal building.

“Work on the new terminal began on 1 March of this year and we plan to have it opened to the public on 1 November, 2014,” Rainieri enthuses. “It is a completely new, state of the art building which will boast seven new check in areas, immigration arrivals and departure check points, duty free areas, a food court and other retail space. The new terminal building will help

dama Dama Airline Cargo Management, leader in Dominican Republic for Handling and Warehouse facilities on Import and Export Cargo, established in 2002, we have stations in all D.R. airports; also we have a warehouse in Miami, Florida – Dama Cargo Logistics, Corp to satisfy all your needs in cargo solutions and logistics.

We represent the following cargo airlines: ABX, DHL Aviation, Vensecar, Taca Airlines, Avianca, M&N Aviation, DHL Aeroexpresso.

Our facilities had been certified by FAA Inspections and our personnel receive courses on Dangerous Goods, Documentation, Warehouse Control and Handling. We provide business solutions and support to our customers and airlines. www.damacargo.net

MCL In 1995 MCL was established and registered as a line maintenance company in accordance with the Laws of Dominican Republic.

The company’s goal is to be the best provider maintenance service in our country for this purpose we are the largest aviation maintenance company based in Dominican Republic with presence in all D.R. airports.

We serve over a thousand flights every month and the best professional maintenance crew in D.R. with 15FAA A&P licensed technicians and 10 maintenance assistants with a wide experience in line maintenance. Our clients are Jet Blue, American Airlines, Taca Airlines, COPA Airllines, Air Transat, DHL, Aerolíneas Argentinas. administración@mcl.com.do

Punta Cana International Airport Terminal B

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PUROS DE HOSTOS Puros de Hostos Ltd produces with passion the world’s finest, totally handcrafted, cigars made from 100 percent Dominican organic tobacco developed entirely from Cuban seed. Founded in spirit by Bayoán de Hostos, grandfather of the current Master-blender, Gustavo A de Hostos, the company uses tobacco grown by the Reyes family in the Valle del Yaque renowned as one of the best places in the world to grow, cure, ferment & age tobacco for premium cigars since the early native Taino Indian people grew it as a powerful medicinal herb.

Puros de Hostos cigars are available at Punta Cana Airport, in the new cigar & rum duty free shop. www.purosdehostos.com

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us continue to meet the increase in traffic we are experiencing each year, at the same time improving the overall experience on offer to our passengers.”

There are several other major developments currently underway at the airport. A particularly important moment will occur on 1 July this year when the airport becomes equipped to welcome the Airbus A-380, the world’s largest passenger airliner.

“To date we have already had two airlines requesting permission to fly A-380’s into Punta Cana in the near future and we look forward to welcoming them to our airport in due course,” Rainieri states.

Outside of the airport’s passenger terminals efforts are also presently being made to expand its cargo facilities. “We are very much becoming a hub for cargo

Header folio

Punta Cana International Airport current Control Tower

“To date we have already had two airlines requesting permission to fly A-380’s into Punta Cana in the near future and we look forward to welcoming them to our airport in due course”

being sent between South America and Europe,” Rainieri highlights. “More and more businesses are seeing Punta Cana as the perfect middle ground between the two continents and are using us as a transfer point. The expansion of our cargo capabilities, through the building of a 5,000 square metre facility, is designed to meet

what we expect to be further demand for this type of service. This facility will be operational as of 1 October, 2014.”

This virtually unrivalled degree of flexibility when it comes to being able to invest in and renovate the airport is undoubtedly one of the greatest strengths of Punta Cana International, if not the greatest.

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You would be extremely hard pressed to find another example of an airport operator deciding in mid-November of 2013 that it was to make a $100 million investment in a new terminal building and subsequently having the plans ready and in place by the first week of February 2014 in order to begin work the following month.

“It is that combination of being able to mobilise efforts in such a short space of time and having a board of directors with such a high level of faith as to allow that amount of capital investment with no questions asked

has been hugely important to us over the years,” Rainieri says. “Our ability to make rapid improvements to our infrastructure and facilities, without having to embark on the long drawn-out processes that face government owned airports, is a massive advantage that we have over other airports in the region.”

It would also be remiss of me not to highlight that as well as contributing to the revenues brought into the Dominican Republic as a result of tourism, the airport operators also continue to make a

“We expect to have ten million passengers passing through the airport within the next decade”

Punta Cana International Airport arrival entrance

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Punta Cana International Airport

Punta Cana International Airport Terminal 2

concerted effort to support Punta Cana’s local communities. Ways in which it does go beyond simply providing employment to thousands of men and women, extending to the sponsoring of local schools, the funding of scholarships and the sponsoring of local hospitals, one of which it has helped triple in size in the last decade alone.

In addition to the aforementioned exciting developments occurring at the airport this year, Punta Cana International’s operators are buoyed by the fact that summer bookings for 2014 show a growth rate of 16 percent compared to last year, while tourism from the United States continues to sky rocket, with growth this year from that market expected to top 45 percent.

While things are certainly looking good in the short term for the airport’s operators, much of their collective focus remains on

what can be achieved in the future. “What we want to do is take the growth we are seeing today and push that further forward in the years to come,” Rainieri concludes.

“We expect to have ten million passengers passing through the airport within the next decade. Admittedly this is a big target to hit, and one that will involve the airport doubling in size, however it is one that we believe is fully achievable.”

Punta Cana International Airport

809 959 2376 customerservice@puntacana.com www.puntacanainternationalairport.com

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CE

Eyes to t

El Salvador is a small country but a fortunately transportation enterprise CEPA has the job of se of La Unión Centroamericana into a Centr words by

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John O’Hanlon

EPA

the east

y placed one: its government-owned multimodal eizing the opportunity to transform the new Port ral American logistics and distribution hub research by

Abi Abagun BE Monthly [ Aug 2014 ]

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CEPA

l Salvador’s Executive Autonomous Port Commission (CEPA) is the organisation charged with managing the country’s transportation infrastructure – its ports, airports and railways. Tracing its origin back to the 1950s it has accrued responsibility for a number of projects over the years in a piecemeal way. Over this period El Salvador has attracted international attention for some of the wrong reasons, taking attention away from the considerable strengths that derive from its strategic location at the heart of the Americas.

Nevertheless, since 2001 when it adopted the US dollar, Central America’s smallest country has grown to be the region’s third largest economy. El Salvador is located at the centre of the Americas, giving easy access to the north and south as well as the Caribbean

E

Transparency International’s 2013 Corruption Perception Index, this looks like a very attractive place to invest in. And that is before even mentioning its ports – but it does underscore the rationale for siting the Port of the Central American Union here, turning El Salvador into a platform for regional logistic services.

CEPA itself has had a bumpy ride over recent years, however, with successive government administrations failing to set a strategy for the organisation: it has been led by twelve leaders over the last 20 years, eight of them in the eight years leading up to the appointment of its current President, Alberto Arene. As an institution, CEPA has suffered from years of neglect. Low public and private investment during the last 15 years is reflected in the infrastructure and

“The creation of a regional platform for logistic services that will transform the old model is essential” markets, offering a large market to investors.

The country has good roads linking it with neighbouring Honduras and Guatemala. And El Salvador has the most modern international airport in Central America and the Caribbean, with 20 daily flights to nine cities in the United States, among other direct daily flights to cities in Central America, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Dominican Republic and the rest of the world. It has the capacity to move 2.5 million passengers and 30,000 tons of cargo on 25,000 commercial flights, a year.

Thanks to the investments made by the government in education, Salvadoran workers have been judged the most productive in the region. Add to that the fact that El Salvador is one of the most transparent countries in Latin America, taking the 83rd position among 177 countries worldwide, according to

management model of the enterprises administrated by CEPA, which pushed them into debt and reduced their value. Between 2003 and 2009, CEPA invested $126.69 million in building and equipment for the Port of La Unión Centroamericana alone. As of the end of May 2013, the financial obligations that CEPA had accumulated were in the order of $106 million, of which $85.2 million represents an outstanding loan due to JICA (Japan’s International Cooperation Agency) for the La Unión project.

But since Arene’s appointment two years ago the task of creating a roadmap for the future of CEPA has at last been taken in hand.

“The creation of a regional platform for logistic services that will transform the old model is essential,” he says. “Then we can create a new economy that is much more productive and

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CEPA

“The ferry will be a breakthrough regionally, allowing us to establish a multi-modal transportation hub” export oriented. CEPA must now connect El Salvador with the world and with the future!”

Now is the moment, as Central American countries wake up to the advantages of integration, hoping to create a Mesoamerican corridor that will extend down the longneglected Pacific Coast with a view to spurring trade ties to Asian markets. The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), between the United States of America, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, encouraged these countries to increase the compatibility of their trade policies; and in response Mexico took the initiative of harmonising its free-trade

agreements (FTAs) with various Central American partners. Central American countries have signed an FTA with the European Union and are negotiating with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). They also have FTAs in place with Chile and Mexico. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have an FTA with Colombia. Recognising the importance of trade with the East, Costa Rica has signed an FTA with China and Singapore. The other four members of CAFTA-DR have FTAs with Taiwan.

Don Alberto is an economist by training.

His goal is to turn CEPA into a modern and profitable company which will make a major contribution to the economic development of

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El Salvador and Central America. Currently, road transport carries for almost 40 percent of El Salvador’s external trade. This is a high figure compared to Europe, for example, where other transport modes account for more than half of all goods movements. The principal reason for this dependence on the road links is the disrepair of alternative infrastructure.

In Arene’s own assessment: “The railroad has been abandoned for 30 or 40 years; the International Airport of El Salvador for 10 to 15; Ilopango Airport for at least 20 years and the port of Acajutla for a couple of decades.” In

his estimation, CEPA itself was three decades behind where it should be.

That is beginning to change as he pursues a clear goal for CEPA, in line with El Salvador’s vision 2020. A key part of this is the government’s National Integrated Logistics Policy which aims to transform the country into a Central American logistics and distribution hub – a platform with a young, skilled work force, accelerated technological transfer, state-of-the-art logistics and industrial parks, an investment-friendly legal framework, and process specialisation in the

“We are setting our house in order after decades of abandonment, and now we are working towards very concrete goals”

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global value chains. “We are setting our house in order after decades of abandonment, and now we are working towards very concrete goals,” declares Arene. He wants El Salvador’s airports to be the most modern in Central America, with excellent cargo facilities and an experience comparable with international airports anywhere in the world. He envisages a new railroad system carrying passenger and freight efficiently within and beyond the country’s boundaries. But important as these aims are – vital even – the first task will be the revival of the ports. Acajutla should be developed as a specialised bulk cargo port with adequate storage and downstream business facilities – but the keystone project that will enable El Salvador to capture the potential of the rapidly growing trans-Pacific trade has already been completed.

This is the Port of the Central American Union, La Unión Centroamericana or simply La Unión, which is sited in the natural harbour formed by the Gulf of Fonseca in the south east of the country, in an area that has been starved of investment but is ideally placed for this key infrastructure project. The port was started in 2004 and completed in 2008, using debt funding from Japan. The plan was to then hand the port over to an operator who would provide the further investment needed to equip it and develop the adjacent land as a logistics hub and industrial centre. In the absence of any satisfactory legal and regulatory framework, the government financed the purchase of container handling equipment and built a 1,700 square metre cargo shed and the port was opened in 2010, directly managed by CEPA. The process by which an operator, or concessionaire, will be appointed has been progressing ever since, the ‘Law for the Concession of the Multi-Purpose Port Terminal of Phase I of the Port of the Central American Union’ was approved on September 8, 2012.

This statute, drawn up with the help of the IFC, allows CEPA to grant a 30-year concession to operate, maintain and develop the 346,578

square metre container port, including docks, yards and wharves. Bidding has taken place over the summer, and the result will be declared before the end of 2013, bringing to an end the uncertainty surrounding the project.

Whoever wins will be expected to invest an amount of at least $30 million in the first ten years and to purchase both the specialised equipment currently installed and to install whatever new equipment will be necessary, such as post-panamax gantry cranes.

The appointment of a PPP operator is aimed to coincide with the opening of a ferry service between the port of Corinto in neighbouring Nicaragua, and indeed the first sailing between La Unión and Corinto took place at the beginning of February 2014. The ferry will transport trucks and containers from Nicaragua to El Salvador and Guatemala.

Eventually CEPA would like to reach a transshipment agreement with Honduras, which also shares the Gulf of Fonseca.

Granting the concession and launching

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CEPA

“The commitment of a country towards the progress of its people can be measured by the transformation and modernisation of its logistic services platform”

the ferry will be the first big wins in Alberto Arene’s grand plan to integrate logistics platforms in Central America in a way that will finally give El Salvador the economy of scale that it needs to establish it as a destination for trans-Pacific freight. “It will be a breakthrough regionally, allowing us to establish a multimodal transportation hub here, cutting cost and time for the shippers.” At the same time, CEPA will be working on cutting the amount of red tape involved in customs clearance.

Multimodal supply chains are not something that Central American countries have had much experience in, so it will be a learning curve for all stakeholders.

In October 2013 four companies from South America, Europe and Asia presented documents to CEPA in the pre-qualification process for the concession of La Union port.

These were SAAM from Chile, the Spanish Grup Maritim TCB, Bolloré based in France and Philippines-based International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI), presented their experience in port management and financial capacity. A special committee has examined the documents, and in February 2014 CEPA invited the selected firms to present technical and financial bids.

Hand in hand with the port development and the ferry is the plan to create a land route that could be cheaper and quicker than the Panama Canal to bridge the Central American isthmus. The proposed Logistic Corridor, also known as El Canal Seco (the dry canal), is a 371 kilometre road between Puerto Cortés on the Atlantic coast and Puerto La Unión on the Pacific. The Logistic Corridor could turn

Central America into the most important logistic and distribution centre in the Americas, immensely benefiting El Salvador and attracting millions of dollars in revenue for both countries, as well as encouraging further development along the Logistic Corridor - particularly in the hinterland of Puerto La Unión Centroamericana.

That is another important upside to the Port. The project will revitalise the east side of the country, bringing in much needed jobs and investment. Large tracts of land adjacent to the port but not included in the concession will be available for development, encouraging entrepreneurship and further job creation. Above all, it will provide a much needed hub to facilitate transpacific trade into Central America at a time when the expansion of the Panama Canal has enhanced the strategic importance of the entire region.

As Alberto Arene puts it: “The commitment of a country towards the progress of its people can be measured by the transformation and modernisation of its logistic services platform.

This is true for any country but particularly for a small one like El Salvador, which needs to become organised and internally strong in order to be in a better condition to participate in regional and international competition.”

CEPA

(503) 2249-1212 info@cepa.gob.sv www.cepa.gob.sv

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DHL N

Delivering grow

DHL has been present in Nigeria since 1979 is helping to drive Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest ec words by

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Will Daynes

Nigeria

wth to Nigeria

9. Today its unrivalled service and expertise conomy to new heights of prosperity research by

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DHL employees scan parcels

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DHL Nigeria

reviously seen as being hindered by years of mismanagement, Nigeria has risen like a Phoenix in recent years with the economic reforms of the past decade contributing towards the country finally beginning to realise its immense potential. In the last two years alone Nigeria’s expanding financial, service, communications and technology sectors have contributed towards it being recognised as Africa’s largest economy, being ranked 26th in the world in terms of GDP and being on course to become one of the 20 largest economies in the world by 2020.

DHL, the world’s largest courier company, which today is active in more than 220 countries and territories, was first incorporated within Nigeria in 1979. “Like all businesses in the country, DHL Nigeria came from very humble

P

“From a workforce of just a few individuals, DHL Nigeria has since expanded to the point where today it employs in excess of 700 people in the country, all bar one of whom are Nigerian nationals,” Okereke continues.

“Meanwhile, in terms of volume growth, we began by handling less than ten shipments per day, whereas today we are responsible for the movement of more than 20,000 shipments into and around Nigeria on a daily basis.”

DHL Nigeria’s fleet of vehicles has also come on leaps and bounds since those early days, going from two motorcycles to a fleet of approximately 260 vehicles as well as the recent addition of a dedicated cargo aircraft, the only one of its kind operating in the country.

For the majority of the time that DHL has been in existence within Nigeria its economy

“DHL Nigeria has expanded to the point where today it employs in excess of 700 people in the country, all bar one of which are Nigerian nationals” beginnings operating out of a single office in Lagos,” explains Chrys Okereke, Country Commercial Manager for DHL Nigeria.

In the beginning the company was primarily tasked with the transportation of documents in and around Lagos, Abuja and other major Nigeria cities. In time it also became responsible for the distribution of goods and documents on behalf of other DHL divisions shipping into the country, before ultimately growing into a fully-fledged entity, delivering all of the essential services that DHL has become a household name for across the country. The service has basically entailed the transportation of documents and parcels both within Nigeria and to other countries across the world, as well as the delivery of inbound materials into Nigeria.

has been driven by oil and gas activities.

While oil and has remained the economic lynchpin of the country, with DHL Nigeria continuing to operate services both into the country and out of it to major oil producing locations such as Scotland, Norway and the US for transportation of equipment and resources, the growth of other sectors have brought about the prosperity covered at the beginning of this article, and indeed the continued success of DHL Nigeria.

“We have watched consumer demands evolve massively in recent years, bringing with them an ever-increasing need for our services,” Okereke says. A sizeable percentage of this demand for DHL’s services in the country is today coming from players in Nigeria’s booming e-commerce market. “In

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T +234-1-2773767 ext: 4068 E So_supply@sahara-group.com

www.sahara-group.com

So Energy - Fueling businesses across West Africa with quality products and services A member of the Sahara Group

DHL Nigeria

the space of 18-24 months we have seen a tripling in the number of e-commerce related shipments that we are handling on a regular basis. The ability for consumers to make electronic payments has gone from being a rare luxury to a widespread activity and this has subsequently become a core driver for our own growth.”

The emergence of the country as Africa’s largest economy has also resulted in a surge of imports into Nigeria, particularly from the likes of the large supermarket and retail chains based in South Africa which are looking to capitalise on increasing consumer wealth.

Despite having watched Nigeria develop into the thriving country that it is today, DHL Nigeria continues to take great pride in its commitment to helping support the people, communities and environments around which it itself have managed to blossom since those humble beginnings in the late 1970s.

Aside from the previously stated fact that the company presently provides employment to more than 700 local individuals, DHL Nigeria carries out its corporate social responsibility efforts via three pillars dubbed Go Green, Go Help and Go Teach.

“Go Green is all about environmental conservation and it is through this initiative

“We have watched consumer demands evolve massively in recent years, bringing with them an ever-increasing need for our services”

Within the distribution centre

So Energy So Energy is the downstream, retail operation arm of the Sahara Group, a leading privately owned Power, Energy, Gas and Infrastructure Company established in 1996 with operating companies active in the downstream, midstream, upstream, infrastructure and power sectors. Sahara has presence in different locations including Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.

So Energy has operational retail outlets in Nigeria, Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire, and is currently expanding its retail network into other African countries.

So Energy introduces to each marketplace a new model of innovative stations with distinctly

African, yet modern architecture. So Energy also provides dedicated diesel supply dumps for some of its business partners such as DHL Logistics, Mass Rapid Transport Ltd, Mbonny Logistics, NIBOL and many others logistics services to industrial companies that require fuel for their articulated trucks and heavy duty machinery needs.

So Energy is committed to delivering quality fuels and service with customer satisfaction as the key to our partnerships. So Energy, quality fuels and so much more…. www.sahara-group.com

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Aco construction compAny Limited

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We specialize in the construction of Industrial, Commercial, Social and Residential Buildings. We also undertake Remodeling/Refurbishment of existing buildings including Maintenance/Facilities Management.

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Email: info@perabeam.com | www.perabeam.com

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Your weekly digest of business news and views

www.bus-ex.com

DHL Nigeria

Fast dispatch by courier

“DHL Nigeria carries out its corporate social responsibility efforts via three pillars dubbed Go Green, Go Help and Go Teach”

that we work with various NGO’s and agencies to ensure that the environments in which we operate are preserved for future generations,” Okereke enthuses. “Our work in this field also includes the monitoring of our own carbon footprint, supporting programmes that are working to conserve native flora and fauna, and encouraging people both within and outside the business to work towards guaranteeing a sustainable future for Nigeria.”

Go Help is all about supporting local people and communities in times of need. This can include undertaking tasks including the recent renovation of an old peoples’ residential

home in Yaba, Lagos, supporting children with Down’s syndrome and blind members of society, all the way up to providing financial and material support to corporate and government agencies involved in disaster and emergency management.

“Go Teach is all about ensuring that the future leaders of this country have access to a high standard of education,” Okereke says.

“Through this initiative we have partnered with other likeminded corporate bodies to build/ renovate schools, and distribute books and educational materials to institutions within our areas of operation. We also continue to fund

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scholarships for children of both our staff and the wider community on a regular basis.”

In line with DHL’s global focus, DHL Nigeria’s priority going forward is to expand its activities and presence across the country.

To do this the company plans to improve its logistical capabilities by expanding its fleet, specifically its more unique modes of transportation.

“We introduced our dedicated cargo aircraft in September 2012 and in less than two years we have already exceeded the capacity for that 737-400 model,” Okereke reveals. “As a result we have decided that,

in order to continue delivering the same high level of service we pride ourselves on, we need to introduce a second aircraft as soon as possible.”

A separate, but equally unique, member of DHL Nigeria’s fleet is the boat that it launched only a matter of weeks ago, which is today being used to navigate the waterways surrounding Lagos and is resulting in a much faster means of transportation than that which is experienced on the heavily congested roads of Nigeria’s most populous city.

“We are also in the process of expanding our gateway facilities within Lagos International

“At the end of the day we only ever gauge ourselves and our performance on how satisfied the customer is once they have dealt with us”

DHL’s new river service at Lagos

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DHL Nigeria

The fleet has grown from two motorcycles to more than 250 vehicle

Airport,” Okereke says. “We are the only air express company present in Nigeria with its own separate gateway facility at the airport, however having gone from handling around eight or nine tonnes of goods per day to in excess of 16 tonnes in less than four years, we no longer have the capacity that is required.

Therefore we will be working to expand these facilities in the coming months in order to meet ever increasing demand.”

During the first 32 years of its existence in the country, DHL Nigeria operated a total of 19 offices at its peak. In many ways this relatively small presence created a situation where the majority of the population felt they could not access its services. Today DHL Nigeria boasts a network of over 250 offices and collection points across the country, a rate of growth that has brought it closer to the customers on whom it places such a high level of importance.

DHL Nigeria’s commitment is to make its services even more accessible to the

teeming population by setting up more service centres in the months to come.

“We have just introduced a new concept within the business that we call our Insanely Customer Centric Culture (ICCC),” Okereke concludes. “This concept captures the essence of what we are about as a company. Everything we do and every action we take is carried out with the ultimate aim of satisfying our customers. At the end of the day we only ever gauge ourselves and our performance on how satisfied the customer is once they have dealt with us. This has been our approach since day one and will be as we continue to grow.”

DHL Nigeria

0803 907 7000 info@dhl.com.ng @DHLAfrica www.dhl.com.ng

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Prime

fuelling

Primefuels has taken advantage of every opportunity to Central Africa and has grown in less than 20 years to a words by

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John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon

efuels

growth

o provide a much needed logistics service across East and partner for major mining, aviation and O&G customers research by

Abi Abagun BE Monthly [ Aug 2014 ]

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t is good to have a company name that gives a hint to what that company actually does, and from that point of view Primefuels is very aptly named. It is a company, or rather a group of companies, that specialises in providing bulk liquid and dry cargo logistics and transportation services to its customers in East and Central Africa. Headquartered in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, it is today present in nine countries in East and Central Africa, with a comprehensive regional network. In addition to 12 Operational Sites, it has offices and staff at 30 delivery locations in South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Malawi. In addition to its logistics business, it also has business divisions focused on fuel supply, lubricants distribution and management, aviation services, and customs clearing.

The needs in this part of Africa, which is principally served from the Indian Ocean ports of Mombasa in Kenya and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, are very diverse, and Primefuels serves them all. From the NGOs that are active in many high stress countries or provinces to the fast growing oil and gas and mineral resources industries, manufacturing, defence, energy and infrastructure, each sector needs to work with a logistics partner that really understands its unique requirements.

Primefuelsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; highly trained and professional staff numbering more than 500 are known for more than just their efficiency in ensuring that commodities reach their destination: they

I

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deliver industry leading standards of safety, health and environmental performance.

Primefuels owns a fleet of over 250 Long Haul trucks, and either owns or leases 430 dedicated rail wagons operating on the rail networks of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, but it was a different scale of operation when it started out in 1997 at Mombasa. Then there were just two employees engaged in moving palm oil and LPG by rail to Nairobi. Two years later the young company was awarded a contract to transport fuel to Geita gold mine by rail, shipping it to a depot in Mwanza from Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, and then by road to the mine.

In 2001 the company was established enough to invest in its own road fleet, operating out of the Mwanza yard. The next ten years were a period of consolidation and expansion and by 2010 Primefuels had a base in Mombasa, one in Dar es Salaam,

Primefuels

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Each sector needs to work with a logistics partner that really understands its unique requirementsâ&#x20AC;?

and finally at Kampala, Uganda. Kampala is the gateway to the expanding minerals extraction business in Katanga, however the instability of the region is well known.

In 2011 Primefuels was awarded a contract to move fuel to the the eastern DRC on behalf of MONUSCO the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the Congo, which is a massive organisation with more than 22,000 uniformed personnel engaged in intervention and humanitarian duties. It also secured a deal with Randgold Resources to supply its Kibali gold mine in the northeast

of the DRC, approximately 560 kilometres northeast of the capital of the Orientale province, Kisangani.

2012 saw the opening of another yard in Kenya, at Nakuru and the commencement of road transport services linking the port city of Dar es Salaam with Zambia and Malawi. Last year Primefuels strengthened its rail transport services on these routes, and diversified into aviation fuel at Tanzaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s southern deep water port of Mtwara, which boasts an airport where medium size passenger and freight services link it to Dar es Salaam.

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Primefuels

â&#x20AC;&#x153;As a partner to mining operations owned by leading international companies Primefuels has had to acquire deep expertiseâ&#x20AC;?

As a partner to mining operations owned by leading international companies Primefuels has had to acquire deep expertise not just in the reliability of fuel supplies but also in world class standards of safety and environmental best practice. It has become acknowledged within the region as a leader in HSE, and the company is certified to ISO14001, the standard governing environmental management systems. All of its vehicles are tracked and controlled by GPS systems and telematics ensure safe driving practices, monitoring

any infringement of permitted driving hours or excessive braking and acceleration. In the event of a breakdown, full backup plans are in place.

The Geita gold mine in Tanzania is one of the largest mines in Africa, and Primefuels has been its transport partner bringing in fuel and lubricants from Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. At Kibali in the DRC, in addition of transportation of fuel from Kenya and Tanzania to the mine site, the company supplies and manages the entire lubricants requirement for

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the mine, with a team of dedicated and expert staff on site. To these important partnerships can be added the transport of mining reagents and consumables from Dar Es Salaam to the Australian company Paladin Energy’s Kayelekera uranium mine near Karonga in Malawi. At Barrick Gold’s Lumwana copper mine in Zambia is supplied by road and rail from Dar es Salaam. All these operations are of course familiar to readers of this magazine, and form the best possible testimonial for Primefuels’ services

The MONUSCO contract brought Primefuels into a whole new set of requirements – clearly defence is the most exacting environment for any logistics company. Through its regional network of depots and offices it transports fuel to eight different locations in the DRC under this contract. With a dedicated team of professional expatriate managers in each of the key offloading locations in DRC, Primefuels’ ability to load in both Kenya and Tanzania means that it can service even an agency of the UN with professionalism

“The plan is to leverage the company’s expertise and regulatory status to roll out aviation fuelling to mid-size and remote airports throughout the region”

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Primefuels

and reliability, despite the risks and difficulties presented in a tense political environment and the ever present threat of lawlessness and conflict.

Primefuels continues to service its original sector, the palm oil industry with a dedicated fleet of IMO containers to ensures that the product is kept safe and free of contamination. As it has expanded though, it has taken advantage of each new opportunity as it is presented, and it is now ready and willing to take advantage of the rich hydrocarbon resources being explored along the East African coast – a situation that plays well to its established regional networks and proven levels of service. It has already begun to offer services to this market by setting up a dedicated helicopter fuelling operation in Mtwara.

The fuel facility at Mtwara is now complete, and Jet-A1 fuel can be supplied direct to the

customer’s aircraft from Primefuels’ own dedicated storage and ground handling facility at the airport. The plan is to leverage the company’s expertise and regulatory status to roll out this service to mid-size and remote airports throughout the region, which have traditionally been under serviced by the large players in the aviation fuelling market. For the private airstrips commonly used at remote sites by mining companies for example, Primefuels can use its portable storage technology to set up a temporary aviation fuel supply for its customer.

Primefuels

+254 20 2228807 admin.nairobi@primefuels.com www.primefuels.com

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Tata Zambia

A deep

partnership The Tata group has a long-standing association with Zambia which it chose many years ago as its gateway into Africa: its strategy is to leverage strong customer focus in diverse markets words by

John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon

research by

Richard Halfhide

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hough Tata had been selling vehicles into the Zambian market for many years prior to that through dealership agreements, it was in 1978 that the Indian industrial giant first established a company based there. This was the first to be set up in the entire continent, and though today the group’s African headquarters is in South Africa, and no fewer than 14 countries have their own Tata subsidiary, Tata Zambia, which also looks after neighbouring Malawi where it has a branch office, remains the deepest ingrained and most diverse of all national subsidiaries. As Ratan Tata said himself: “The Tata group has had an emotional tie with Zambia over the years.”

That at least is the view of Pankaj Khanna, who as Executive Director of the company leads and coordinates all of Tata’s interests in Zambia, where he has been based for more than 20 years. Of course he would say that, but the facts bear him out. The core business is the import, distribution and maintenance of Tata Motors’ range of commercial vehicles to the public and private market – commercial vehicles and buses basically – a sector in which he jealously guards Tata’s 75 percent market share of the market up to ten tons.

Before looking at the exciting plans the company has to grow its specialised contribution to the mining sector, it is worth looking at the sheer breach of Tata’s commitment to Zambia. “When we first came here we were just selling commercial vehicles,” says Khanna, “but we soon started to diversify.

At one time we were selling agricultural equipment and involved in farming and textiles.” Those businesses are now licensed out but Tata Zambia retains a wide portfolio under management. In a disposal of state businesses in the 1980s and 90s Tata acquired a bicycle manufacturer which is now run as an assembly operation using components from India.

Another unexpected business is the 193room five star Taj Pamodzi Hotel in Lusaka. A

T

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“Last year we launched our In Equipment (IC

Tata Ultra Truck

nfrastructure and Construction CE) division ”

Tata Zambia

part of Tata’s Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces brand, the hotel is owned by Tata Zambia and operated by the Taj Group. This is where visiting heads of state and other dignitaries stay when they visit Zambia. And if they are looking for comfortable vehicles to travel further afield, they will soon be able to visit the new Jaguar Land Rover showroom – the first JLR dealership to be awarded in Africa since Tata’s purchase of the iconic brand in 2006.

That the government regards Tata as a trusted partner is nowhere better illustrated than by the fact that last year the Zambia Revenue Authority awarded Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) a three-year contract for the modernisation of its domestic tax system.

This is TCS’s third revenue and tax system automation project in the African region after a successful implementation for the Uganda Revenue Authority and ongoing implementation for the Kenya Revenue Authority, though it has a track record of more than 20 tax framework implementations in India and the USA. It’s an integrated and multitax system covering VAT, income tax, PAYE, presumptive tax, turnover tax, mineral royalty tax, excise, property transfer tax, medical levy and withholding tax. Once operational, this system is expected to transform the service delivery to taxpayers, support the country’s sixth National Development Plan. It is expected to bring about a higher degree of accountability and transparency to the entire public sector.

Tata Zambia is also in the process of expanding into chemicals and healthcare products, however mining is the mainstay of the Zambian economy and Tata Zambia taps into this industry by supplying a number of mining products. These include valves, bearings, rubber linings, graphite electrodes (used in cobalt processing) and seals. Steel, mainly plates, is supplied to the local market, and tyres are sourced from MRF in India. But the big ticket items for the mining companies are

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under the heading of equipment, says Khanna.

“Last year we launched our Infrastructure and Construction Equipment (ICE) division, which supplies heavy equipment like graders and backhoes and excavators and dump trucks. Most of these come from India, but we also have an agreement with a company called STK in Singapore, and we are launching those products later this year.”

Under the new agreement Tata will distribute STK’s TRXBUILD and LeeBoy brands of heavy construction and road construction equipment in Africa. Customers in Zambia will not only benefit from a range of equipment specially designed for the

mining, infrastructure development, road construction and maintenance sectors, but will also benefit from Tata’s established customer support network. “All this equipment complements our own range,” Khanna points out. “Our truck range goes up to around 17 tons, and it is a good way to cover the market in competition with the established heavy equipment suppliers.”

This is a buoyant market. Last year the Zambian government announced a programme of renewal covering 8,000 kilometres of its roads, and Tata is busily negotiating supply and maintenance arrangements with the overseas contracting

“Most clients bring their vehicles to us for servicing, but for some key clients we provide onsite service”

Tata Zambia office

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Tata Zambia

Tata LPK 2516

companies coming in to do this work. In the mining sector, Tata Zambia’s largest single customer is First Quantum Minerals. However the majority of vehicles are currently sold to subcontractors to whom the large mining companies subcontract the work of moving personnel and materials. The vehicles it supplies are ideal for these customers, and another place Tata Zambia really scores is its ability to keep those vehicles on the road and earning. At its headquarters in Lusaka and its branch at Ndola in the Copperbelt the company maintains fully equipped warehouses and spares departments staffed by trained technicians. “Most clients bring their vehicles to us for servicing, but for some key clients we provide onsite service.

At Livingstone we have an appointed dealer so they can get service locally, and over the next six months we plan to open two more centres, one in the North-Western Province and another in the Copperbelt where business is growing fast.”

Training is part of Tata’s DNA, he continues.

Selected staff are sent to India or to South Africa for three months at a time, and teams from these centres come in to ‘train the trainers’ locally. The company has a second regional training centre at Ndola, he adds, where both Tata employees and customers’ staff can learn side by side about the entire product range. “It is what we feel really differentiates us in Africa. We have a brand that is known and trusted, a great track record, and a reputation built over many years.”

Without these essentials, the important element of competitive pricing would be meaningless, he stresses. There’s a lot of equipment available, but little that can boast Tata Zambia’s level of service backup.

Tata Zambia

+26 (211) 287 160 tata@tatazambia.co.zm www.tata.com

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Qua

Driven to

From a single eight seat minibus, Quattro has grown businesses, proving along the way that hard work a words by

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Will Daynes

research

attro

o succeed

n into one of Zambiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most important transportation and perseverance can see anyone achieve their goals

research by

Richard Halfhide BE Monthly [ Aug 2014 ]

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uattro was incorporated in 1993 and is the brainchild of its founders, Graham White and Dimitri and George Klironomos,” explains Administration Manager, Sanjika Phiri. “Beginning life with just a single eight seat minibus, Graham surrounded himself with a strong management team, and together with the company’s employees built it into the business that it is today, a multimillion dollar operation with a fleet of more than 500 vehicles.”

In 2005 Quattro began transportation work for the mines of Zambia and today boasts transportation contracts to ferry employees and goods for these mines. Besides personnel transport, it also deals in waste management for the mines and is able to provide equipment such as sewerage trucks, skip trucks and skip bins on a contractual basis.

Quattro also has a newly opened engineering workshop comprising engine reconditioning services including, crankshaft grinding, reboring, line boring, con-rod resizing, cylinder head repairs and reconditioning, injector pump and injector overhauls.

“We have branches in Kitwe servicing Mopani Copper mines Plc and Chambeshi Metals Plc,” Phiri says. “We also have three branches in Solwezi district that cater to Kansanshi Mine Plc, Lumwana Mine (Barrick) and Kalumbila Mine. Our total workforce currently stands at close to 1,000 throughout all branches” Initially focusing on the handling of imports into Zambia, Quattro gradually moved into the field of transportation. “Our first contracted transportation role saw us running personnel transportation on behalf of Chambeshi Metals to and from the Chambeshi Mine,” Phiri continues. “It was the seizing of this opportunity that allowed us to get a foothold in the mining market. Subsequently we established a strategy to achieve considerable growth, one that saw us investing in our fleet of vehicles and equipment in order to seize

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“Together the company’s e business that it is today, a m with a fleet of more

employees built it into the multi-million dollar operation e than 500 vehicles”

Quattro

the initiative once contracts became available at the next mine site.” There can be little doubt that this strategy would prove to be effective, what with Quattro today servicing five of Zambia’s six largest mining operations.

That is not to say that Quattro is a company happy to remain static once an initial goal has been reached. Far from it in fact, what with the company making strong moves in the last several years to further diversify its service offering, one that already includes the transportation of explosives, hazardous materials and waste products.

One of the more recent developments involving Quattro has been its opening of a dedicated trucking division. Here the company operates a fleet of international trucks tasked with the haulage of materials such as copper or cement. The copper these trucks carry is typically being carried to mine sites across South Africa where it can be processed.

Understandably it is a source of great pride that Quattro today finds itself involved in such a large scale industry as the copper trade.

“Diversification can, without question, be a challenging process, however it has long been a belief of those of us within Quattro that one shouldn’t necessarily keep all of their eggs in one basket,” Phiri states. “Having honed our skills in the field of passenger transport it was decided that one of the best ways of creating new business opportunities, and in turn greater employment, was to branch out into other fields like trucking.”

The challenge at the heart of any new undertaking is the time it takes to adapt to new ways of conducting operations, a process that extends to multiple areas of Quattro’s own business including staff training, risk management, and health and safety.

“When it comes to passenger transportation we are accountable first and foremost to our clients, the mines themselves, and safety is key as there is no compromise when it comes to human life,” Phiri says. “Each client possesses certain standards that they live by and it is

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our responsibility to ensure that we comply 100 percent with those standards while providing no room for error. These clients expect nothing but the best from their service providers and we go all out to ensure that we meet those expectations.”

Maintaining the highest levels of standards also defines the ways in which Quattro approaches its handling of explosives, waste and other hazardous materials. “Working within and around mine sites makes for a hugely unique logistical environment, one

where the absence of tar roads makes for extremely harsh conditions in which to transport goods and personnel. Such a climate calls for the highest of safety standards to be maintained at all times, with vehicles also being serviced frequently. Safety is key at all times, especially when it comes to explosives and hazardous materials. A lot of people tend to think that because all of what we do involves transportation all the same rules must apply, however that is very far from the truth.”

When it comes to the future of the

“Clients expect nothing but the best from their service providers and we go all out to ensure that we meet those expectations”

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Quattro

company, Quattro’s immediate goal is to maintain a steady ship, whilst continuing to identify potential opportunities that could result in further growth forward, including the possibility of venturing across Zambia’s borders into the Congo to work for some of the mines there. In the meantime however, the company is more than happy to be growing steadily in line with the mines and clients it serves, and who have contributed towards Quattro’s growth.

“There is a bit of a misconception among some people that only big, multi-national investors can come into Zambia and be successful, however what Quattro, under the guidance of Graham White, has done is prove this to be untrue,” Phiri concludes. “We are

a Zambian company that has grown from strength to strength as a business, while also ensuring that we do our bit to help others whether that be in the form of employment or supporting schools, orphanages and others in need. What Graham and Quattro as a whole have achieved to date proves that if you put your mind towards something and if you persevere and work towards your goals anything can be achieved.”

Quattro

+260 21 221 0442 sanjika.phiri@quattro.co.zm

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Kansai Plascon

Why green is more than just a colour With a legacy dating back 125 years, Kansai Plascon not only remains one of South Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier companies, but also one that committed towards a sustainable, environmentally considerate future words by

Will Daynes

research by

Vincent Kielty

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hen a young Welshman by the name of Herbert Evans first arrived in Johannesburg in 1889 he probably would never have believed that in 2014 a company would exist that traces its history back well over a century. It was however the young Mr Evans who introduced the production of floor polish, carriage varnish and ready-mixed tinted paints to the country of South Africa.

In the years that followed, Herbert Evans & Co. would go on to expand rapidly, while

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at the same time developing an unmatched reputation for innovation, quality and customer service. The success of Herbert Evans and his company was not lost on others, specifically Solly Rudner, an individual who would go on to cultivate a similar reputation with Chrome Chemicals, a company which manufactured Plascon Paint, and other products.

The Plascon Paint brand would in fact go on to become so popular that its success led to the creation of a whole new business entity, Plascon Paints and Chemical Industries,

Kansai Plascon

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The company guarantees that when a customer uses its any of its seven premium quality paint brandsâ&#x20AC;?

in 1945. Within 25 years of the new entity being established it has become a whollyowned subsidiary of Barsab, the mining services group co-owned by SAB and Thomas Barlow & Sons Ltd. A year after this, in 1970, Plascon Paints and Chemical Industries would embark on a highly anticipated merger with the aforementioned Herbert Evans & Co to form Plascon Evans.

Most recently, in 2012, the company was formally renamed Kansai Plascon following a merger with Japanese company Kansai

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Kansai Plascon

Paint, the world’s sixth largest coatings company. Today the company continues to drive innovation and excellence in the retail, trade, industrial and furniture coatings markets in South and Southern Africa, all while championing the Plascon brand. It does so from its three strategically placed manufacturing sites in Mobeni, KwaZuluNatal, Luiperdsvlei in Krugersdorp, and Epping in Cape Town.

Kansai Plascon prides itself on the fact that it appreciates that a person’s home is their greatest investment and that maintaining it can be an expensive business. Nevertheless it is an investment that ensures that one’s home retains its long term value. With this in mind the company guarantees that when a customer uses its any of its seven premium quality paint brands, Double Velvet, Cashmere, Velvaglo, Bathrooms and Kitchens, Wall and All, Micatex and Nuroof Cool, they end up with the finest finish and long lasting results.

Kansai Plascon’s seven year Quality Guarantee pledge on these premium brands proves that the use of higher quality paint reduces the overall cost of coating over time by around 50 percent when factoring in the paint and labour costs of having to repaint sooner with lesser quality paints.

Plascon wholeheartedly believes that its technically advanced products, coupled with thorough surface preparation and

NETZSCH The Business Unit Grinding & Dispersing, with its headquarters in Selb/Germany, offers a comprehensive program for the many challenges in mechanical process engineering. Here the Business Unit is primarily involved in the areas of wet and dry grinding, mixing, dispersing, de-aeration and classifying. The laboratory- and productionscale machines, as well as complete production lines, are used in almost all areas of industry, such as the forward-looking nanotechnology, the production of paint and ink, minerals or foods.

The bundling of processing know-how, our extensive machine program, solutions for customer-specific problems and our global presence are unique and hence the strength of the Business Unit Grinding & Dispersing. www.netzsch.com/gd

“Equal pride within the company stems from its South African heritage and with this comes a strong sense of social responsibility”

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“The company continues to pioneer the use of environmentally sensitive products, all the while without compromising the exceptional standards and performance that it has become so well known for”

correct application, will leave one’s home protected and looking beautiful for longer.

Equal pride within the company stems from its South African heritage and with this comes a strong sense of social responsibility.

Kansai Plascon is actively committed to investing in local communities and upliftment programmes across the country, as well as providing ongoing employee education on environmental and health issues.

In addition to supplying paint and in some cases, funding, to various schools, children’s homes, orphanages and crèches, the company’s involvement with the free CID University in Johannesburg has helped to train and employ many students to carry out building and maintenance work on the campus. Kansai Plascon is also a member of Business and Arts South Africa, an organisation dedicated to ensuring the sustainability of arts across the region, and one of its employees assists directly with their mentoring programme.

Other important foundations and agencies including The Wilderness Leadership Foundation, Endangered Wildlife Trust, and the SPCA have also received assistance from Plascon. In East London there even exists what the company describes as a “a very grateful” penguin called Molly, who, thanks to Plascon’s sponsorship after she was rescued from an oil spill, enjoys a happy, healthy life at the local aquarium.

Kansai Plascon also accepts and acknowledges its responsibility towards the

encouraging of a culture that is dedicated to progressive and sustainable solutions.

Green, the company claims, is not just a colour in its mind. Rather what Green represents is a commitment to implementing environmentally considerate practices in every aspect of its business.

Striving to inspire more ecological considerate decisions, the company has responded to the challenge by innovating unparalleled sustainable solutions based on the three key pillars of compliance, sustainability, and products.

Kansai Plascon has successfully implemented Environmental Management Systems in each of its South African manufacturing plants, and attained ISO 1 4001 certification at all of them, while it has also continued to develop and implement groundbreaking environmental processes to ensure that its future remain sustainable. Lastly, the company continues to pioneer the use of environmentally sensitive products, all the while without compromising the exceptional standards and performance that it has become so well known for.

Kansai Plascon

+27(21) 505 2400 info@plascon.co.za @Plascon www.plascon.co.za

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