Business Focus Magazine BFM 86

Issue No.86

SPECIAL FEATURE: SUSTAINABLE MINING

BANHAM POULTRY

Established poultry company is driving innovation in the field.

BLUEJAY MINING

Greenland’s premier mining company, releasing the island's potential.

AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

OVER THE RAINBOW Exclusive interview with CEO Andre Joubert on seeking out new opportunities in South Africa.

Alacer Gold | Golden Opportunity | GB Railfreight | Rail for the 21st Century GrowGeneration | Home Depot of Cannabis | Orexo | A Healthy Mindset DecoArt | Artful Inspiration | Joice & Hill | Quality Genetics Come First

WWF-KENYA

World Wide Fund for Nature's Kenyan affiliate on six decades of positive impact.

FEATURE YOUR BUSINESS With a global readership of over 290,000, Business Focus Magazine is the perfect platform to place your business in front of our Senior Executive level audience.

CONTACT SALES & MARKETING DIRECTOR:

TREVOR GRETSINGER | t.gretsinger@ceomediagroup.com

EDITOR’S NOTE

PROJECT MANAGERS ANDREW BOURKE a.bourke@ceomediagroup.com DEAN BROWN d.brown@ceomediagroup.com DAVID GARNER d.garner@ceomediagroup.com TIMOTHY GARWOOD t.garwood@ceomediagroup.com JOHN HOLLIMAN j.holliman@ceomediagroup.com MAX HUTCHINGS m.hutchings@ceomediagroup.com CONNOR LOVE c.love@ceomediagroup.com LEE PHOENIX l.phoenix@ceomediagroup.com DAVID TAVERNOR d.tavernor@ceomediagroup.com HAYDEN TURNER h.turner@ceomediagroup.com RASH UDDIN r.uddin@ceomediagroup.com

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FOCUS ON REBUILDING After a few false starts, summer is rolling in, and there is definitely a sense of optimism in the air. Our conversations with business leaders are becoming less and less about “surviving” the current crisis, and more about rebuilding, and even moving onto greater things moving forward.

O

ne industry that underpins all these others is the mining sector. In many ways, it is the foundation of all other businesses - whatever line of work you are in, the tools you are using, be it a laptop or a lathe, contain materials that started as raw ingredients, which had to be dug out of the ground.

The importance of the mining sector is even clearer in the face of the incoming energy transition and in our lead feature of this issue we look at how the mining industry is managing its environmental, but also its social footprint.

On top of that, this issue we have been talking to a huge swathe of the mining industry, in a variety of sectors and locations around the world. These include gold mining companies such as Gran Colombia Gold, Premier Goldmines, Alacer Gold and Goldsource Mines, and bauxite mining operations such as Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée SA. We look at companies such as African Rainbow Minerals and Africa Mining Underground, based in Africa, to Mexico-based companies such as Telson Mining, then all the way around the world to Pan Asia Metals.

But as ever, mining is only one of the industries we look at in this magazine. We have been talking with healthcare and leisure companies, Orexo and OD Ground, and construction firms such as Al Jaber Engineering and Bradbury Group.

We have also got some cracking articles about the egg and poultry production industry, through our profiles of Joice & Hill and Banham Poultry.

And that is only the beginning, as we cover the agricultural, logistics and aerospace industries. All of which, in one way or another, depend on mining.

ON THE COVER

AFRICA RAINBOW MINERALS Go to page 16.

Issue No.86

SPECIAL FEATURE: SUSTAINABLE MINING

BANHAM POULTRY

Established poultry company is driving innovation in the field.

BLUEJAY MINING

Greenland’s premier mining company, releasing the island's potential.

AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

OVER THE RAINBOW Exclusive interview with CEO Andre Joubert on seeking out new opportunities in South Africa.

Alacer Gold | Golden Opportunity | GB Railfreight | Rail for the 21st Century GrowGeneration | Home Depot of Cannabis | Orexo | A Healthy Mindset DecoArt | Artful Inspiration | Joice & Hill | Quality Genetics Come First

WWF-KENYA

World Wide Fund for Nature's Kenyan affiliate on six decades of positive impact.

EDITOR’S NOTE | 3

IN THIS ISSUE

8

13

16

36

EVENT

AI Expo Africa 2021 Virtual Conference 7th - 9th September 2021 Africa’s Largest AI, RPA & Smart Tech Trade Show & Conference

NEWS

Sustainable Mining A Better Industry Footprint

LEADING ARTICLE

African Rainbow Minerals Over the Rainbow

AGRICULTURE & FARMING Banham Poultry Birds of the Feather

48

GrowGeneration The Home Depot of Cannabis

58

Joice & Hill Where Quality Genetics Come First

68 74

16

36

AVIATION, AEROSPACE & DEFENCE

Blaise Diagne International Airport Ready to Take Off Lisi Aerospace Rising to the Challenge

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86

92 96

68 4 | CONTENTS

102

COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY Zamtel Oustide the Lines

CONSERVATION

WWF-Kenya Sustaining Nature for the Benefit of People

CONSTRUCTION

Al Jaber Engineering High Quality, Delivered Fast Bradbury Group Opportunity Knocks

CONSULTANCY

Man Commercial Protection In Safe Hands

BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

ISSUE NO. 86

86

180

Gran Columbia Gold Giving Back More

186

Pan Asia Metals An Opportunity to Produce

192

St Barbara Mining Values-Led Mining

198

Telson Mining Corporation From Au to Zn

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114 120

124 130

136

ENERGY & UTILITIES

Lake Turkana Wind Project Powering the Nation

210

HEALTHCARE, HOTEL & LEISURE

214

OD Group The New Face of Hospitality Orexo A Healthy Mindset

SHIPPING, PORT & MARINE

Campbell Shipping & Cambell Bulk The Complete Shipping Solution

TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS

Eswatini Railways Connecting Eswatini to the Future GB Railfreight Rail for the 21st Century

150

MANUFACTURING

Aludium The Star of Aluminium Decoart Artful Inspiration

MINING

African Underground Mining Services A Foundation of Knowledge

142

Alacer Gold Golden Opportunity

150

Bluejay Mining PLC The Arctic Promise

168

Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée More Than Just Bauxite

172

Equinox Gold The Americas’ Premier Gold Producer

176

Goldsource Mines Enjoying the Simple Things

BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

214 CONTENTS | 5

Find your way out of a complex operating model.

Let’s talk.

Operations Strategy | Digital | Cultural Engineering

Global io

- integrated operations experts.

globalio.com

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EVENT OF THE MONTH

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EVENT OF THE MONTH | 9

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SUSTAINABLE MINING

WITH ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY AND THE GREEN ENERGY TRANSITION ON THE HORIZON MINING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER, BUT THE INDUSTRY IS ALSO ADDRESSING ITS FOOTPRINT.

A BETTER INDUSTRY FOOTPRINT This May the Mining Association of Canada released its new Towards Sustainable Mining® Climate Change Protocol. Its goal is to reduce the mining sector’s carbon footprint while enhancing climate change disclosure and strengthening the sector’s ability to adapt to climate change.

BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

T

hey are not alone in this priority- the necessary green revolution will be built on resources that need to come out of the mining industry, but that mining must be carried out sustainably.

“Our mined materials are required inputs for green technology, like electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines and solar panels, and these minerals and metals must be responsibly sourced with the smallest GHG footprint possible,” said Pierre Gratton, MAC’s President and CEO.

The new Climate Change Protocol improves upon the old Energy Use and GHG Emissions Protocol by introducing stronger requirements for energy use and GHG emissions management, performance, and reporting at the facility level. It sets a new bar for best practice in the industry, and at a time when that is more necessary than ever.

“Climate change is an issue that matters to all of us,” Gratton said. “Minimizing our industry’s environmental footprint also makes good business sense

NEWS | 13

SUSTAINABLE MINING

as investors are looking for companies to disclose how they are managing climaterelated risks and considering these risks in their business strategies.”

The new protocols have been welcomed by industry leaders such as Margaret Childe, Head of ESG, Public Markets, Canada, at Manulife Investment Management. Childe said of the protocols, “While we believe metals and minerals are critical to transitioning to a low carbon economy, the mining sector will need to join others in embracing aggressive climate targets to pursue the objective that those materials are produced at the lowest carbon intensity possible.”

A MORE EFFICIENT MINE

This drive isn’t just limited to Canada, and the motivation behind greater energy efficiency and fewer emissions isn’t just environmental. In this issue, we talk with Andre Joubert, CEO of Africa Rainbow Minerals. One of the challenges Africa Rainbow Minerals faces is an unreliable electricity grid, driving the mining operations towards more sustainable solutions.

“We’re taking proactive steps, and in the smelting business, we’re looking at technology we can use to produce at significant lower electricity consumption,” Joubert tells us. “We’re doing a good deal of research work to enable us to do more to produce at a much more leisurely liability on electricity.”

This is part of a multi-faceted approach aimed at elevating and updating every part of the industry. It includes information technology, digitalisation, and the shift over to more centrally controlled operations.

“We’re working very closely with original equipment suppliers Epiroc with an order for a loader and a better electric 20-ton dump truck,” Joubert tells us. “The emissions of these units will be zero, improving efficiencies and working conditions.”

THE SOCIAL DIMENSION

Reducing emissions and using technology more efficiently is only half of the battle, however.

Mining operations take place among local communities and their footprint is not only a carbon one. Mining companies are increasingly aware that their projects will impact the people

“CLIMATE CHANGE IS AN ISSUE THAT MATTERS TO ALL OF US. MINIMIZING OUR INDUSTRY’S ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT MAKES GOOD BUSINESS SENSE, AS INVESTORS ARE LOOKING FOR COMPANIES TO DISCLOSE HOW THEY ARE MANAGING CLIMATE-RELATED RISKS & CONSIDERING THESE RISKS IN THEIR BUSINESS STRATEGIES.”

14 | NEWS

SUSTAINABLE MINING

who live around them, and they are investing in making sure that impact is a positive one.

“Nowadays a mining company cannot exist without a social license. It’s essential to connect with the culture and beliefs of the communities you are working among,” says Lombardo Paredes, Gran Colombia Gold’s CEO, the company’s profile later in this issue.

Fortunately, Gran Colombia Gold has been able to base that relationship on the many benefits its large-scale exploitation of gold resources has brought to those communities. Jose Ignacio Noguera, Corporate VicePresident of Gran Colombia Gold, adds that it is not enough for companies to work in isolationthere is an entire ecosystem that must be taken into account.

“At Gran Colombia Gold we believe that coordinating work between private companies, local

municipalities and communities is the best way to achieve a positive impact in the region and the country,” says Noguera.

“In the company, we understand the importance of our operation for its economic contribution to the territories where we have a presence. Our company depends on the livelihood of our workers and their families.”

This sense of collaboration is reflected elsewhere in the industry. In our interview with Pan Asia Metals this issue we learn about their close work not just alongside communities, but as part of the communities.

“With exploration and mining projects if you’re not accepted by your community, you might get your licence but you won’t get buy-in from the local population,” says Paul Lock, Managing Director of Pan Asia Metals.

“Many companies have failed because of community backlash.”

Lock acknowledges that a mining operation can bring

negatives to local communities, and so it falls upon the mining company to make that worth the while for those communities with jobs and opportunities.

“If we dig a hole in the ground, they accept the negatives are outweighed by having that project in and around their community,” Lock tells us. “We focus on education, health, and sports, and donate where it’s needed.”

The mining industry is going to be a vital part of our journey to a greener future, whether it is in batteries and the nickel and cobalt they require, to the metals that go into our circuit boards and wiring.

The challenge that faces the mining industry is ensuring that the environmental cost of harvesting these resources does not outweigh the benefits, but it is also about making sure those benefits are extended to the communities they are working within.

“NOWADAYS A MINING COMPANY CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT A SOCIAL LICENSE. IT’S ESSENTIAL TO CONNECT WITH THE CULTURE AND BELIEFS OF THE COMMUNITIES YOU ARE WORKING AMONG.”

NEWS | 15

AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

WE TAKE A LOOK AT A YOUNG, ENTREPRENEURIAL MINING COMPANY SEEKING OUT NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN SOUTH AFRICA.

OVER THE RAINBOW PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) is a relatively young company, having been founded in its current form in 1994.

Today it is a leading South African diversified mining and minerals company with long-life, low unit cost operations.

ARM mines and beneficiates iron ore, manganese ore, chrome ore, platinum group metals (PGMs), nickel and coal. ARM also produces manganese and chrome alloys, and has an investment in gold through its shareholding in Harmony.

16 | LEADING FEATURE

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

A

RM’s strategy is to deliver competitive returns for shareholders while creating value for all stakeholders. “ We deliver our strategy by operating our assets safely, responsibly and efficiently while allocating capital to value creating investments and focusing on value enhancing growth” says Chief Executive of ARM Ferrous, Andre Joubert.

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Within the group, ARM Ferrous is the division that owns and operates the iron ore, manganese ore and manganese alloy operations in South Africa and Malaysia. These assets are held through Assmang (Pty) Ltd (Assmang) with ARM owning 50% of Assmang and Assore (Pty) Ltd owning the other 50%.

Joubert’s specific role and responsibility in ARM is the

management of the Assmang operations in the Northern Cape and in Malaysia.

“One of the key elements I’m very proud of has been our ability as the ARM Ferrous team to deliver projects on time and within budget,” Joubert tells us. “Currently we are busy with a major modernisation project at our Black Rock Manganese Ore Mine. Covid has delayed

LEADING FEATURE | 17

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

the project slightly however with that taken into account the project is still due on time and within budget.”

As well as delivering projects in a timely and cost-efficient manner, ARM Ferrous also takes pride in its safety record.

“We have two operations which have operated for more than ten years without any fatalities, and each of our ARM Ferrous operations has exceeded the 1 million fatality-free manhours benchmark. It’s a safety performance we continuously strive to improve.”

EXPLORING EFFICIENCY

The mining industry is not without its challenges. Regardless of how efficient a mining operation is, it is ultimately vulnerable to changes in the market.

BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

“As a mining company, we’re not price-setters, we’re price takers,” Joubert points out.

“One of the big challenges is containing unit cost increases and improving efficiencies. For example one of the challenges relating to this has been the high cost and low reliability of the electrical grid.

“We’re however not sitting back and waiting for this to impact on us,” Joubert insists.

“We’re taking proactive steps and in the smelting business we are looking at technology that we can use to produce at significantly lower electricity consumption rates. We’re also doing a great deal of research work to make use of cleaner energy in our processes.”

“On the mining side we are modernising our Black

Rock Mine,” says Joubert.

“We’re going to maintain a strong focus on information technology, digitalisation and in the process, the whole surface section of the mine is to be fully digitised and centrally controlled. We are working very closely with original equipment suppliers Epiroc with an order for a loader and a better electric 20-ton dump truck. The emissions of these units will be zero, improving efficiencies and working conditions.”

“WE ARE VERY FOCUSED ON LONG-LIFE, VALUE-ADDING ORE BODIES.” LEADING FEATURE | 21

AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

A MORE SUSTAINABLE MINE

The working environment is not the only environment that ARM cares about. ARM works hard to balance the economic, social and environmental aspects of its business. Each of these elements is essential to the long-term sustainability of the company.

Maintaining that balance is possible thanks to the strong relationships ARM continues to develop with all its stakeholders, from staff to shareholders, to local communities. The mining company’s values, governance structures and ethical leadership guide its actions to conduct business activities with integrity and respect for the environmental and societal contexts it operates within.

ARM is a leading company in the mining and minerals sector, and its leadership is cognisant not only of its impact on the

22 | LEADING FEATURE

world around it but also the opportunities it possesses to make a positive contribution to the growth and development of the communities it operates within. This is a responsibility specifically acknowledged by ARM’s values of good corporate governance, improving the lives of those living in communities within which it operates and environmental stewardship. The company sees these as essential aspects of generating economic value for shareholders and social benefit for stakeholders.

But beyond that, ARM takes a broader view to include nonfinancial aspects that will help ensure the company’s longterm sustainability.

ARM has introduced climate change and water management strategies that draw on various frameworks, guidelines, good practice and regulatory compliance requirements as well

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

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LEADING FEATURE | 23

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With over 20 years of combined mining experience we offer: • PRIMARY & SECONDARY SUPPORT • LOGISTICS • MINING & DEVELOPMENT • OPENCAST MINING

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

“WE’RE GOING TO MAINTAIN A STRONG FOCUS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, DIGITALISATION, AND IN THE PROCESS, THE WHOLE SURFACE SECTION OF THE MINE IS TO BE FULLY DIGITISED AND CENTRALLY CONTROLLED.”

BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

as meeting evolving stakeholder reporting requirements. The company recognises that these are issues that must be comprehensively addressed and for that reason, it has published a supplementary report on climate and water management at the end of last year. The report has been compiled using the core framework of recommendations from the Task Force on ClimateRelated Financial Disclosures, alongside the Position Statement of the International Council on Mining and Minerals on Water Stewardship.

ARM works in some of the poorest and most remote parts of the country, making the employment opportunities, skills development and educational support it provides essential to local communities. At the same time, the company is making infrastructure investments and providing support to social projects among those

communities to encourage socio-economic development.

ARM practices a preferential procurement and enterprise development programme to support entrepreneurship and economic growth among local communities, particularly with Historically Disadvantaged South Africans (HDSAs). These policies not only promote job creation but also build market access for South African capital goods and services, increasing economic activity in the areas around its operations.

The material benefits of ARM efforts over the last five years include R12.2 billion paid to the country in taxes and royalties and a further R675 million invested in community development. The company has given work to over 21,000 employees and contractors and has improved HDSA representation among its own management from 53% in 2016

LEADING FEATURE | 27

AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

to 65% in 2020. It has paid R18.8 billion to its employees as salaries, wages and benefits and invested R1.1 billion in training initiatives to improve the skills of employees while providing 858 bursaries. ARM also paid R55 billion in procurement, over the past five years with preferential procurement plans ensuring that money goes to contractors and suppliers that are HDSA, women and youthowned companies.

All these expenditures are driven by ARM’s commitment to creating value for all its stakeholders, allowing it to support the development of the communities in which it operates through social investment and local economic development projects. These projects do not just help local communities, but the most vulnerable of disadvantaged members of those communities, with initiatives aimed at building capacity in communities while prioritising women, HIV and Aids projects, the upliftment of people living with disabilities, youth and the socially destitute.

ARM sees its collaboration with communities and stakeholders as a partnership.

In addition to the sustianable benefits that these projects create for communities the company itself benefits by strengthening its relationships with host communities.

Through regular engagements, ARM improves its understanding of community needs and expectations, while promoting the community’s ownership of projects.

A RAINBOW OF TALENT

ARM is working hard to upgrade its facilities, including investment in increasing the level of automation at its

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

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LEADING FEATURE | 29

AVA is setting a new bar in mining solutions The future of mine management is data-driven

Traditional mine management has been an antiquated copy & paste approach. Where the present and future is data-driven.

AVA empowers clients to improve their operational control, identify and intervene mid-shift, and improve shift analysis with intuitive dashboards and a variety industry leading reports.

Our cloud-based solution (SaaS) is the first of its kind in the industry, providing clients with competitive prices, limited risk, and fast implementation times.

Contact us today to find out how we can improve your operation. www.ava.solutions info@ava.solutions (+27) 11 783 0363

Next tip EXC - 421

Idle

EXC - 435

Route deviation

Speeding

AUX - 008

LDV - 045

APPLIED VEHICLE ANALYSIS (AVA)

AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

Digitisation has been a poor experience for mines across the globe, with a fraction of the intended value and benefits realised. A modern technology player, AVA, has sought to challenge the current approach to fleet management and digitisation; they believe there is a better solution to implement digital efforts and make it part of how mining is done.

“AVA is assisting us with the management of the Discard Stockpile Fleet. It is aiding us with contractor management by providing improved visibility of equipment utilisation, vehicle tracking, safety, and provides functionality to reconcile tonnage moved.” Fabian Nieuwenhuys, Assmang Khumani Assmang, being a class leader in mining, recognised this and partnered with AVA on several sites and projects that required a new approach to old problems - like resource utilisation and grade control (blending). Enabling their leaders to make quick, informed decisions, keeping up with the evolving market demands.

“Modern digitisation requires collaboration between multiple parties and future-proofing the operations at Black Rock Mine Operations means working with partners that understand our mission.” Jorina du Toit, BI Manager, Assmang Black Rock Mining Operations The AVA business model allows them to improve and offer new functionality to their clients on a regular basis. Meaning, that an operation’s adoption of the platform is met with a similar maturation of the product features.

This ranges from simple machine hour monitoring to leveraging machine learning to optimise grade consistency. Enabling the team to effectively scale from the issues of today to the opportunities of tomorrow.

“The Mining and Processing business is forever changing and we required a modern tool to solve new challenges that comes with change, that is why we engaged AVA to monitor inbound and outbound logistics.” Rudolph du Preez, Works Manager, Assmang Sakura Smelter Assmang’s Sakura operation has stretched this further to encompass the full value chain, focusing on optimal scheduling of inbound and outbound logistic trucks. In addition to providing a digital tool that manages contractor relationships, it is also aimed at improving safety & security. The recent investment of Master Drilling (plc) in AVA has meant they are poised to deliver more innovation to a wider market with the goal of an end-to-end digital solution, encompassing the whole mining value chain.

AVA has enticed its clients because of the key-value drivers that mines know are important but struggle to manage effectively on a day-to-day basis.

The barrier for mines to make use of the system is greatly reduced as it is hardware agnostic, leverages existing communication infrastructure, and provides a large ever-growing library of powerful pre-configured reports.

Breaking with convention, they have pricing and a soon-to-be demo site available through their webpage. This could be a bold new trend amongst mining system suppliers where often pricing and product is opaque.

The next generation in mining systems is likely to be quick to test and implement, reducing the risk that comes with large capital projects. www.ava.solutions

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

facilities, but people are still a vital part of its operations. “In terms of training and recruiting our people, diversity is a key element for us in terms of age, gender, background, race and more,” he says. “Potential employees are assessed in terms of skills, health and physical ability to operate in the mining environment. They go through very rigorous training programmes.”

Every employee in the organisation receives their own individual development plan.

Through a combination of the company’s training programme and employees’ hard work, they can advance through their careers, including lateral advancement that broadens their skill levels and vertical advancement through leadership courses and training partnered with the leading South African universities.

“THE COMPANY IS INVESTING IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES NOT AS A PR MOVE OR EVEN FOR ITS OWN SAKE, BUT TO DRIVE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVE COMMUNITY RESILIENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY.” 32 | LEADING FEATURE

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

Indeed, ARM has provided adult education and training (AET) to 623 employees and 1,637 community members at ARM facilities since 2015, increasing their confidence and employability. This is because ARM knows that in order to succeed as a company it needs to combine the talents of a diverse range of people. By the same token, it has decided to make a positive impact on local communities it needs to combine the talents of a diverse range of businesses and organisations.

“In the Northern Cape we realised that individual mines and companies spend a lot of money on Corporate Social Investment, and what we call Enterprise Development,” Joubert recalls. “We facilitate

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supply development and community engagement and involvement. It is a very formal process that we go through. We have assisted local municipalities with water and road projects and realised that to make a real impact, mining companies need to work together. So, we started a process called ‘Impact Catalyst’.

Through this, we use the skillset of people who are skilled and experienced in the area of social engineering.”

As well as encouraging collaboration between businesses, ARM also works with and listens to the communities it has set out to support.

“We work with municipalities on their own integrated development plans, but it’s

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

not each mine on its own. It’s all the mines in the Northern Cape working together with the government and the Minerals Council of South Africa,” says Joubert. “Through that entity, we formed the Northern Cape Mines Leadership Forum and through that, we’ve identified projects where we can work together to make a bigger impact on communities.”

Looking to the future, ARM Ferrous has a lot to be excited about. “We’ve got long-life low unit cost operations. Our Khumani Mine Iron Ore Mine has in excess of a 25-year life while our Black Rock Manganese Ore Operations have in excess of 30 years life of mine. We are also exploring some exciting value adding growth prospects.

Whatever happens, there is one thing Joubert is sure of. He tells us, “We have world-class ore bodies, infrastructure and people and are confident and excited about our future.”

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“OUR IRON ORE MINE, IT HAD A SHORT LIFE BUT WE’VE DONE EXTENSIVE EXPLORATION WORK ON AND AROUND THE MINE RESULTING IN SOME VERY POSITIVE DEPOSITS. WE’RE GOING THROUGH FEASIBILITY STUDIES RIGHT NOW AND FROM THAT, WE’LL BE ABLE TO ADD TO THE MINE BY 20 YEARS.”

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AFRICAN RAINBOW MINERALS

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BANHAM POULTRY

BANHAM POULTRY

BIRDS OF A FEATHER WE LEARN HOW A 50-YEAR-OLD POULTRY COMPANY IS DRIVING INNOVATION IN THE FIELD.

PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

Attleborough has been home to Banham Poultry since the early 1980s, and the company has been active in Norfolk for over 50 years.

The company has become a well-known industry name, and its strong identity has persisted even as the company changed hands in 2018.

Around the country, major retailers and wholesalers are supplied

by Banham Poultry. Between 700,000 and 900,000 chickens are processed by the company a week, but it has the capacity to process up to 1.2 million.

W

e’re the largest employer in midNorfolk, and we own the majority of our farming assets including rearing, breeding, hatching and broiler farms,” explains Blaine Van Rensburg, Banham Poultry’s Managing Director.

A big part of what makes Banham Poultry successful is that it occupies a perfect middle ground in terms of size, as a large industry player that is still small enough to meet customer requirements quickly where a larger corporation might be slower to react.

“We’re making huge strides in efficiency and investment in our facilities,” Van Rensburg points out.

A CHALLENGING YEAR

In the poultry business the challenges can vary from year to year, but like most

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industries, this year the biggest challenge has been the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing up costs and interfering with the normal running of the business.

“We’ve had to change shift patterns, minimise staff on-site, in some instances reduce our volumes to allow for social distancing and so on,” says Van Rensburg. “We had a Covid outbreak in August of last year which was hugely painful for the business, making our lives extremely difficult and we’ve done things very differently since then. Costs have gone up. It’s a difficult place to be in, but it is a temporary one.”

AGRICULTURE & FARMING | 37

Ensure Maintenance Regimes Align with your Business Needs

53North believe there is a smarter way to care for physical assets, therefore, a fiscally sound and proactive approach is used. An approach that is aligned to business goals, is risk based, less invasive, data driven and standardised to ensure its clients get the most value for their assets with sustainable improvements.

www.53northgroup.com

CMMS with all the functionality without any of the complexity

My Maintenance Planner - MMP Reports and Analytics

Generate reports to demonstrate compliance with regulations and to understand KPI's for asset failure rates and maintenance costs.

Asset Management Track information of your physical and fixed assets, supporting decision making and legal compliance.

Work Order Management Manage and streamline reactive, corrective, proactive and statutory work orders based on priority.

Scheduling Manage workloads and assign tasks to individuals. Auto generate tasks based on statutory requirements and machine health.

IOS & Android Apps Offline Mode

53North are proud to support Banham in the development and implementation of an asset care strategy. Creating asset care procedures to increase reliability and to become audit ready, including training, roll out of cloud based health monitoring systems and introducing MMP to manage planning and scheduling.

www.mymaintenanceplanner.com

53NORTH GROUP & BANHAM POULTRY – AN ASSET CARE PARTNERSHIP When the Head of Engineering of Banham Poultry contacted 53North it was for a good reason. The two organisations had recently worked together to deliver improvements in maintenance standards and to increase equipment availability on another project. The situation onsite was one that many can probably relate to, in that the engineering teams were stuck in a cycle of reactive maintenance.

Historically, there were only statutory PM’s being completed, no documented lubrication regime and no CMMS system to record any maintenance or reliability activity.

53North carried out two roles in the maintenance change programme, the first being part of the guiding coalition, and the second, to develop and implement the asset care strategy to enable the reactive cycle to stop and move towards a proactive regime. The guiding coalition is an important part of maintenance cultural change and 53North brings expertise, energy, and perspective to support the change initiative.

The strategy used to develop an asset care regime for Banham was built using a five-phase approach based on an DMAIC approach beginning with a phase of recognition. A gap analysis against current best practices was carried out and a business case presented to both business leaders and the technical workforce, each case focusing on the needs for change within that group. This is an important stage for both top-down sponsorship and bottom-up buy-in to the programme.

The define stage was carried out by completing a full site criticality analysis and maintenance task selection, down to the least maintainable item, the criticality scoring matrix being linked to the overall business strategy to ensure full alignment. The scoring allowed 53North to assess low impact assets that could be run to failure, high impact assets that required deeper assessment using failure mode and effects analysis, and mid-range impacts that used good practice, online or offline maintenance. Online maintenance tasks were broken into technology-based or visual categories.

Lubrication requirements were also well documented for all site assets.

The measure phase was carried out in two key areas. The first was to take reliability data from the site’s assets, using technology such as vibration, stress wave, thermal, acoustic, strobe and laser alignment.

The second was to measure the current regime and compare them to the regime quantified in the define stage. This moves into the analysis phase. The use of technology and machine inspection is applied by 53North to understand the physical mechanisms of failure occurring onsite and in that moment. Then by taking a holistic view of the data, both latent or human causes can be identified, for example, missing schedules, policies or procedures, or poor practices leading to wear, or induced errors.

The improvement phase is different for each project. For Banham, it was the creation of new asset care standards, new preventative maintenance tasks, new lubrication schedules, and the implementation of new standards. From the 53North standardised lubrication schedule, the site team was able to set up lubricant stations that were in line with best practice food-safe controls, and this was implemented within a new workshop environment that Banham engineers had already taken ownership of.

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To support asset care and continuous improvement, a conditionbased maintenance (CBM) programme was implemented; this in turn, provided a measurable and controlled approach for prioritising action. The CBM element allows for a fiscally sound and proactive regime. 53North specialise in a hybrid approach to CBM to ensure maximum effectiveness whilst developing internal skills and engagement with the technology. For the first twelve months, the CBM was completed by 53North and corrective work orders raised in the work order management system. This supported rapid implementation with high confidence and resulted in quick wins, and direct cost avoidance (the OPEX money saved by mitigating the failure in a controlled way). When internal resource was made available training was given to allow entry level CBM to be completed

by Banham engineers. Data collected onsite synchronises to the cloud to allow 53North’s analytical data centre to support data analysis and corrective action reporting. Working in the hybrid method allows for reduced ongoing costs, increased internal engagement with technology, provides data collection governance and confidence in the decision making.

With the new asset care regime set up, the site required a functional and easy-to-use management system for planning, scheduling, and capturing performance data. Therefore, a cloud-based maintenance management system has been implemented called MMP or www. mymaintenanceplanner.com. MMP has allowed Banham to plan, organise, track, and analyse all maintenance tasks that have been created, allowing them to monitor improvements made and increase reliability and longevity of assets. MMP allows all tasks to be easily recalled and filtered for full traceability and it is audit ready.

As Banham engineers have not traditionally used a computerised maintenance system, it was crucial that a system was intuitive in design and this is MMP’s main strength. Banham has now been able to manage all work orders (automatically generated preventative tasks, corrective tasks, and reactive breakdown work orders) based on priority and work types. Work can be sent directly to the phone or tablets of the individual technicians using an Android or IOS app.

Assets can be managed and tracked, with an easy asset hierarchy system and link equipment manuals for ease of access. With all the data now being recorded in MMP Banham engineers can then analyse the data to see the worst performing assets and monitor maintenance key performance indicators.

53North is proud to have supported Banham with the creation and implementation of an asset care strategy. However, this is only the start of the asset care journey. 53North continues to support Banham with the analysis data centre and MMP and see their role now as a partner to help guide the site through future technology implementation for greater competitive advantages.

53North utilise smart maintenance systems such as intelligent lubrication systems, smart operator tools, remote asset health monitoring with artificial intelligence and precision maintenance tools.

For more information on how 53North could support your business please contact us on 0114 299 5007 or visit: www.53northgroup.com and www.mymaintenanceplanner.com

BANHAM POULTRY

Beyond Covid itself, one of the biggest challenges Banham Poultry has faced is chicken feed, which ironically has risen dramatically in price.

“We’re subject to the vagaries of commodities in the market,” admits Van Rensburg. “If there’s a poor wheat harvest, we take the brunt of the feed pricing and we can’t pass that on to retailers in full so we absorb a portion of the price increase.”

A FAMILY COMPANY

One part of the business that does not cost chicken feed is Banham Poultry’s staff. Since its change in ownership, the company has gone through a big cultural change that has involved a great deal of investment in its plant and

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facilities. This means that despite Banham Poultry’s 50year legacy, in many ways it is still quite a young company.

Indeed, the new technology and facilities the company boasts are potentially a valuable learning experience.

“We upgraded all the technology. From a human resource perspective, a lot of engineering has gone into the business and people can come and do apprenticeships to cut their teeth on it,” Van Rensburg says.

“We’ve agricultural facilities that are world-class so if you’re interested in veterinary science, animal husbandry or nutrition, there’s a lot of scope to learn in a business like ours. We are setting up an apprenticeship programme in our plant, we have

NVQ qualifications going across our farms. A lot is happening at that level.”

While the company is changing, one element that has been preserved is Banham Poultry’s culture as a family business, even as ownership of the company has passed to Chesterfield Poultry.

“WE’RE VERY AGILE AND VERY QUICK TO MAKE DECISIONS. THERE IS NOT A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF BUREAUCRACY WHEN WE NEED TO MAKE A CALL, DECISION OR INVESTMENT.” AGRICULTURE & FARMING | 41

Aviagen is delighted to be the supplier of Ross® chicks to BANHAM POULTRY (2018) LTD

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AVIAGEN® BANHAM POULTRY – COMMITTED TO UK POULTRY MARKET Aviagen® would like to thank Banham Poultry for being a longstanding Ross® 308 customer. Aviagen is a proud supplier to Banham Poultry, and together we work toward continuous improvement in bird welfare and performance. Sustainability is another shared value, and we take our responsibility as members of the poultry value chain seriously, implementing efficiencies to lower the environmental impact of meat production.

Our Customer Service works closely with the Banham team, sharing ideas on how to best address current and future market requirements with the right bird for the right market at the right time.

“We applaud the efforts of Banham Poultry and their dedication to the UK poultry industry. Whether it is breeder, broiler, incubation or processing management, Banham works hard to achieve the very best, seeing year-on-year improvements and strengthening their ability to put nutritious, delicious poultry meat on the tables of families throughout the UK,” commented Stuart Thomson, Head of UK Sales and Technical.”

eu.aviagen.com

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BANHAM POULTRY

“We’re a family-owned business, and that family perspective has grown in poultry processing and farming for the last 50 years. The majority shareholder is Chesterfield Poultry, based up in Doncaster, and they’re a business that’s grown from a small processing plant in Bradford to the one of the most modern poultry processing facilities in the country,” Van Rensburg says. “We’re very agile and very quick to make decisions. There is not a massive amount of bureaucracy when we need to make a call, decision or investment. We have a flat management structure, with no more than four levels between board and factory floor.”

PIONEERING IN POULTRY

While Banham Poultry has succeeded in preserving the good about itself, it is no stranger to seeking out new and improved ways of doing things.

“We’ve got a lot of pioneering work in our farming. We have trialled a new vaccine in a step forward in being completely anti biotic free,” Van Rensburg tells us. “These vaccines will help, and they take the risk of antibiotic immunity and transmission through consumption completely off the table.”

Banham Poultry is able to arrive at these solutions because it is always seeking out

“WE’VE GOT A LOT OF PIONEERING WORK IN OUR FARMING. WE’VE TRIALLED NEW VACCINES TO HELP US GO COMPLETELY ANTIBIOTIC-FREE. THESE VACCINES WILL HELP, AND THEY TAKE THE RISK OF ANTIBIOTIC IMMUNITY AND TRANSMISSION THROUGH CONSUMPTION COMPLETELY OFF THE TABLE.” BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

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STYNE GROUP We at Styne Group are both proud and fortunate enough to enjoy a strong working relationship with Banham Poultry; from the site management team through to the project team and engineering department we enjoy an open, honest and clear dialogue. It is a relationship which we believe has been founded on Styne Groups ability to deliver on agreed deadlines consistently, allowing us to work with Banham Poultry on several of the major refurbishment projects that the site has undertaken over the last 3 years.

Anglia Coldroom Maintenance Cold Store Construction Specialists

Banham Poultry, as do many of our customers appreciate our agility and the speed at which we at Styne Group are able to respond to their requests. We understand the importance of good communications with clients over the lifetime of a project.

Banham Poultry utilise all three of the component parts of the Styne Group.

Styne Engineering have been able to assist in the early stages of projects due to our CE accreditation for the fabrication of structural steel in both stainless steel and mild steel. Our multi-skilled work force has also been utilised on the installation of production plant and equipment and even finished projects with the installation of coded pipe work and conveyor systems.

Styne Electrical have proven invaluable in some of Banham Poultry’s short turn around projects, we have been able to attend site, install supplies to new equipment in challenging time frames and supply fixed wire testing certificates upon completion all compliant with NIC-EIC standards. This has made the life of the project team much easier as they have one point of contact for 2 separate disciplines.

Styne Industrial Refrigeration have been able to assist Banham Poultry by rerouting refrigerant pipe work systems to allow for the installation of new production lines and installing integrated refrigeration systems that have increased energy efficiency, reduced costs and minimised their environmental impact. We have also worked alongside Banham Poultry to assist the engineering team by carrying out pre planned maintenance as part of an agreed maintenance contract, resulting in reduced down time for refrigeration plant and greater efficiency.

We are proud to be the Composite Panel suppliers for Banham Poultry. www.acm-coldrooms.co.uk

At the outset of a project our inhouse experienced design team create and then share 3d drawings to provide customers with a concept model that can be visualised, analysed and discussed by all members of your team prior to fabrication and installation. Every client is assigned a dedicated engineer who acts as project manager and a single point of contact until the project is signed off to your satisfaction. We hold a host of recognised accreditations and have NEBOSH qualified safety staff to ensure the work we carry out on you site is compliant and is carried out safely.

Our expertise and experience persuaded Zudek, world leaders in ammonia absorption refrigeration, to grant Styne Refrigeration sole UK rights to their advanced refrigeration systems. The Zudek Absorption Chiller saves up to 90% of the electrical costs compared to a conventional compression system, resulting in huge cost saving and rapid payback and a safer, greener factory.

Cold without electricity is achievable with ammonia and water absorption chillers, using all kinds of heat sources to generate cooling energy from industrial waste gases, hot process fluids, turbines and CHP engines. The temperature range is from +5°c to -60°c.

Styne Industrial Refrigeration are developing ammonia solutions in collaboration with Zudek, all our solutions are designed to make the most efficient use of every single kilowatt of power and help reach net zero.

Our bespoke refrigeration solutions deliver significant carbon reductions and cost savings. We are proud to be Zudek’s sole UK installation and distribution partner.

Green is a trend; sustainability is a mindset.

If you would like to know how the Styne Group could assist with the development of your business, then please don’t hesitate to contact us though our website at www.styne.co.uk or at our office 01379 897 120.

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AGRICULTURE & FARMING | 45

BANHAM POULTRY

new ways to improve and build upon its current offering.

“For each member of the team innovation and continuous improvement is a KPI. We keep a close eye on it. We work through strategies on what can be done effectively to offset the challenges we face,” says Van Rensburg. “For instance, a lot is being made of better welfare for the chickens. Activists are raising awareness around factory farming, and we are actively working to provide a better welfare offering. We have a number of trials on the go to get to a point where we can offer an economically acceptable product with better welfare. So, we’re finding solutions people are prepared to pay for but that aren’t exorbitantly priced.”

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BANHAM POULTRY

While Banham Poultry is constantly seeking new ideas from within the company, it is also making use of valuable partnerships. Asset management company 53North has provided many systems, strategies and technologies to support Banham Poultry’s journey.

“RELIABILITY IS EVERYTHING IN THE POULTRY PROCESS BECAUSE YOU’RE WORKING ON SUCH TIGHT TIMELINES.”

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“They assist us in ensuring our systems and equipment run optimally. They’re also developing a computerised maintenance management programme,” says Van Rensburg. “If any part breaks down it holds up all the others, so 53North are doing condition-based monitoring, thermographic imaging, electrical panels.”

Their tools give Banham Poultry valuable peace of mind during uncertain times.

“Reliability is everything in the poultry process because you’re working on such tight timelines,” says Van Rensburg. “We’ve seen our plant repairs improve from

85% - 95% since implementing our asset repair strategies.”

Looking forward, Van Rensburg believes Banham Poultry will be able to start innovating in new ways.

“We obviously have aspirations and look to grow our footprint, but from my perspective, it’s not just about more chickens but doing more with chickens,” Van Rensburg says. “We’re diversifying our portfolio to offer more to customers. We want to offer different types of birds, better welfare, through to different products through our factory whether cooked or raw or ready to eat.”

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GROWGENERATION

WE LEARN HOW GROWGENERATION IS USING ACQUISITIONS AND ORGANIC GROWTH TO BRING A NEW SENSE OF SCALE TO THE BURGEONING LEGAL CANNABIS INDUSTRY.

THE HOME DEPOT OF CANNABIS PROJECT MANAGED BY: ANDREW BOURKE

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GROWGENERATION

With 53 retail and distribution centres across the US, GrowGeneration is the largest chain of hydroponic garden suppliers in the country.

W

e started the company in 2014 with the goal of rolling up a fragmented industry to serve the emerging cannabis market,” explains Michael Salaman, president and cofounder of GrowGeneration.

“We could provide the best-inclass products, technology and

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services needed for growing indoors, which is what we chose to specialise in. With the emergence of legalisation in the US in states such as New York, New Jersey, and the emergence of this national, legal framework for the industry with tens or even hundreds of thousands of locations across the country, we have become the supply chain to service those growers.”

Since the company went public in late 2019 it has experienced tremendous growth, with 100% year-on-

year growth, which is expected to accelerate as more states continue to legalise marijuana.

But while legalisation is creating space for an exciting new industry, it’s one that requires very specialised knowledge.

“Our unique selling point is we are a one-stop-shop. It’s a very specialised curation that GrowGeneration offers, from the beginning of the harvest all the way through to trimming – the whole harvest cycle. You need an understanding of that harvest and growing process,”

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ADVANCED NUTRIENTS - HOW ONE GROWER BUILT A $100MM CANNABIS EMPIRE CBD oils cropping up on supermarket shelves. Conversative states voting for cannabis legalization. Venture capitalists hedging their bets on the rising demand. Every day, cannabis continues to rise in popularity, attracting droves of attention for medicinal, therapeutic, and economic reasons alike.

But this shiny new reality is a far cry from the dark ages, when only a few courageous cultivators and advocates laid everything on the line for the plant.

Among the most iconic pioneers is Michael ‘BigMike’ Straumietis, founder and CEO of Advanced Nutrients, the world’s leading cannabis-specific nutrient company.

MAKING CANNABIS INTO A LIFE MISSION In 1983, Michael Straumietis was an unassuming twenty-three-year-old with Midwestern work ethics, big ambitions, and a staunch belief in the American Dream. The son of a salesman, he’d already tried his hand at multiple entrepreneurial endeavors before creating a successful lawn care business.

Two of his salesmen noticed he had something of a green thumb when it came to working in the weeds. So they began teasing him, throwing hints about their secret side business they’d love to recruit him to join. One day, six months later, he rode with them to their house. And there it was — a tucked away basement, illuminated by the site of six gorgeous, budding cannabis plants.

The rest was history. “It’s the same for every master grower,” BigMike says.

“You think you’re choosing the plants, but the plants are choosing you. From the moment I first saw a cannabis plant, and began witnessing the profound benefits it was having on the people around me, I knew I’d adopt a singular mission in life — making cannabis an acceptable and every day part of healing humanity.”

Over the next four decades, BigMike would go on to build a thriving cannabis empire today’s most passion entrepreneurs can only dream of emulating. But getting there was no easy feat. From his first crop failure and battling law enforcement to taking a stand against the Good Ol’ Boys and executives gone rogue, the rise to the top was riddled with challenges left and right.

But there was one thing that kept Straumietis going — a steadfast love and belief in the healing properties of the plant.

THE ONE MAN WHO WOULDN’T HIDE BEHIND TOMATOES Early on, Straumietis realized no one was making nutrients to optimize conditions for a healthy, flourishing cannabis crop. Swayed by stigma and desperate to placate public opinion, these other companies hid their hydroponics nutrients behind shiny pictures of fat, juicy tomatoes.

His relationship to cannabis was different. He knew the plant had healing benefits, andfrom day one, he was willing to speak out about its benefits. After committing to unlocking the plants’ true genetic potential, Straumietis began to devour as much knowledge as he could find about the unique anatomy of cannabis.

Fueled by an inner fire to put cannabis front and center, BigMike assembled a team of PH.D. scientists. And in 1999, Advanced Nutrients was born.

INTRODUCING THE FIRST COMPLETE NUTRIENT SYSTEM FOR CANNABIS Over the last 22 years, Advanced Nutrients has soared in popularity as the world’s leading nutrient company, with premium products engineered exclusively for cannabis. In fact, the company became one of the first three entities in the world to receive a government-issued license to grow and test cannabis for research purposes. BigMike’s commitment to cannabis had paid off.

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With heaps of research beneath their belts, Advanced Nutrients was able to turn the industry on its head. For the first time ever, growers had the opportunity to feed their crops products designed for maximum plant potential. Because unlike generic base nutrients or bloom boosters designed for hydrangeas, BigMike and his team took into consideration the nutritional needs of this particular crop — and the unique pain points of the cannabis grower.

LEADING THE CHARGE IN CULTIVATION INNOVATION This dedication to cannabis and the community who grows it has led Advanced Nutrients to spearhead 53 revolutionary industry innovations.

Chief among these is their proprietary pH Perfect® Technology, which automatically adjusts pH levels to their sweet spot for optimum nutrient uptake. Fitted with this patented technology, Advanced Nutrients’ pH Perfect® Sensi Grow A+B and pH Perfect® Sensi Bloom A+B has earned itself a reputation as the ultra-efficient base nutrient system behind more cupwinning growers than any other nutrient line.

For most cannabis growers, the idea of unchaining their harvests from the pains of pH monitoring seems like a novel and far-off concept. But when they switch over to the Advanced Nutrients line, their plants receive full availability of high-quality nutrients at all times. And the benefit extends past the growers themselves. These exclusive innovations have also helped thousands of hydroponic stores increase their sales, simply by offering a superior product guaranteed to streamline business for their customers.

This commitment to convenience, consistent success is why growers like Duncan of Greenbull Farms consider Advanced Nutrients the ultimate solution for their farms. “Advanced Nutrients Allows Us to Focus on looking after The Plant, Instead of Looking after What’s WRONG with the Plant” he says. “If you look at our 4,000-plant outdoor farm in the Oregon Sunbelt, you can see what Advanced Nutrients is doing for us — uniformity, vibrancy, consistency in our canopy, etc. Our average yield is 3-4 pounds per plant.”

A LEGACY LINE FOR MASSIVE, POTENT BUDS Ask any grower, and they’ll all tell you the same thing. There’s no satisfaction quite like the feeling of walking into the grow room near the end of a harvest, and witnessing a lush canopy swelling with huge, fat, potent buds. Through decades of research, Advanced Nutrients innovated the most robust product line on the planet — one that serves up bountiful nutrition that targets each phase of the plant life cycle. From microbial products like Voodoo Juice® that play an essential role in healthy roots to B-vitamin complex products like B-52 that pro growers swear by, they’ve left no stone unturned in their quest to unlock the true genetic potential of the plant.

Their best-selling product? Big Bud®, the industry’s No. 1 selling bud bulker for cultivating gigantic, eye-popping flowers swelling with high-value compounds. It’s a prime product in the toolkit of growers like Amir Isackson and Boris Cooperman, who say “We’ve only been growing for 2 years, but with Advanced Nutrients we won the highest THC award at Hempfest Cannabis Cup in Calgary.”

Today, Advanced Nutrients’ award-winning line of nutrients is sold in 107 countries — and they show no sign of slowing down. “Everyday I wake up with one purpose in mind,” BigMike tells us. “To make cannabis an acceptable and everyday part of healing humanity. I don’t plan to stop until we get there.” www.advancednutrients.com

GROWGENERATION

Salaman says. “We employ professional growers, we call them GrowPros, and they operate across various divisions of our company. They work primarily within our 53 garden centres, which will increase to over 100 coming out of 2022.

The GrowPros provide a level of consultation to these growers. It depends on the type of grower, from hobbyist to new licensees.

They can come to our locations and we’ll provide consultation.”

A NEW INDUSTRY

As well as bringing together a disparate selection of specialised knowledge, GrowGeneration is also bringing a sense of scale to an industry that has primarily consisted of smaller operations.

“WE’RE ONE OF THE FEW COMPANIES THAT HAVE REALLY SCALED THE ANCILLARY SIDE OF THE CANNABIS BUSINESS INTO A NATIONAL RETAIL BUSINESS.” “We’re one of the few companies that have really scaled the ancillary side of the cannabis business into a national retail business,” Salaman tells us. “We have a commercial division that employs grow technicians, engineers, designers.

We have benching and lighting and irrigation layouts that are much more sophisticated.

Our centres have hundreds of thousands of square feet, and a B2B division on the larger commercial side, but what separates us is this very experienced team of growers driving us. Today we get over 100,000 walk-ins a month and

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over a million unique hits to our website. So we’re meeting the grower in different parts of the market through the multiple platforms we’ve built.”

As GrowGeneration is bringing a new kind of business into the market sector, it is adopting talent from old places.

“One of the interesting parts of GrowGeneration is if you look at its strategy here in the US, hydroponic garden centres have existed for many, many, years but have always been around in a very fragmented, individual mom and pop environment,” Salaman explains. “Nobody rolled the industry up and did what we did, which was buy the bestof-breed hydroponic operators as part of our acquisition strategy.”

This acquisition strategy isn’t just about growing the business, but about harnessing the enormous amount of expertise out there on the subject.

“We go into the market looking state-by-state, marketby-market for locations we can buy. In the more mature

markets we can buy into them, in the new markets there really isn’t anything that exists of the size we’re looking for, so we’ll open up a new location,” Salaman says. “But through the strategy, we’re not only picking up revenue but also personnel.

It’s hard to find people who have been in the hydroponic space for multiple years and understand the cannabis plant.

So through the acquisition strategy, we’ve been able to pick up revenue and profits and individuals with tremendous expertise. We have built the largest army of GrowPros, operating under the umbrella of GrowGeneration.”

It is, as Salaman points out, a unique resource.

“You can’t duplicate that, and because we’re investing in the hydroponic space, looking beyond the US we’re able to find very experienced individuals who have been owner-operators who bring their staff and existing longterm relationships, but more importantly they understand the products,” he says.

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GROWGENERATION

On top of scale and expertise, GrowGeneration is bringing reliability and a strong supply chain to the industry, elements that will become increasingly vital as the market sector grows.

“We can deliver inventory just-in-time. We recognised very early on, the plants never sleep, they need to be fed,” Salaman points out. “We deliver sameday or next-day to all of our customers who rely on us from a supply chain perspective. We have the broadest selection

of product in the US. Again, the service comes back to this large army of professional growers that are world-class from a knowledge and sales perspective.”

Of course, growth, especially rapid growth, brings challenges with it. GrowGeneration has gone from nothing to $400 million in an extremely short time. However, it has also managed to successfully integrate all of the businesses it has acquired.

“NOBODY ROLLED THE INDUSTRY UP AND DID WHAT WE DID, WHICH WAS BUY THE BESTOF-BREED HYDROPONIC OPERATORS AS PART OF OUR ACQUISITION STRATEGY.”

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GROWGENERATION

“We’ve been able to integrate acquisitions flawlessly, open up stores flawlessly, and we can do that within 90 days of signing the lease on a new location,” says Salaman. “One thing I’m most proud of is when we buy a store and look at the results not on Day One, but a year from when we acquire it.

GrowGeneration typically has 63% growth in the stores we have owned over a year. When we buy a new location, we’re adding value.”

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It is a model that Salaman believes can potentially be taken worldwide.

“Right now there’s so much business here in the States but this is a global market.

Cannabis will be legal across all countries,” he points out.

“Certainly, Canada has already legalised, the US is on its way, Europe is moving in that direction. So we’re certainly looking at opportunities. Our point of view is we can be a

supply chain for all growers wherever you are. If that’s here in the US, the Caribbean, South America, you’ll use the products we’ve curated and inventoried. The plant is the plant and it needs the nutrients and the additives and indoor control systems that we sell.

Our model will cross country by country. We think we’ll see more multi-state operations start to look outside the US as well.”

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GROWGENERATION

Back in the US, GrowGeneration is set to continue its growth trajectory through its vertically integrated business model.

“That to us is the future for GrowGen, bringing that portfolio to be a vertically integrated solution for our customers,” says Salaman. “That’s what

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separates GrowGen. We’re not just looking to sell products everyone else is selling, we really are a solution provider.

We’re providing customers products that have proven to be sustainable, reliable, and high quality – and can deliver the highest return on their investment.”

“THAT’S WHAT SEPARATES GROWGEN. WE’RE NOT JUST LOOKING TO SELL PRODUCTS EVERYONE ELSE IS SELLING, WE REALLY ARE A SOLUTION PROVIDER.” BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

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For product & distribution inquiries, email: sales@growgeneration.com

Powered by GrowGeneration www.growgeneration.com

JOICE & HILL

Free Range Bovans Brown Layers.

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JOICE & HILL

WE LEARN HOW JOICE & HILL IS STAYING ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE MARKET IN A VITAL SECTOR OF THE FOOD CHAIN.

WHERE QUALITY GENETICS COME FIRST PROJECT MANAGED BY: DAVID TAVERNOR

Joice & Hill Poultry is the UK Distributor for world-class breeds of egg-laying hens. You might have heard the old question about which came first, the chicken or the egg, but whether it’s breeding stock, eggs for processed foods, or even eggs used in the manufacture of vaccinations, the whole process starts with Joice & Hill and their parent company, Hendrix Genetics.

F

our times a week Joice & Hill will process a set of up to 300,000 eggs that hatch 21 days later, meaning that at any one time at the company’s hatchery there can be over 2 million eggs in incubation.

But Joice & Hill is about far more than sheer quantity.

“We sell on three main factors,” explains Nick Bailey, Managing Director of the company. “The first is the strength of our breeding programme. From a genetic perspective, we offer strong, robust products that will lay more first-quality eggs than our competitors. You can only really achieve that with our second factor, good quality, healthy, viable, well-vaccinated chicks. The quality of the laying

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Protection

at every stage

*

MSD Animal Health offers a wide portfolio of innovative products and expert support services for all poultry production stages, helping to ensure the best health and productivity on your farm.

To find out how you could benefit contact your MSD Animal Health Account Manager.

*Against diseases covered by MSD Animal Health products and when used in accordance with datasheet requirements.

Exzolt® contains fluralaner. POM-V. Paracox®, suspension for oral suspension for chickens contains live sporulated oocysts derived from eight precocious lines of coccidia. POM-VPS. Further information is available from the SPC, datasheet or package leaflet. MSD Animal Health UK Ltd. Registered office Walton Manor, Walton, Milton Keynes MK7 7AJ, UK. Registered in England & Wales no. 946942. Advice should be sought from the medicine prescriber.

Use Medicines Responsibly. For more information please refer to the Responsible Use sections of the NOAH website.

Exzolt®, Innovax®, Nobilis®, Panacur® and Paracox® are the property of MSD Animal Health UK Ltd or affiliated companies or licensors and are protected by copyrights, trademark and other intellectual property laws.

Copyright © 2021 MSD Animal Health UK Ltd. All rights reserved. Tel: 01908 685685 • vet-support.uk@msd.com • www.msd-animal-health.co.uk UK-PAR-210300002

MSD ANIMAL HEALTH – YOUR TRUSTED PARTNERS IN POULTRY HEALTH For over a decade, MSD Animal Health UK has been supporting Joice & Hill with the production of healthy and productive chicks.

Pairing genetic excellence with advanced poultry health, the MSD Animal Health team provide technical and practical advice which starts at the Joice & Hill rearer and breeder sites and extends right through to when these viable hatching eggs reach their hatchery.

PRODUCING VIABLE HATCHING EGGS Joice & Hill have a comprehensive vaccination programme, which includes breeder vaccinations supplied by MSD Animal Health UK to ensure healthy breeders which foster healthy hatching eggs. This is an extremely important process for Joice & Hill, as sufficiently vaccinating breeder stock will maximise the likelihood of healthy chicks being produced.

Once hatching eggs reach the hatchery and are incubated, customers can continue to use MSD Animal Health’s broad range of vaccines, including those which are specific for hatchery use, to help protect chicks from a variety of detrimental poultry diseases. These include:

that provides long-term protection against Newcastle Disease, Infectious Bursal Disease and Marek’s Disease in a single dose or Innovax ® ILT which provides longterm protection for Marek’s Disease and Infectious Laryngotracheitis.

• NOBILIS® IB vaccination range which protects against avian Infectious Bronchitis (IB). This is approved for use in the rearing period and for layers and breeders during lay.

• NOBILIS® RISMAVAC; a live vaccination to protect chicks against Marek’s Disease.

MAXIMISING VACCINE EFFICACY When using these vaccinations on-farm, MSD Animal Health can provide producers and their team with on-going support throughout the whole application process. MSD Animal Health carry out regular vaccination audits and training in the hatchery, and with producers, to ensure that vaccines are being stored at the correct temperature and are mixed and applied accurately. This helps to achieve the best possible vaccination uptake, which maximises protection against these diseases in chicks.

• PARACOX® which induces broad immunity to coccidiosis challenge, helping to prevent mortality and protect flock uniformity. Paracox® can be combined with a tenacious solvent and sprayed on to chicks, the high viscosity of the liquid clings to feathers longer than water droplets to enhance preening and vaccine uptake. When Paracox is combined with the solvent, there is a 35% increase in vaccine uptake when compared to Paracox combined with water administration.

Where required, the MSD Animal Health team also supply hatchery vaccination equipment to maximise vaccination efficacy and accuracy on application.

At MSD Animal Health, we pride ourselves on developing innovative vaccinations, but we also have access to a global team of hatchery specialists, including global MSD Animal Health employees and external global consultants to advise on specialist projects. This means our team are fully committed to provide Joice & Hill, and layer rearers across the country with the products, services and insights to fulfil customer needs and advance poultry health.

• INNOVAX® range of vaccines, including Innovax ® ND-IBD, a unique 3-in-1 vaccine

www.msd-animal-health.co.uk

We are proud, Managing Director Nick Baily from our highly respected customer Joice & Hill purchased already their 3rd VEIT day old chick vehicle!

VEIT Electronics, a family business with a 30-years tradition, produces the BAT electronic poultry scales and vehicles for day-old chick transport. This means our production is highly specialized, which enables us to fine-tune the products to the last detail. Top quality is our primary goal.

Those goals can only be achieved having a specialized team. The VEIT development team designs our controllers with VEIT programmed algorithm. Building our own printed circuits, control and switch boxes. 3D drawing software allows us to focus on the details of the body, cooling, heating and ventilation system. Our production team supported by our automated warehouse are putting it all together and once tested by our Quality Team delivered to over more than 60 countries.

Having it all under control allows VEIT to offer an easy to clean cargo space, respected by the drivers, supporting the increasing Bio Security standards of our customers.

Another focus is to offer a sophisticated but simple controlling system allowing the driver to have a piece of mind during the transport. Our VEIT Fleet Management system supports the manager to check the real time data of the vehicle’s performance online.

VEIT Electronics Modřická 52, 664 48 Moravany, Czech Republic www.veit.cz | Email: info@veit.cz

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The VEIT after sales team stays in contact having feedback from our product. We believe our team is never ready with improving and optimizing our products as the poultry business has a never-ending developing need.

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JOICE & HILL

hens the egg producer gets is dependent on the quality of the chicks the rearing farm gets from the hatchery. Finally, you need good management on the farms.

We have a team of six people who support rearing companies and egg producers with flock management, nutritional and technical advice.”

Of course, finding good quality people at every level of the company can be a challenge in this day and age.

“There’s a huge shortage of good livestock-orientated people in the UK, especially since the UK voted to leave the EU,” Nick Bailey acknowledges.

“A lot of farm positions across the industry over the last 10-20 years have been filled by people from Eastern Europe with good animal husbandry skills and experience with livestock, but many have chosen to go back

as a consequence of the UK’s changed position on migrant workers from Europe. This has left more vacancies in the livestock sector, and many other agricultural and food processing sectors.”

“IT’S A GREAT CAREER, YOU’RE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE, WORKING WITH PEOPLE AND LIVESTOCK IN AN INNOVATIVE AND DYNAMIC SECTOR THAT BRINGS GREAT FOOD TO THE TABLE.”

The shortage has affected the employment base of the entire industry, even companies that, like Joice & Hill, only have a few Eastern European staff in the first place. However, following a year of low job security, furloughs and even working from home, some people are starting to see the appeal of the agriculture sector.

“We’re starting to see interest from people wanting to be involved in food production and agriculture again, people looking for different careers,” Nick Bailey points out. “It’s an interesting sector to be in, you’re working in the countryside, working with poultry. I have travelled extensively with my career, met many interesting people and been involved with a dynamic and innovative sector that brings great food to the table.”

To bring more people into the sector Joice & Hill has run apprenticeship schemes in partnership with a local education providers. Nick Bailey is clear that Joice & Hill has a great offer for prospective employees and that the company takes its responsibility for staff care and development very seriously.

“We’ve had a policy for the last two years of paying above the minimum wage, targeting the Real Living Wage,” Bailey says.

“Although not yet a member of the foundation but we have that as the minimum pay level within the company. So, whether you’re working as an egg collector or hatchery operator you will get a real living wage and the possibility of achieving more senior positions such as a supervisor or farm manager.

Training and mentoring are a vital part of developing a great team and keeping valuable staff.”

COUNTING YOUR CHICKENS The Hendrix Genetics R and D Laboratory.

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As well as ensuring they have the right staff, of course, Joice & Hill must ensure they are

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JOICE & HILL

Dekalb White Layers.

stocking the right breeds to meet the needs of the market, 6-18 months in advance of anticipated supply.

“There are risks in our business, but we won’t risk our clients’ success by sending them chicks that are below rigorous health status criteria and so we monitor supply flocks, the hatchery and our chicks very closely. That’s the supply risk, but there is also a commercial risk,” Nick Bailey tells us. “We need to know how many chicks our customers will buy and how popular each of our products will be based on how the market perceives them.

Demand for individual products can change over time, so we must anticipate evolving market requirements and match our genetics accordingly.”

This is important because Joice & Hill provide roughly a third of the UK’s laying flock or 14 million chicks a year and doing that successfully means guessing

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how many of each breed the market is going to want. They literally need to count their chickens before they hatch.

“Because of the costs involved we can’t afford to get it too wrong,” Bailey says. “The eggs are expensive to produce because of the high value of the parent stock. They are expensive eggs and if we cannot turn them into chicks and they are processed we get very little of that value back. We have to target 95% hatching egg utilisation.”

To achieve that level of success, Joice & Hill needs to know its customers and market well.

“We watch trends very carefully, and we ask our customers what

their intentions are and that usually enables us to guess quite closely how many we’re going to sell, but occasionally we get it wrong,” Bailey says. “Over the last ten years since we took on the full distribution of the Hendrix portfolio and our sales went from 6 million to 12, then back to 9 and now 14 million. The time cycle involved is a long one, so the parents we’re placing this month are still in production towards the autumn of next year. We have to know now what we think we’re going to sell next year.”

This means Joice & Hill isn’t just watching trends, it’s anticipating them. For example, if you buy eggs in Britain regularly, you will notice they are usually brown. This has been true since the 1970s.

The nutritional content of a brown or white egg is identical, but white eggs were easier to produce. As demand for brown eggs grew, the industry learned to produce them more efficiently until the price came down and white eggs almost completely left the UK market.

Globally other markets such as the U.S. remained white, but the UK went almost 100% brown.

But now Joice & Hill is investing in the Dekalb White, a white egg-laying breed, in the belief that this offers important advantages to the evolving UK egg sector.

“White breeds are still more efficient and some like the Dekalb White, are also very well suited to freerange egg production systems. Dekalb White hens show better liveability, better egg-laying persistency, lower daily feed consumption and better feather cover

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JOICE & HILL

PREMIER NUTRITION The reputation of Premier Nutrition has been built over many years by the people who work with our customers, suppliers and partners. We are proud of our association with the Joice & Hill (Hendrix Genetics) business particularly working together on innovation and sustainability.

compared to any brown breed available in the UK. So, they offer some real benefit in terms of sustainable egg production, the ease of management and efficiency, especially as the carbon footprint of food becomes more important,” Nick Bailey tells us. “In Europe, about 50% of hens are in enriched colony cages and 50% cagefree farms (a mixture of barn/ aviary, free-range and organic housing systems). In the UK, the amount of free-range is steadily growing and now accounts for well over 60% of eggs produced here. With Dekalb White you get more eggs for less feed and the product is not nutritionally different.”

This drive towards sustainability is reflected in Joice & Hill’s plans for its own facilities, with the company adding solar panels to its hatchery roof as part of its refurbishment.

In our industry we are all acutely aware of the dilemma facing the world today – how to feed a growing population whilst safeguarding the planet. This is a huge task but by no means unachievable. We believe that it is precisely by having close working relationships with likeminded businesses and our mutual customers that we can play our part in addressing some of these challenges through relentless focus on efficiency and productivity and at the same time drive value for our customers.

Premier Nutrition, part of AB Agri, is one of a group of leading agricultural businesses that operate across the food supply chain. The decentralised structure of AB Agri means that the businesses are empowered to grow their interests completely independently, but we share the same passion and vision for our industry.

Our recipe for responsible agriculture:• Produce more food from fewer resources.

• Safeguarding the natural resources needed for food production.

• Working side by side with colleagues and communities.

Our work with Joice & Hill takes the intelligence and science behind nutrition and turns it into practical solutions that enable businesses to grow. Our aim is to build tailored solutions and develop real relationships to ensure we make a tangible difference. www.premiernutrition.co.uk

ANITOX PARTNERING TO PRODUCE SAFER FEEDS MORE EFFICIENTLY Anitox is proud to be a long-term partner of Joice and Hill, working together to produce safer food more efficiently. Keeping breeders and hatchlings safe from Salmonella contamination is critical for the entire poultry industry. Feed and feed ingredients are well-known fomites, capable of sustaining and transferring Salmonella. Serotypes of Salmonella isolated during feed sampling are commonly linked to those detected in breeder flock environments and respective offspring when no in feed mitigation is present. Maintaining and providing clean feed to livestock is essential to prevent the contamination of the food chain. A study published by UK-based Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) examined the ability of four different commercial products to control Salmonella in feed and feed ingredients.

Finio, a phytochemical and carboxylic acid product developed by Anitox noted as Product A, was among four commercial options. In a challenge against Salmonella typhimurium DT104, Finio at 1.5 kg/Mt reduced the mean LOG10 contamination level by 78%. Compared to products B, C and D – market-leading organic acid blends commonly available in the UK - all treated at 6 kg/Mt, the incidence of Salmonella was reduced between 17 and 52%. Finio demonstrated superior control over Salmonella in the feed when applied at 1.0 kg/Mt over the organic acids applied at 6.0 kg/Mt; six times higher.

As Europe’s only feed sanitizer, Finio is highly effective against Salmonella in feed at low application rates, substantially less than traditional organic acids, and unlike alternative technologies including heat treatment, extends feed pathogen control for a minimum of 14 days of continued protection.

- Andra Powell www.anitox.com

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The Hatchery at Eye, UK.

When we ask companies about the future there are a number of recurring trends.

Often, they will talk about exciting new opportunities, big plans, or sometimes even potential challenges on the horizon. But when we ask Bailey

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JOICE & HILL

about the future of Joice & Hill, his mind immediately goes to the company’s responsibilities.

“As quite a key part of the food production chain, we need to do a few things,” he insists. “We need to conduct our business and look after our animals in a way that meets the expectations of consumers and society. We need to supply the market with the right genetics that meet the growing need for sustainable free-range production, and we need to support this with the right technical support. We need to feedback the needs of our market to keep the Hendrix Genetics R&D department aware of how their products are performing and what improvements are needed. Most of all, we need to play a role in training a new generation of livestock workers and farmers.”

Preparing hatching eggs for incubation.

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JOICE & HILL

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BLAISE DIAGNE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

THE NEW DAKAR BLAISE DIAGNE AIRPORT, OPENED TO BOOST SENEGAL’S TOURISM AS WELL AS ITS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, IS EAGERLY LOOKING FOR AIR TRAFFIC TO RESUME IN THE WAKE OF THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC.

READY TO TAKE OFF PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

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BLAISE DIAGNE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Blaise Diagne International Airport opened in December 2017 with a view to becoming the principal air hub in West Africa, improving aviation connectivity across the continent. Designed to replace the old Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport that was reaching the limits of its capacity, the airport had ambitious plans to gradually increased the number of routes, supporting the economic growth if the country.

T

he celebration of the airport’s 3rd anniversary at the end of last year turned out to be different than expected.

The coronavirus pandemic, a major blow to the entire air transport and tourism sector worldwide, did not spare Blaise Diagne International Airport: from January to November 2020, air traffic dropped by 52%.

However, the airport management has handled the challenge with flying colours.

The investment plans continue so that the airport is ready with enhanced infrastructure when traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels. Just recently, a new VIP lounge was inaugurated and other projects are planned in the coming months, such as a new fast food outlet at embarkation as well as another VIP lounge in the arrival area, the construction of a solar power plant and other environmental projects.

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SOCOCIM INDUSTRIES SOCOCIM Industries is more than 70 years of proven and recognized expertise at the service of construction in Senegal and in the West African sub-region.

The rich experience of SOCOCIM INDUSTRIES, added rigor and quality, has earned the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications, and the recognition of its cements by the European Community. SOCOCIM is thus the only cement plant in West Africa to obtain these three industrial references.

Leading cement plant, SOCOCIM Industries provides a diversified range of products to satisfy all requests of its customers.

Today SOCOCIM INDUSTRIES assists its customers and partners with sound advice and a wide range of cements, up to 3.5 million tons per year, which responds effectively to all construction needs. It is also a point of honor to the societal aspect with the creation of the SOCOCIM Foundation which is involved with the Senegalese associations and is involved in economic projects, cultural and social.

SOCOCIM INDUSTRIES KM 33 ANCIENNE ROUTE DE THIES RUFISQUE/SENEGAL 00 221 33 839 88 88/60 EMAIL: commercial@sococim.sn Web: www.sococim.com

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AWARDED EXCELLENCE

Blaise Diagne International Airport was a $574 million project offering Senegal efficient, clean, comfortable facilities constructed with stylish, visually pleasing architecture. The state-of-theart airport features 42,000 square metres or passenger terminal as well as 12,800 square metres of the cargo terminal. Boasting a capacity of 50,000 tons of cargo handling, and over 80,000 expected aircraft movements, the airport soon assumed a prominent role not only in the region.

The management and staff hard work and commitment were crowned in 2019 when Aéroport Dakar Blaise Diagne was awarded, after just two years of operation, the Best Regional Aviation Hub West Africa 2019. Five times larger than its predecessor, the airport’s ambition has been to increase its capacity to five million travellers per annum

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BLAISE DIAGNE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

by 2022 and ten million by 2035. The success of its first year of operations exceeded projections twofold to attain a growth rate of 8.5 per cent.

The major part of this success story was attributable to the airport´s ability to attract airlines, from major international players such as Air France, Delta, and Iberia to new carriers from neighbouring countries, such as RwandAir, Camair-Co and Air Peace. Despite the pandemic, the airport has grand plans for the future: it plans to construct a sustainable Aero City with a solar centre powering all onsite installations. It envisages becoming a green lung offsetting its carbon footprint.

Above all, the company aims to make the passenger experience a pleasant one, where the time spent at the airport is enjoyable and not stressful.

CONNECTION HUB

The global pandemic aside, the role of Dakar Blaise Diagne Airport for Senegal’s future economic growth remains undisputed, as recent developments indicate.

In January 2021, Dubaibased DP World announced its agreement with the country’s government to build a $1.1 bn superport in Senegal. DP World will finance, design and build a greenfield port on a 600ha site near the Blaise Diagne International Airport, which lies just to the north of Ndayane, including a 300-ha container terminal that the company will then operate.

Blaise Diagne’s proximity enables the development of the port, the construction of a modern north-west container terminal capable of handling the largest container vessels in operation today.

Like Blaise Diagne, Port de Futur will allow for the creation of

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BLAISE DIAGNE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

cargo and free movement of goods to support Senegal’s ‘Plan Senegal Emergent,’ and together the port, airport and new economic and logistics zone will unleash new trading opportunities to bring about economic diversification and boost non-resource exports from the country.

This is part of a national plan to reinforce Senegal’s place as a trade and investment hub for West Africa, attracting new foreign direct investment to the country. The new port will be CP World’s biggest port investment in Africa. It is in addition to an existing agreement for the Port of Dakar, for which DP World is building a new container terminal.

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BLAISE DIAGNE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

HOPEFUL FUTURE

A flicker of light can also be seen at the end of the tunnel for the aviation sector. With the pandemic seemingly starting to get under control, air traffic is hoped to slowly resume to some degree. Air Senegal, the new national airline, is relying on the Blaise Diagne International Airport to become the leader in West African air transport, serving both domestic and international lines.

In February, Dakar Blaise Diagne airport received passengers from Milan in Italy on board an Air Senegal flight.

From now on, the company will provide the Dakar Milan Malpensa connection three times a week by direct flights. The inaugural flight was operated with an Airbus A319 type aircraft that can accommodate 12 passengers in Business class and 108 in Economy.

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Air Senegal Marketing and Product Development Director Ernest Dikoum, who travelled on this first flight, spoke of a satisfactory fill rate in these times of pandemic with 80% on arrival and 100% on departure from Dakar.

The airline is also set to launch service from Blaise Diagne International to Barcelona in Spain, via Casablanca in Morocco. The route is planned to be operated three times a week. Airbus A319 aircraft will be used, configured with 120 seats, including 12 in business class and 108 in the economy.

Looking further afield, Air Senegal has recently reignited a long-standing ambition to start flying to the US and hopes to launch its first route later this year.

Despite the uncertainty that continues to reign over the recovery of air transport throughout the world, these latest development indicate that the plans to turn Blaise Diagne International Airport, and by extension, the city of Dakar, into the largest aviation hub in this sub-region of Africa, may indeed materialise in the coming years.

“THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC ASIDE, THE ROLE OF DAKAR BLAISE DIAGNE AIRPORT FOR SENEGAL’S FUTURE ECONOMIC GROWTH REMAINS UNDISPUTED, AS RECENT DEVELOPMENTS INDICATE.”

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LISI AEROSPACE

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LISI AEROSPACE

LISI AEROSPACE BAI UK, A RENOWNED MANUFACTURER OF TITANIUM FASTENERS FOR THE GLOBAL AEROSPACE INDUSTRY, REMAINS FOCUSED ON ITS SMART FUTURE.

RISING

TO THE CHALLENGE PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

The UK manufacturer based in Rugby is a member of the global LISI Group, operating within three business lines, Aerospace, Automotive and Medical. With its 19 sites in 9 countries, the Aerospace Division is the largest part of the business, accounting for 54% of the Group’s sales in 2020.

L

General Manager Mark Capell outside the Rugby manufacturing facility.

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ISI AEROSPACE is in the top 100 in the global aerospace value chain and specialises in the design and manufacture of high-tech metal components to enhance aircraft safety and performance. Active since 1950 in the fastener market (and currently No 3 worldwide), LISI AEROSPACE has been a recognized player in metal components for aircraft engines and airframes since 2011. Serving more than 300 customers in 30 countries, the focus on innovation is strong, to ensure exceptional operational performance.

The Rugby facility specialises in the manufacture of aerospace fasteners, ranging from standard pins to more complex parts such as double annealed fasteners and various plating

and coating types. The factory also manufactures repair bolts that are used for repairs and upgrades to the airframe.

General Manager Mark Capell explains that the products are mainly used in commercial aircraft frames, with a small percentage going to military aircraft and, more recently, helicopters.

“The factory produces high-volume and small-batch work, with over 60% of our output supplied to Airbus, followed by other leading manufacturers including Embraer, Bombardier, Wesco and others.”

LISI AEROSPACE UK global reputation is based on achieving excellent performance in terms of safety (6 years of no time-lost accidents), delivery, quality and responsiveness - qualities that

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METALLOGRAPHIC INNOVATIONS SINCE

1936

PROUD PARTNER OF www.buehler.com

info.eu@buehler.com

BUEHLER Buehler is a long-standing partner of LISI Aerospace, we are proud to continue serving their inhouse production, quality and inspection laboratories with our equipment and consumables for metallurgical evaluation of fasteners.

We provide value added activities such as technical specific metallographic training to LISI laboratory staff to ensure reliable and repeatability results in testing and analysis. Our product design philosophy ensures we are able to meet the vigorous demands of high volume, quality critical and 24-7 environments like LISI Aerospace by providing robust equipment and solutions. This philosophy is only achievable through our customer backed innovation process, allowing us to exceed expectations and meet what our partners expect from us. Aerospace businesses conform to challenging standards and manufacture safety critical components – which in turn need to be tested and evaluated to eliminate failures out in the everyday world – Buehler has been supporting these companies since 1936, a legacy, like our partnerships, we are proud of!

Buehler is a global manufacturer of metallographic testing equipment including scientific instruments & supplies for cross-sectional material testing.

Buehler’s sectioning, mounting, grinding and polishing, imaging and analysis and hardness testing metallographic equipment along with consumables are used by metallurgical, metallography, petrography, research & development, university laboratories, quality control departments and failure analysis facilities for the analysis of all types of materials, including ceramics, composites, semiconductors, metals, rocks and minerals, and plastics.

Buehler is well established as the world’s leading supplier of metallographic sample preparation and analysis instruments, equipment, consumable supplies and application solutions. www.buehler.co.uk

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Our goal is to ensure our customers receive a full and comprehensive professional service

We manufacture all materials from hard aerospace steels to Acetal Plastics and process from raw materials to finish grind.

Our services include tool making, punch and die tooling, work holding, reverse engineering and assist design tooling.

www.covmanufacturing.com E: covman@btconnect.com | T: 024 7664 4555

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LISI AEROSPACE

pay dividends during any crisis.

With aerospace being one of the sectors most affected by the global pandemic, it comes as no surprise that the Rugby factory experienced a challenging year.

Still, the company kept going and continued its strategic investment programme.

A erospace

Bowers and Freeman are a British manufacturer of premium quality heading punches for the aerospace fastener industry and we are delighted to work with Lisi Aerospace in the development of high production punches to help them to increase efficiency and reduce their manufacturing costs.

STRONG THROUGH THE CRISIS

Ongoing investment in new processes and equipment in conjunction with in-house continuous development at Bowers and Freeman has resulted in significant technological advances in the development of heading punches that achieve greater production life as well as excellent character definition.

Our specialized process is also able to tailor the surface finish of the punch to specific requirements, to accommodate some special applications which require the flow of the fastener material to be controlled minutely.

Our patented Superpunches will produce significantly more fasteners than comparative standard punches and this extended productive life increases production, reduces downtime, and cuts costs.

Further innovation has enabled us to develop new punches to produce fasteners with a non-patented screwdriver recess. This unique patented application allows not only regular quantities of punches to be produced efficiently but, for the first time, for small quantities to be made cost-effectively with a fast delivery turnaround.

We also produce first process heading punches, wafers, and fillet rolls to the same premium standard.

In most cases, we are able to despatch orders within a short lead time and urgent orders within a very short lead time. However, all orders retain the same high standard of production that the market has come to depend on from Bowers and Freeman.

T: +44 0116 278 5311 | E: info@bowersfreeman.com

www.bowersfreeman.com

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A range of fasteners from the Rugby facility.

Although the global market shrank by about 30% in 2020 and commercial air traffic is still heavily reduced, the Rugby site remained profitable throughout 2020 and into 2021.

This is even more impressive given the fact that most of the top management team was replaced last year.

Mr Capell, who took over his General Manager role in January 2020, a few months before the first lockdown, says: “The company has always pursued its core values of teamwork, innovation, customer focus and integrity, and these values helped us remain in robust shape in difficult times. More than anything, the crisis gelled the team together and made us act quickly - at the start of the pandemic we managed to completely reconfigure 2 production lines in just 48 hours.”

He affirmed that right from the beginning, employee safety has been the highest priority throughout the pandemic, and a full range of safety measures has been implemented.

“Digital communication - new to many of us - has been key but also challenging. We have introduced a new local intranet/communication portal with updates and newsletters, and virtual coffee mornings for home workers to support their mental health. For

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the whole year now, all meetings have been conducted online.

It hasn’t been all easy, but in its way, the pandemic accelerated the digitisation process that was already in progress.”

Speaking about teamwork and staff commitment, Mr Capell highlights the outstanding cooperation with the Works Council and the role it played in employee support and engagement.

“We received excellent input from the workforce on improvement ideas and working conditions.

Some key decisions were made in collaboration with the Works Council, such as the furlough shift pattern which was implemented following the changes to the scheme in October 2020. We also made sure that employees were recognised for their hard work and efforts and maintained performance bonuses throughout the year.”

SMART INVESTMENT

With reduced headcount and increased focus on operational efficiencies and fixed-cost reduction, the company continues with its plan to transition to smart manufacturing.

LISI

Production Operator Beata Bodo setting an automated threadroll machine (previously a manual process).

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AEROSPACE UK – and The University of Sheffield AMRC have jointly secured £975,000 in funding from the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) to develop a ‘smart factory’ production line, a project that was initiated a few years ago.

“The investment shows we are committed to advancing the fastener industry with our unique and high-impact approach,” said Mark Capell.

“Several important topics will be addressed, such as Industry 4.0,

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LISI AEROSPACE

Production Operator Fraser Moore setting an automated CNC (previously a manual process).

Process Development Manger Ondrej Polak with one of the automation projects (threadroll).

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digitisation, big data, closedloop manufacturing, forge to size (to eliminate subsequent operations), Manufacturing Execution System (MES), autonomous processes (machine learning), training in augmented/mixed reality. The project will reduce wastage and operator interaction; ultimately aiming to provide an all-round better manufacturing process.”

A new team of 4 engineers and a manager has been assigned to enable the project, with in-house development of key features such as PCB design, database, programming and sensors. “Currently we are at the stage of choosing an equipment partner, the plan is to order three new machines in Q2 to develop the smart technology to the next level. The first line should be in production at the end of 2022,” says Mr Capell.

“Efficiency will remain key.

After adjusting our fixed costs, we are now focussing on variable costs and process efficiencies. The workforce has been fantastically flexible throughout the pandemic and is heavily engaged in future developments. When the market recovers, we will emerge with the smart factory technology in place as well as new skills. To this end, we are working with the next generation of aerospace employees at universities and colleges, and also have a number of apprentices on-site.

“We will continue to invest in the next generation of employees. Human resources are our core asset. What kept us going throughout the Covid-19 crisis was the excellent teamwork and the continued efforts of not just the management but of every single employee of the company. The talented, dedicated and flexible workforce will be a key element in securing LISI AEROSPACE’s future.”

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ZAMTEL

ZAMTEL’S REPUTATION DATES BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF ZAMBIA’S FIRST PHONE LINES, BUT IN THE 21ST CENTURY IT IS DOING FAR MORE THAN THAT.

OUTSIDE THE LINES PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

Zamtel’s history goes back to the installation of Zambia’s first analogue telephone exchange in Livingstone in 1913. Since then the company has undergone numerous transformations to become the forwardlooking telecommunications company it is today. When we look at the modern incarnation of Zamtel we see a company that is strategically moving away from its traditional operations into a much more focused position in the telecommunications industry.

W

e’re not just providing mobile phones and ways to communicate, but providing technological support for other areas, like education, medical, and improving the operations of the digital sector,” explains Danny Luswili, Zamtel’s Chairman. “Our unique selling point is that we are looking further into the future of the telecommunications industry.

It’s changing, not just because of Covid pandemic but because of the way the telecommunications industry has evolved over the years.”

It is impossible to deny that telecommunications have found their way into every area of our lives, and Zamtel’s strategy acknowledges the importance of parity of operations and digital platform.

“More and more people are using platforms like Zoom and

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Microsoft Teams to communicate, especially post-COVID, so the telecommunications industry is much wider than it was,” Luswili points out.

ESCAPING THE PAST

In meeting these needs, Zamtel has sometimes struggled because its long history, while something to be proud of, can

mean customers are more likely to associate the company with days gone by.

“The challenges first of all have to do with our connection to the past,” Luswili admits. “We have always been known as a company that provided the infrastructure for the landline phones in the olden days, so when other telecommunications

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ZAMTEL

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COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY | 81

GROUP MFI At MFI, we provide smart solutions for how people experience products, services and technology in order to realise their business ambition.

We humanise technology and have our fingers on the pulse of key global trends in order to deliver effective, impactful and environmentally-friendly solutions.

At MFI, we are a catalyst for positive change and understand the unique needs of every business vertical in which we operate, some of which include Telecommunications, Finance, Government, Logistics, Healthcare, Education, Manufacturing and Hospitality. Together with our global partners, we help solve business critical challenges that include lowering costs, automating business processes and increasing productivity, using pioneering ideas, award-winning hardware and smart software.

Our Document Solutions are uniquely designed to provide cost-effective and sustainable results that revolutionise workflows; our Technology Solutions focus on infrastructure, optimisation, efficiency and security, while our Print Solutions bring precision and reliability to any output task.

Great customer service is what fuels our business. We go the extra mile for all our customers to ensure their satisfaction, and our team is dedicated to providing the correct maintenance and developmental tools to every customer.

With 4 decades of experience across 18 countries in Africa, we have amassed a wealth of knowledge and truly understand how to propel businesses to success.

Our heritage is built on reliability, quality and passion and our customers see us as the Trusted Enabler that they can rely on for dependable and effective solutions that drive their business forward. At MFI we say, “Your Ambition Our Mission”.

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82 | COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY

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ZAMTEL

Danny Luswili, Zamtel’s Chairman.

Venous allows health workers to enjoy automated record management, improved clinical decisions and quicker and more coordinated patient care.

Its key benefits also include a significant reduction in drug thefts and the generation of realtime analytics, giving hospital authorities necessary statistics for ease of management and decision making.

All of this has come in particularly handy in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Venous allows for a reduction in physical interactions between

patients and medical personnel.

It also comes with a mobile app that allows patients to make appointments, change hospital appointments and receive notifications of hospital appointment dates. But that’s not all.

“We’ve also gone into education,” says Luswili. “We are working with the Minister of Education to provide training using our network.”

Working with the Examinations Council of Zambia and the Ministry of General Education Zamtel has launched

companies moved into the mobile network providers sector, we were left behind as approval took a bit of time to come through. We could not get the required support and approval, at that time, to move into the mobile telecommunications area. So we needed to catch up with the competition.”

Fortunately, over the last five years, Zambia’s wider telecommunications industry has seen a great deal of investment, which has given Zamtel just the boost it needs.

“We’ve managed to close that gap, not just by providing the mobile network, but because we’ve gone into other sectors, such as health, for example,” Luswili says. “We are one of the only telecommunication companies providing support to the healthcare sector with a platform for doctors and other medical staff to use to manage operations.”

This platform, which goes by the name “Venous”, is an Integrated Digital Health Management System. It has been developed

by Zamtel and Zcom Systems to act as a customized platform offering a secure, integrated digital solution that enhances operational efficiencies for healthcare providers.

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ZAMTEL

an interactive e-learning portal and Smart Revision platform to ensure continued learning even when schools are closed. These portals, launched in tandem, provide a complete package for alternative and supplementary learning resources as the Ministry of Education works to bridge learning gaps due to the closure of schools in light of Covid-19. It includes e-books, links to specialised services, and a virtual library, while also hosting past exam papers, model answers and revision tips for grades seven to nine and twelve, as well as General Certificate of Education (GCE) candidates.

“We’ve also provided a platform to municipal councils for them to manage things over a mobile digital network provider,” Luswili explains.

“Councils are using our facilities to run their cash flow management and operations.”

All of these platforms are provided alongside products and services never-before-seen in Zambia, such as unlimited internet access.

THE BEST ON THE MARKET

Zamtel’s story is a success story, but as Luswili points out, it is a story built on the efforts of its people.

“I can tell you our staff are the best-qualified staff in the market,” he says proudly. “We’ve some of the best engineers. We’ve got a vigorous training program where we provide experience, take fresh graduates and develop them to give them that insider experience. They’ve developed into a formidable team that can develop its own products.”

As well as opportunities for growth and development, Zamtel’s staff are also given the chance to use their creativity.

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ZAMTEL

“In the area of innovation, every member of staff is given a chance to come up with an idea or a project we can put out,” Luswili says. “We’re empowering our staff, appreciating their service.”

Zamtel is a governmentowned company, and its success is Zambia’s success, so it’s no surprise that Zamtel is using its position to improve the lives of Zambians.

“We’ve supported several schools in Zambia by providing internet services, as well as helping to renovate schools,” Luswili tells us. “In the medical sector we support the biggest university hospital in Zambia, have renovated a ward there and provide digital services to that whole hospital. We’re quite active in that sector.”

Over and again, talking with Luswili, it’s clear that while Zamtel’s heritage is a great one, what he’s really excited about is where the company is going next.

“When it comes to the future of Zamtel, I speak with a lot of pride. We’re focused on several areas. We’ve recently planned out a strategy to 2024,” he says. “We want to win with our customers. Service and revenue growth are critical to us. We want to be the company that offers the best service. Our products must be the best in the market, with enough market development.

Telecommunications is going from 3g to 4g to 5g, and we need to keep up.”

It’s not a market Zamtel will be able to compete in by playing it safe.

“Innovation is key,” Luswili insists. “We have built a disruptive and innovative agenda, coming up with products and services that will disrupt the industry and improve our customers’ experience. For the future of Zambia, we’re not just running the telecommunications industry, we want to change lives.”

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WWF-KENYA

A THRIVING LIVING ENVIRONMENT WHERE HUMANS LIVE IN HARMONY WITH NATURE MAY SOUND LIKE AN UNATTAINABLE DREAM. BUT THIS IS WHAT WORLD WIDE FUND FOR NATURE KENYA (WWF-KENYA) STRIVES TO PROMOTE.

SUSTAINING NATURE FOR THE BENEFIT OF PEOPLE PROJECT MANAGED BY: MAX HUTCHINGS

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WWF-KENYA

WWF-Kenya is an affiliate of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the world’s largest independent organisation, dedicated to the conservation of the Earth’s natural environment, with a presence in more than 100 countries around the world.

I

n Kenya, the WWF commenced its operations in 1962 with an initial focus on protecting threatened species but since then, WWF-Kenya has expanded its mandate to encompass management of scarce water resources, conservation of disappearing forests, climate and energy work, management of marine resources and governance programmes, among others.

WWF-Kenya’ s CEO Mohamed Awer describes the organisation’s journey: “We started out as a project office in the middle of the last century

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but progressed to be a locally embedded non-governmental conservation organization, accountable to Kenyans and working in the conservation and development space for sustainable development in Kenya. As such we are now able to have a much stronger voice, one that has been further amplified over the last four years when we became a locally registered organisation.”

SIX DECADES OF POSITIVE IMPACT

Through its progression, WWFKenya has achieved many milestones with long-term positive impacts. “The purchase of private land to establish the 188 square kilometres Lake Nakuru National Park is one of the achievements we are most proud of,” says Mr Awer. Today, the Nakuru Park – transferred to the Government of Kenya without any conditions on co-

management or any revenuesharing arrangement, and one of the two premier parks in Kenya receives an average of 300,000 visitors a year and currently generates average annual revenue of KES 500 million ($4.5 million).

WWF-Kenya played a key role in supporting the National Rhino Programme. In the mid-1980s the Black Rhino population fell to the lowest level ever recorded. After WWF-Kenya’s intervention, a rhino sanctuary was opened in Nakuru Park, which has seen the population recover and stabilise. These efforts were crowned by another recent success: in 2020, Kenya achieved zero rhino poaching - the first time such a milestone was achieved in the East African country in more than two decades.

Other major achievements of WWF-Kenya include the Coastal Forests Conservation project

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including the sacred Kaya Forests, considered to be an intrinsic source of ritual power and an origin of cultural identity; protection of the largest single contiguous landscape in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania – the iconic savannah landscapes; as well as the Mara River Basin – the source of life for millions of people and wild animals in the two East African countries and beyond.

CONTINUED EFFORTS

Managing to establish protection over areas that are of economic interest is not easy, admits Mr Awer. Kenya’s natural resources are diminishing fast, while the human footprint is increasing. The root causes include, but are not limited to: large scale infrastructure

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development, a rampant illegal wildlife trade, expanding agriculture, investments in the extractive industries and climate change.

“The challenge to our work is that Kenya’s economy is 80% nature-based - this is leading to over-exploitation of natural resources, with fierce competition between agriculture and biodiversity.

Also, 61% of Kenya is degraded (and over 80% is arid and semiarid land): with food production competing with wildlife for dwindling space and water reserves - habitat loss and natural resource degradation is a major challenge.”

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WWF-KENYA

“Biodiversity, wildlife numbers and habitats continue to be in national decline - between 2015-2019, a 68% general loss in wildlife numbers was recorded. This is happening in a challenging global environment of a growing human population, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic crisis that is unimaginably detrimental to the environment and local communities. All this at a time when the world is waking up to the climate and biodiversity emergency.”

RECENT INITIATES

Against these challenges, the organisation has defined a Framework Strategy to address three key goals - Biodiversity, Climate Change and People Development. It is implementing projects in three geographies,

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aiming to secure dispersal areas, conservancies and protected areas that host over 60 of the elephant and lion populations in Kenya, as well as protecting the biggest water tower (the Mau forest) and globally recognized sites such as the Ramsar sites and the Biosphere Reserve (Amboseli Park).

To pursue its strategy, WWFKenya has partnered with a number of organisations from the private sector as well as with governmental and civil society organisations.

For example, in December last year, an innovative partnership was struck between WWFKenya and the pioneering private-sector plastics recycling company Mr Green Africa to combat the challenges of plastic pollution resulting from rapid urbanization.

CONSERVATION | 89

WWF-KENYA

“Mr Green Africa complements WWF-Kenya by bringing in much-needed knowledge, networks and expertise in the plastic recycling value chain in coastal Kenya where we have worked for more than 20 years.

These efforts will go a long way not only towards improving the livelihoods of workers in the plastic recycling sector but will also have a net impact on the reduction of marine litter that ends up in our ocean and chokes marine biodiversity,’’ says Mr Awer.

STRONGER IN PARTNERSHIPS

Given the size of the task WWFKenya is tackling, it is surprising that the organisation employs just 100 people. “We could of course double or triple staff number easily but that is not the way we want to go. We have to amplify, not magnify, our work by getting into partnerships to reach a pool of professionals that we would otherwise not be able to reach. We don’t want to be the dominant player; we want to allow others to grow with

90 | CONSERVATION

us - the challenges out there can only be resolved through collaborative partnerships.” says Mr Awer.

Summarising the organisation’s tasks for the future, he says: “Our key objective is to contribute to the National Sustainable Development Agenda of Kenya. We have a clear plan on this, including investing in organisational excellence to deliver on our strategy in the most effective and efficient way. This includes financial sustainability, communications, monitoring and evolution, and the right people in the right places to deliver impactful conservation.”

“Overall, our key objectives can be summarised as follows: Thriving Wildlife; Functioning Habitats; Sustainably Managed Nature that benefits People; Greened Footprints, an Enabling Policy for Nature Conservation,” concludes Mr Awer. These are ambitious objectives but it is in the interest of everybody on our planet that they are achieved.

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WWF-KENYA

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CONSERVATION | 91

ALJABER ENGINEERING

WE LEARN HOW ALJABER ENGINEERING HAS ACHIEVED THE HOLY GRAIL OF CONSTRUCTION: HIGH QUALITY, AND FAST DELIVERY.

HIGH QUALITY, DELIVERED FAST PROJECT MANAGED BY: GLEN NEWTON

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ALJABER ENGINEERING

AlJaber Engineering was found in 1995, and after 26 years has become a leading engineering company as well as a holding company supporting 20 affiliated businesses.

W

e started as AlJaber Engineering then we decided to go into other activities within the company, then decided to stay purely as a contracting company and spin our other activities off into

separate companies, creating partnerships in other fields to complement our activities,” explains Osama Hadid, CEO of AlJaber Engineering. “JEC remains the contracting construction arm of the Al Jaber Group. We have a company called Al Jaber Trading and Contracting in the Group that is also a construction company, but AlJaber Engineering is a more diversified contractor.

Through a lot of partnerships and joint-ventures, we’ve developed into a contractor

involved in almost every kind of major project.”

AlJaber Engineering’s work has been seen in the construction of the Doha Metro project, and the firm was one of five companies from several nations involved in constructing the Orbital Highway, a USD 1.68 billion project.

Currently, AlJaber Engineering is building a FIFA World Cup stadium and unique strategic food security facilities inside Hamad Port.

“This project is a very unique food processing facility, probably the only one in the

Orbital Highway & Truck Route.

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ALJABER ENGINEERING

world with these processes and capacity,” Hadid tells us. “It’s going to be a unique project designed and build by AlJaber Engineering.”

THE BEST QUALITY AT THE BEST SPEED

What makes AlJaber Engineering stand out is that it challenges the received wisdom that quality and speed-of-delivery are conflicting concerns.

“We have two major selling points- delivery and quality.

In construction, delivery and quality are the two main priorities but they often don’t go together,” Hadid admits. “Highspeed delivery can compromise quality, and being careful about quality slows you down. So to marry the two and deliver highquality fast-track projects is very difficult in construction.”

Osama Hadid, Chief Executive Officer, AlJaber Engineering.

According to Hadid, achieving both of these seemingly contradictory goals at once is a question of company culture.

“It requires capable people who can do the job right and do it right the first time,” Hadid points out. “It’s the quality of people and procedures you have that decide if you can achieve these two targets together.”

As well as having highly qualified people, AlJaber Engineering’s quality is assured through the use of independent QA. “We have quality assurance and control, but we also have a quality assurance and safety company we hire, and they are independent,” Hadid says.

“They don’t report to us and so they have the freedom to make sure quality controls and safety procedures are implemented.”

In offering rapid delivery, the solution is more straightforward.

As Hadid says, “In delivery, it’s having the sources and the

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ALJABER ENGINEERING

FIFA World Cup Al Thumama Stadium.

Doha Metro Project - Gold Line.

stamina. Construction is a hardworking environment. If you have the company culture you can achieve the targets you have set for yourself.”

SEEKING NEW CHALLENGES

That culture is defined by the desire to seek out new challenges and overcome them. It’s an attitude that’s led

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to AlJaber Engineering taking on a variety of megaprojects.

But JEC is now undergoing a strategic shift that will see it take on different kinds of challenges.

“Our construction business is full of challenges and that’s what makes it exciting because it’s never the same. Things change every day and new challenges come up all the time. As JEC has grown it has come across new challenges. In 2014 we won close to 10 billion riyals of projects in one year, launching a measured transformation in the company from medium-size to a very large company, and that was a challenge at the time,” he says. “After four-or-five years of working on megaprojects, we now want to look at a different market.

Megaprojects are exciting, you see the end result of the stadium or the metro, but the risks are huge because they’re all design and build projects with major challenges in terms of controlling your costs.”

Regardless of the type of project, or the scale, it is being built to, JEC’s company culture remains a key differentiator.

“Our business is the business of people,” he says. “We employ approximately 400 engineers, and the quality of those people is very important. We employ people with experience and capabilities and graduates in large numbers who in time develop themselves into good elements of the company that can carry the culture of the company. Usually, successful companies are not new companies.

They’ve been around for a long time, created the culture.”

AlJaber Engineering sees it as its responsibility to invest in its people, giving them chances to develop themselves. The company offers employees the opportunity to take courses, or

even improve their university qualifications. Hadid proudly tells us of one recruit who now holds a PhD and manages four companies within the Group.

“It’s very gradual, it takes time, it takes a lot of screening and talking to people to guide them to work on themselves,” Hadid says.

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

As well as investing in their people, Hadid is excited about the prospect of investing in Qatar as a whole, with an environment that he sees as rife with opportunity.

“We believe Qatar is full of opportunities. The North Fields expansion is a significant opportunity for us as a major contractor here with very strong electrical and mechanical capabilities. We can be involved in industrial projects from A-Z. That’s what we’re trying to promote with the major contractors here,” Hadid tells us. “All this will be built over the next five-to-seven years, so with that in the pipeline I’m not worried about the future.”

As a company that already has a proud portfolio behind it, Al Jaber Engineering is ready to grasp those opportunities as they come, in Qatar and beyond.

“We’ve been there before, we have the references,” Hadid says. “We also just started our first project in Oman. We’ve been trying to find a project outside Qatar for some time. We’ve found one funded by a jointventure company, so it’s funded

by Qatari money. We’re building a resort, they’re government property developers. It’s very exciting that we’ve started our first project outside Qatar and are looking for opportunities in Kuwait and Oman and think it will be very promising for the next five years.”

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BRADBURY GROUP

EVEN DURING A CHALLENGING YEAR, BRADBURY GROUP HAS BEEN GOING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS PROJECT MANAGED BY: DAVID GARNER

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BRADBURY GROUP

2020 has been good for Bradbury Group. Even as the business has faced the challenges of the pandemic, it has remained focused on maintaining its deliverables to customers.

W

e took the opportunity to look at our business in its entirety, restructuring various elements of it,” says Richard Butler, Bradbury Group’s Group Managing Director.

“We also pushed forward with

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the implementation of a new computer system – SAP” Bradbury Group is a leading provider of steel doors and physical security solutions.

“I think it’s important to say the Bradbury Group is exactly that, a group with great brands within that group,” Butler says. “We’ve Newton Security Doors, focused on the communal door sector, we’ve Liddle Doors which focuses on the utilities sector for water, gas, electric, wind farms and solar. We’ve then got the Martin

Roberts brand, which is focused at architectural steel doors. So, if we were to walk through Canary Wharf there is not a building that does not have a Martin Roberts door in it. Then of course we have the heart of the business, Bradbury Security Doors, which we sell through our trade sales partners, a network of partners who sell and install right across the country.”

When we spoke with the company before it was optimistic about its future,

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and while the last year hasn’t been the one anyone would have wished for, Bradbury has managed to survive, and even thrive through the crisis.

“I think our biggest achievement has been developing our business with existing customers and our growing new customer base in a very challenging business environment,” Butler tells us.

“We’ve had to review how we do business for the safety of our employees and customers. We took the right decision to close on the 25th of March last year at the start of the pandemic and remained shut until the 11th of May.” Bradbury maintained a core nucleus of people working from home and that allowed it to maintain customer contact.

As semi-normality has returned the company has followed the stringent guidelines set out by the government to work in this new era. Even today, some of

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Bradbury’s staff are working remotely off-site.

“We’re seeing an emergence of people coming back into the office but we’re creating a platform of flexibility,” Butler says. “Certainly, our office and operational staff can be based anywhere. It’s a bit more difficult with the production team, but we have ensured their safety is paramount.”

Part of what has made that safety possible is the extensive £12 million investment Bradbury Group has made into its facilities over the last three years. These investments are to ensure Bradbury can support both market and customer growth.

“We’re clearly seeing that we’re not post-Covid yet, but as we’re coming out of the pandemic the markets are rebounding strongly.

We will continue to invest as we move forward,” explains Butler.

“It’s laid out in, our strategic plan that takes us forward for the next 5 years, our strategy that

sales@chainbridgesteel.com FIRELITE chainbridgesteel.com looks at how we will develop all facets of the business; from new products and markets, whether domestic or export. It’s a sound platform to manage and run the business.”

“WE’RE CLEARLY SEEING THAT WE’RE NOT POSTCOVID YET, BUT AS WE’RE COMING OUT OF THE PANDEMIC THE MARKETS ARE REBOUNDING STRONGLY.” MOVING WITH THE TIMES

One of the biggest changes Bradbury Group has made during the pandemic is moving its subsidiary, Newton Security Doors, from its traditional home in Irvine, Scotland, and relocating it to Bradbury’s HQ in Scunthorpe.

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BRADBURY GROUP

“The plan was always at some point to do that, but we accelerated that because as a senior team, as we continued to work through the lockdown period, we had the time and space to deliver it seamlessly,” Butler tells us. “As a Group, we now have all of our manufacturing under one roof, bringing great synergies from purchasing to logistics and manpower.”

Newton Security Doors specialises in communal entrance doors made from aluminium.

“We’ve been able to rationalise our supplier base. It was two independent businesses in separate locations, but now we’ve been able to use the best of the Bradbury supply chain and the Newton supply chain to find synergy,” explains Butler.

“The same is true of freight

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BRADBURY GROUP

and transportation. We ship far more product from the Bradbury portfolio and have been able to use that synergy with our freight partners for Newton.”

At the same time as Newton is being brought into the fold of Bradbury’s main production facility, the Group has also continued to invest in its very advanced linear production facility.

“An order goes from our customer and sales portal, automatically then into our SAP manufacturing system, then through to automated design and tooling system, into our automated machining centre and then flowing through a semiautomated production line to the finished product,” Butler says.

“I think that is highly important because the investment the business has made over the last three years hasn’t just been about then but about setting us up for future capacity for years to come.”

Of course, as well as having the latest equipment, Bradbury Group also needs the right people, and with Newton Security Doors coming home to Scunthorpe, the company has been engaged in a recruitment drive.

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BRADBURY GROUP

“WE’VE GOT A VERY STRONG ORDER BOOK. WE ARE ACTIVELY ENGAGED AS A SALES ORGANISATION OUT THERE SEEKING NEW OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH EXISTING CUSTOMERS AND FINDING NEW CUSTOMERS WE’VE NEVER DEALT WITH BEFORE.”

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“We’ve been looking at a whole array of operators and finishers.

We’ve gone into Scunthorpe and the wider area being very specific in what we’re looking for,” Butler tells us. “The great news is we’ve found a core team, that in six months have mastered the art of the process and are now producing more product than were produced at our old site with fewer team members. It’s a fantastic achievement by them and their production manager who came down with us from Scotland. If you have a forward plan, a forward vision, then you can literally do anything. It’s all about mindset.”

OPENING DOORS

Talking with Butler it’s clear he’s optimistic about Bradbury’s future.

“We’ve got an amazing team here at Bradbury, they’ve been tremendous through this COVID-19 period. The order book remains strong and we are actively engaged as a sales organisation out there seeking new opportunities through existing customers and finding new customers we’ve never dealt with before,” he says. “As a business, we have had limited exposure to the export market but we see a great opportunity there, particularly in countries where the Made in Britain brand has real strength, such as parts of Africa, the Middle East and into Asia. Through the latter part of 2020 and early this year we have been very successful in securing and delivering prestigious projects in Qatar, including a recent large export order for an as-yetunannounced project.”

Beyond these exciting projects, Butler already has longer-term plans in place.

“We’re now focused on the future and building further the brands within Bradbury Group.

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MAN COMMERCIAL PROTECTION LTD

WHILE THE SECURITY TECHNOLOGY IS CONSTANTLY IMPROVING, THERE IS STILL A VITAL ROLE FOR THE HUMAN TOUCH.

IN SAFE HANDS PROJECT MANAGED BY: GLEN NEWTON

MAN Commercial Protection Ltd is a privately-owned security company based in Solihull, in the West Midlands.

The business has been trading for 28 years, growing to become a national provider of security throughout the UK. From its head office, MAN Commercial Protection supports its contracts nationwide. But at a time when many security companies are more like specialist electronics providers, MAN Commercial Protection has always been about people.

O

ur business is about people, delivering security staff rather than electronics,” says Iain McCallister, CEO of MAN Commercial Protection. “We’ve just gone through our 28th anniversary two days ago and we’ve grown to a massive size over the last few years. We’ve achieved a position where we’re one of the market leaders in the UK.” Being “about people” doesn’t just mean that they supply security guards. MAN Commercial Protection’s people-orientated approach can be seen running through the entire business.

“The most important thing is we’re a family business,” McCallister tells us. “That is visible in our websites and

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social media and all the different platforms we communicate through. I still own the business 100%, with no private equity, no venture capitalists, no corporate funding. Our personal touch comes from the fact that family members are still involved at the directorship level. We have an ethos where to this day we care about our staff and our people.”

Reflecting this ethos, McCallister is very hands-on as CEO in the day-to-day running of the company. Other family members are also key parts of the company, especially in HR. “The staff know they will be looked after if they’ve got any issues, and the past 12 months have been the biggest example of that,” McCallister informs us.

MAN COMMERCIAL PROTECTION LTD

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MAN COMMERCIAL PROTECTION LTD

TRIALS OF THE PANDEMIC

The challenges of the last year need no introduction, and there isn’t a company that hasn’t experienced some challenges as a result of the ongoing pandemic, but as a peoplecentred organisation MAN Commercial Protection faced unique challenges.

“Because we supply people, we have had to look very closely at staff welfare, making sure we kept an eye on staff who were shielding or self-isolating, or people with family members ill or who had been in hospital,” McCallister recalls. “We were calling them, making sure they were okay, ensuring head office continued 24/7 because as a 24-hour office we have to make sure it’s totally clean, with all the PPE and hand sanitisers we need and every surface receiving a wipe down. We’ve been social distancing, making sure we have people working from home where possible.”

Iain McCallister, CEO of MAN Commercial Protection.

However, despite these challenges, McCallister points out MAN Commercial Protection has grown over the last 12 months. Its customers in the supply chain have also experienced massive growth, which in turn has promoted growth in MAN itself.

“We’ve had to implement changes based on social distancing and PPE. One thing that we’ve done as well is we’ve kept regular COVID updates with the staff by email.

Because our control room is active 24-hours, our staff know they can call at any time, ensuring that from our point of view we’re making sure their concerns are met,” McCallister tells us. “It’s been a challenge

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MAN COMMERCIAL PROTECTION LTD

really. With social distancing as well, we’ve been quite fortunate that we’ve got a fair size office that we own. We can make it to our specifications as we need. We’ve continued to grow because our customers have continued to grow, so our business has increased.”

INVESTING BACK IN PEOPLE

MAN Commercial Protection knows the importance of taking care of its people because 28 years of trading have proven just that.

“If I was to work out how many people have worked for us it would go into tens of thousands of people,” McCallister points out. “We have people who’ve been with us for over 20 years.

So recruits have to buy into our ethos, and our whole ethos is about what makes us different.

Knowing the industry as well as I do, our business model is about investing back into people. We’ve had so many people over the years from office juniors, growing into roles at head office, guys who start as a guard and become a manager and contract manager.”

As well as supporting people within the company MAN Commercial Protection has also reached out into the community to support clubs and charities.

At the same time, McCallister’s experience in the field means he’s got a few connections to draw on to help out.

“We have supported a local boxing club for the last 15 years.

My background also means I did a lot of personal security looking after people getting good contacts, which means good gifts we can use as charity donations,” McCallister says. “We’ve made many donations to local charities, giving away signed gloves or shirts. In our 25th year, the girls in the office put together an anniversary event that raised

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£13,000 for charity in one night.

Over the years we’ve raised a lot of money for charities.”

Looking to the future, MAN Commercial Protection is set to continue expanding, but with people remaining at the centre of its vision.

“We are just about to buy another office, next door but one to our current office which will take our current area to 7,000 square foot,” McCallister tells us. “We will continue to grow alongside our existing customers, continue investing in people, in what we’re doing right. We’ve got a good name in the industry so

we’re going to work hard to keep increasing turnover and staff and cement our position within the security industry in the UK.” McCallister is philosophical about the challenges the company has overcome so far and is keen to move forward.

“It’s been a hard 12 months,” he admits. “We’ve worked so hard. Where a lot of people might have had furloughs, everyone here has worked really hard throughout the pandemic, and you reap what you sow. It’s all come from our team, investing in people and keeping moving forward.”

“KNOWING THE INDUSTRY AS WELL AS I DO, OUR BUSINESS MODEL IS ABOUT INVESTING BACK INTO PEOPLE.” BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

MAN COMMERCIAL PROTECTION LTD

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LAKE TURKANA WIND PROJECT

THE LAKE TURKANA WIND PROJECT, THE LARGEST SINGLE WIND FARM BUILT IN AFRICA & KENYA’S BIGGEST EVER PRIVATE INVESTMENT, HAS TRANSFORMED THE COUNTRY’S ENERGY OUTLOOK.

POWERING THE NATION PROJECT MANAGED BY: JOHN HOLLIMAN

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LAKE TURKANA WIND PROJECT

The Lake Turkana Wind Power Project is located in north-western Kenya, near Lake Turkana, a relatively desolate spot that previously had no infrastructure or transmission network. The winds sweeping the area start in the Indian Ocean and are channelled through the “Turkana corridor” created by the Ethiopian and Kenyan highlands.

They blow consistently at 11 miles per second, making this an ideal area for situating wind turbines.

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T

he wind farm comprises 365 turbines, each with a capacity of 850kW, and a high voltage substation that has been connected to the Kenyan national grid through an associated transmission line constructed by the Kenyan Government. The project is forecast to reduce carbon emissions by 16 million tons during its 20-year lifespan.

The Wind Farm’s proponent is the LTWP consortium, comprising KP&P Africa BV and Aldwych International as codevelopers, Investment Fund for Developing Countries, Vestas

Eastern Africa Limited, Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd, KLP Norfund Investments AS and Sandpiper.

Carlo van Wageningen, one of the founding fathers of the project, says: “The success of this unprecedented project is the result of the passion of the whole team, and its dedication to beating the odds. Considered a bunch of dreamers at first, the satisfaction is enormous today, when you see what is standing, where once there was nothing.

The transformation is beyond words.”

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Zamara is a leading financial services company with a Pan African vision to power prosperity on our continent by providing solutions that result in financial freedom for both individuals and businesses across Africa.

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LAKE TURKANA WIND PROJECT

THE BEGINNINGS

The project started with an idea, triggered by a Dutch friend of Mr van Wageningen who used to go to Lake Turkana to fish and, being from the Netherlands, immediately noticed the wind and its potential value. Following the fast growth of renewables technology, it became clear that the site was a wind farm developer’s dream: enormous space, low population density, with constant, unidirectional winds, says Mr van Wageningen.

“With Kenya’s total installed capacity of 950 MW at that time, my idea was to build a 50-90 MW wind farm, which would represent up to 10% of the country’s total installed capacity. However, it became clear that given the cost of the required infrastructure, we needed higher volume in order for the project to be viable.

300 MW was judged to be the minimum capacity.”

When asked about the challenges, Mr van Wageningen smiles. “Everything was a challenge. With a project of that size in Africa that had never been done before, with $600 million under private investment never done before, in an area where there is nothing, the challenges are huge.”

Logistics was the first challenge to handle - how to get the equipment to the site.

This, together with the need to build everything from scratch, in an area with no houses, no electricity substations, as well as the need to get acceptance from local communities, were the issues that needed to be addressed all at the same time, says Mr van Wageningen. “We had to take the risk of starting the development knowing very well that any of these challenges could make it impossible to move on, at a great cost.”

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Carlo van Wageningen, one of the founding fathers of Lake Turkana Wind Project.

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LAKE TURKANA WIND PROJECT

WINDS OF CHANGE

The company ended up reinforcing 208 km of roads and bridges which made it possible to haul all 365 turbines to the site from the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. The project is connected to the national grid by the 436km Loiyangalani – Suswa transmission interconnector.

Mr van Wageningen explained that a strong CSR programme was defined and an agreement was reached with the investors to deploy a set percentage of profits as a regular contribution to CSR. Initiatives included the

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establishment of a ‘Winds of Change Foundation’ to help address health, education, infrastructure and water issues.

As part of its commitment to local communities, the Winds of Change Foundation undertakes sustainable community development projects in the project catchment area. Now that the wind farm is operational, it is expected that LTWP through the foundation will contribute €10 million over the operational life of the wind farm.

Mr van Wageningen says: “The project has awakened a region

that before was considered marginalized. The infrastructure we have built and the associated developments have significantly boosted the local economy.”

He points out that it took nine years of hard work for the project to be completed on time and on budget. “The first turbine was installed on 5 March 2016, and the last turbine was erected on 5 March 2017 365 turbines were installed in 365 days. We actually finished the project one week ahead of the expected completion time, entirely on budget, which was

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LAKE TURKANA WIND PROJECT

incredible, given the challenges and the myriad hurdles.”

FLAGSHIP ACHIEVEMENT

The wind farm came online on 24 September 2018 when it was connected to the national grid. Africa’s largest wind farm today employs 480 people and generates up to 310.25 MW of electricity.

Further outcomes of the project are a high voltage substation that has been connected to the Kenyan national grid through an associated transmission line, new roads and various social and

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infrastructure facilities for its staff.

The wind farm today provides clean, reliable and low-cost energy to Kenya’s national grid, supplying up to 25% of Kenya’s off-peak and up to 17% of peak demand, thus contributing to Kenya’s economic stability, strengthening the country’s position as a safe and reliable investment destination.

What started as a dream was successfully completed as a result of the hard work, passion and dedication of the founders and their teams. Today, the Lake Turkana Wind Project is a

showcase for Africa’s renewable energy transformation, making Kenya lead the way in terms of its focus on, and dedication to, renewable energy.

“We take great satisfaction and pride in having achieved something that at the beginning most people thought was not possible. We have transformed the energy prospects of Kenya, improved the lives of a great many people and set a benchmark in terms of renewable energy in Africa. We can walk with our heads held high,” says Mr van Wageningen.

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OD GROUP

OD GROUP IS CREATING THE NEW FACE OF THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY, WHICH IN THE 2020S IS A SECTOR FAR MORE COMPLEX THAN SIMPLY RUNNING HOTELS.

THE NEW FACE OF HOSPITALITY PROJECT MANAGED BY: LEE PHOENIX

The OD Group is a company focused on the hospitality industry. When you think of the hospitality industry, your mind might immediately go to hotels. But the truth is that today the industry represents far more than that.

I

t’s an open-minded concept,” says Marc Rahola, CEO and Founder of OD Group. “Airbnb has blown up the difference between real estate and hospitality. These new trends and new brands offer a new understanding of hospitality for the next generation.”

That crossover area between the hospitality and real estate markets is where OD Group has made its home.

“The market around second and third residences has changed over the last ten years and the pandemic will change it further,” Rahola explains.

When people are looking for a holiday destination, more and more often they are looking for a property that will also bring value. At the same time, they are not just buying a property, but an experience.

“The second house is not just a property, people want someone to help solve the

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challenges of the experience of ownership,” Rahola tells us. “We don’t just sell assets. We sell the leisure and time people stay in the location for. What we have developed is a type of product where if you are acquiring a condominium, we sell everything that goes with it.”

THE WHITE ANGEL GETS ITS WINGS

Rahola’s ideas are most visible in OD Group’s White Angel concept, an exclusive home concept already renowned for the quality of its properties, its meticulous design, and the dream locations where they can be found. But what makes the White Angel concept unique is the services that come with it.

OD Group does not just provide the rest estate, it ensures that the luxury home is in perfect condition at all times, using the same know-how the Group uses to manage its hotels.

“If you want to go for a weekend in one of our White Angels in Ibiza in winter, we can provide the housekeeping and all the concepts, services and support in a balanced and inexpensive way,” Rahola explains. “That’s something we were able to capture because we come from the hospitality sector. We have our own teams able to provide all of that, and our own software to make that happen. In 2012 we opened the first White Angel that we run.

Now we’ve made more than five and are developing three more.”

Already OD Group is looking into how this concept can be spread and introduced into new markets around the world. It is even now developing projects in London, in Camden, and in France, in Saint-Tropez, as well as Miami in the States.

“In all these locations we’re offering the same products and the same manners,” Rahola says. “Our proposal has been successful with the international market because of that.”

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OD GROUP

Marc Rahola, CEO and Founder of OD Group.

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Hnos PARROT Construction core business is delivering Civil and Residential projects as a principal contractor for the last 50 Years. On the last decade the company had grown providing Hotel renovation solutions that match all those needs from the early beginning with cost – solution studies within our tendering department until the full completion of the project.

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OD GROUP

A NEW KIND OF HOSPITALITY STAFF

While the White Angel concept draws on OD Group’s extensive hotelier expertise, Rahola points out that the skillset he is building into his team is unique in the industry.

“That has been a big challenge.

It has been a struggle in our very first steps because when you’ve got a different vision there’s nothing comparable with it,” Rahola says. “I’ve trained my own people, and I tend to choose people with more potential, rather than people who have experience running a hotel. I like to train my own Managing Director from scratch rather than hire someone who has been successful in a traditional hotel.”

The key, Rahola explains, is to find people who want to learn, rather than experienced staff who only want to demonstrate what they already know.

“We hire people who are potentially brilliant, rather than

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people who were brilliant,” Rahola says.

This is important, because of the responsibility OD Group hands to its staff at every level.

With larger companies, there is a lot of data to draw on, but by the time a decision is made based on it, the data has

changed. OD Group is designed to respond much more quickly.

“Other companies are very vertical, you have a manager who is the best paid in the hotel in an office and they’re not even making the big decisions because the big decisions are made at the HQ in terms

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of budget, marketing etc,” Rahola says. “It means instead of demonstrating your own abilities you’re just keeping things running smoothly.”

OD Group works very differently.

“Our hotels are designed without offices. There’s one big room for meeting the client,” Rahola explains. “We construct the budget alongside the managers, we use their local knowledge and perspective. It is a process. Our HQ is more a pool of services and different departments that the manager can make use of. That is instead of being cooped in HQ and taking the process downstream.

A pull process, rather than a push one.”

To work within that system takes a special kind of person, as Rahola describes, “We need people who can demonstrate their

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OD GROUP

capabilities, take responsibility, and feel embraced by and engaged with the philosophy of the company. It’s not so easy to find that, but we’re growing and making that happen.”

The plug and play nature of the White Angel concept is a selling point, but this decentralised leadership and local expertise allow it to maintain an edge in an increasingly competitive market.

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“I think that in the future the others will be suffering due to increasing globalisation.

The point is to be able to be competitive. You have to be different and you have to add value,” says Rahola. “It’s the local part of your business, that is the part that has to be different. You cannot do everything plug and play like a McDonalds. You have to bring something else to the table locally while competing at

a global level. Our HQ cannot decide what is local. It has to be decided on the ground.”

“WE HIRE PEOPLE WHO ARE POTENTIALLY BRILLIANT, RATHER THAN PEOPLE WHO WERE BRILLIANT.” HEALTHCARE, HOTEL & LEISURE | 119

OREXO

WITH ITS INNOVATIVE APPROACH, SWEDEN-BASED OREXO AB IS TARGETING AN AREA THAT IS RAPIDLY BECOMING A FOCUS FOR MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS AROUND THE WORLD – MENTAL HEALTH.

A HEALTHY MINDSET PROJECT MANAGED BY: DAVID TAVERNOR

The number of those with mental health conditions and substance use disorders is increasing worldwide. Covid-19 has further worsened the situation and the consequences of the global pandemic for mental health are yet to be seen in full. One of the companies that are seeking ways to address this rising problem is Orexo, a public Swedish company based in Uppsala and traded on Nasdaq Stockholm (ORX).

C

EO Nikolaj Sørensen summarises the company’s focus: “Orexo aims at preventing and treating substance use disorders and mental illness through new innovations and partnerships.

The company develops improved pharmaceuticals and digital therapies addressing unmet needs within the growing space of substance use disorders and mental health.”

Mr Sørensen was appointed to his role in 2013 when the company was primarily a pharmaceuticals research and development organisation with no commercial activity. Under his management and with a new team, the business model was changed, with a strategy of commercializing the products it develops.

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“Having created our own commercial unit in the US and actually becoming profitable is what has set us apart from most other Swedish pharmaceutical companies. Today, with a profitable US pharma business, our own commercialization capabilities and a strong cash position enable us to invest in developing a digital therapeutic venture and pharmaceutical pipeline.”

2013 became a pivotal year for Orexo, as the company received FDA approval for its lead product ZUBSOLV® to treat opioid dependence; subsequently, a US entity for commercial operations was built from scratch. The US, where the opioid crisis is recognised as a public health emergency and was made a high priority, is the company’s key market.

Nikolaj Sørensen, CEO, Orexo.

OREXO

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OREXO

Dying from an overdose is one of the most common causes of deaths in the US. According to the Centre for Disease Control, the death toll seems to have reached a record-high level in 2020, as 12-month data from September 2020 indicate that more than 87,000 Americans died of an overdose, an increase of more than 27%.

ZUBSOLV®, an effective drug for people suffering from opioid dependence, today accounts for over 90% of Orexo’s revenue.

In November 2017 the European Commission approved ZUBSOLV® for the treatment of opioid dependence in Europe and at the beginning of 2019, it was also approved in Australia.

HOLISTIC APPROACH

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E: info@covectra.com T: 1-508-621-7320

www.covectra.com 122 | HEALTHCARE, HOTEL & LEISURE

Mr Sørensen points out mental illness frequently co-occurs with substance use disorders.

The relationship between the two is bi-directional, meaning that people who abuse substances are more likely to suffer from mental illness, and the other way around. Taking a holistic treatment approach to all elements of an individual’s mental health can have a fundamental impact on those peoples’ lives.

“In misuse situations, medication is not enough the patients need to change their behaviours, change the way they look at their lives to achieve a long-term result. Only a combination of pharmaceuticals and therapies can lead to a satisfactory result in most cases.”

Access to qualified psychosocial support for patients suffering from mental illness and substance use disorders

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OREXO

is crucial but is also limited considering the acute shortage of qualified counsellors in the US and the rising number of patients. The solution may be digital therapy, as Mr Sørensen affirms.

In partnerships with German Gaia AG, a world leader in digital therapeutics, the company is commercializing three digital therapies - for opioid dependence, alcohol misuse, and depression.

The technology is built on the artificial intelligence (AI) software broca® and simulates the interaction between the patient and an empathetic physician or therapist. The therapy is adjusted to the individual’s personality and adapts to his or her personal needs.

“Our therapies have been tested in clinical trials 13 times with about 4000 patients with verified results, and the combination of counsellors and digital therapies is shown to have outstanding results.

I believe that in five to ten years’ time, these digital health solutions will be an integrated part of health care delivery, and already now they represent a big growth area,” he says, affirming that these therapies are by no means supposed to replace qualified professionals, but rather offer complementary support.

THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE

Despite the short-term negative impacts of the pandemic on the business as a result of lockdowns and restricted personal interactions with clients, Mr Sørensen reflects that while Covid-19 may have highlighted the benefits of digitisation it has also further accentuated the issue of mental health on a global scale.

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“The long-term consequences of Covid-19 will have a significant impact on our industry; the number of people suffering from depression has sky-rocketed since last year, and alcohol misuse, as well as opioid misuse, have gone straight through the roof. This after a few years during which the trend was downwards in the US. Medical attention will have to eventually shift from Covid-19 to also include mental health.

The general post-pandemic health debt could be massive.”

He further points out that while in 2013, many people were dying from heroin overdoses, today the majority is dying from synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl. To treat an overdose caused by synthetic drugs which are more powerful and longer-lasting than heroin, a new approach to treatment is needed. Orexo hopes to have found this with its new drug candidate OX124, a rescue medication for opioid overdose, which is approaching final development with the aim to filing with the FDA in mid-2022.

The focus on the combination of pharmaceuticals and digital therapies will drive the company’s strategy for years to come, with Orexo planning to become a broader player in mental health treatment.

“Despite a challenging year with Covid-19, we took several important steps in our ambition to diversify the business. The product portfolio was expanded with world-leading digital therapies and our flagship pharma project, OX124, progressed according to plan. With a strong financial position and continued robust profitability from our US pharma business, Orexo is wellpositioned to meet unmet patient needs in areas with strong growth,” says Nikolaj Sørensen.

“OREXO AIMS AT PREVENTING AND TREATING SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS AND MENTAL ILLNESS THROUGH NEW INNOVATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS.”

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Lionel Chapis, Aludium Chief Executive Officer.

ALUDIUM

ALUDIUM IS A SPECIALIST IN ALUMINIUM - AN INFINITELY RECYCLABLE MATERIAL, BUT WITH PERMANENT CHARACTERISTICS, SUITABLE FOR MANY APPLICATIONS. A MATERIAL FOR THE PRESENT.

THE STAR OF ALUMINIUM PROJECT MANAGED BY: DAVID TAVERNOR

Aludium is a relatively new entity that comprises three mills in Spain and France, and a state-of-the-art aluminium research and development centre in Spain. The company was officially created in 2015 but draws on the long history and extensive experience of each of the businesses.

C

EO Lionel Chapis says: “The name is new, the plants are not. The three plants were divested as a single entity from its former parent company, a large aluminium group, as they together form an integrated processing system.

While we are, with our 900 people, a relatively small company compared to the multinational giants with their complex organisations, we are Nos 1 and 2 in the niche markets we serve - an admirable achievement for a company of our size.”

He further explains that Aludium focuses on several specialised products, supplied to a limited number of industries. One of Aludium’s core market sectors is distribution, with a long term vision to focus on the key distribution players in the European market.

Other sectors that the company serves include construction, transportation, and packaging.

IMPROVED PERFORMANCE

“Our core business is twofold,” explains Mr Chapis. “The

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distribution and construction markets are supplied with standard bulk products such as sheets and coils, in other words, commodity products. Here our prime focus is customer service and flexibility. We have extremely high delivery performance standards and very short lead times in place. It is not so much about the product in these markets but about how they are delivered, to the required quality.”

“On the other side of our business are a certain number of niche, glossy surface products based on high-purity aluminium for specific applications in the cosmetics, solar and lighting applications, complemented by another product group, that of closure sheets. As these are used mostly in packaging applications such as bottle caps, the highest possible quality is again required.”

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More Info:

ventas@rodabell.com www.rodabell.com

SLAB CASTING LINE 2

1 3

4

METAL FLOW REGULATION:

CASTING LAUNDER / CASTING TABLE: 1

- Laser sensor technology for metal level control - Pin position actuators - Centralized electrical outlet - Improved control software

- Automated casting launder (hands-free casting) - Integrated preheating equipment - Automatic lids - Fused silica refractories (low density) - Thermocouples integrated for Temp. monitoring - Cooling system to prevent bending/distorsion

CASTING TOOLING: - Platform & Bottom block support - Bottom blocks & Plugs machining - Casting table (tilt-able or powered travel bogie systems) - Casting molds - Tooling spare parts

CASTING CONSUMABLES: - Pin and spouts - Spout seat - Heated pin package available - Ring retainer (FRR Fiber Reinforced Refractory) - Combo bags (Thermo-Formed & regular version)

2. CERAMIC FOAM FILTER SYSTEM: - CFF lining castridge and insulation kit - Air based preheating system - Electrically powered lid - Safe draining mechanism - Ceramic Foam Filter available in all sizes and porosity levels - Mechanical lock-out system for safe filter assembly & removal

rollup2018-imprenta.indd 1

3 DEGASSING SYSTEM:

4 CASTING CYLINDER:

- Vessel cartridges and insulation kits - Heating systems - Degassing rotor/shaft - Lid lifting/turning system - Platform access for drossing operations & rotor replacement

- Single acting - Internal anti-rotation rod guide system - Integrated torque limiter - Minimum rod deflection guaranteed - Long life piston rod coating - Specially designed hidraulic Power unit control - Control loop for casting speed regulation

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ALUDIUM

RODABELL RODABELL is an international industrial organization specialized in the manufacture and supply of systems, consumables, and tools for the aluminum industry whose added value is based on its design capacity, flexibility, global vision of projects and comprehensive service offering.

Mr Chapis, who took over his role in 2020 just as the pandemic took hold, has quite a unique perspective on the business. Having spent a big part of his career in the aluminium transformation industry, his mission was to refocus the management priorities on operational and commercial performance, as opposed to just plain growth. The Covid-19 pandemic confirmed that this was the right way forward.

“The situation last year forced us to go even faster and more boldly in this direction. As the market was shrinking, we had to focus on our core strengths, on flexibility, while keeping the key skills and the unique set of capabilities. Our team worked extremely hard and while the total volume decreased significantly, our overall performance has improved.”

Our headquarters are seated in San Ciprian, a town in the Galician province of Lugo located by the north western coastal area of Spain. Our facilities include a total of 7.000 square meter distributed into office buildings and 5 different workshops that allows us to have full control of our manufacturing process. Our capabilities include: - Engineering - Mechanical/Electrical - Machining - Metal fabrication/boiler works - Refractory - Consumable division warehouse Rodabell’s dedication to the search for continuous improvement ensures that all its work processes are guaranteed to be the highest quality, met by the current standards of environmental care and safety. Our certifications include ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001.

Aludium and Rodabell relationship goes beyond the typical customer-client approach. We have been servicing their casting operations for more than 15 years in the casting tooling and consumables supply always with the focus on quality and productivity improvement. In 2018 we entered into a strategic partnership agreement to jointly develop casting technologies in Aludium R&D center, CINDAL, located in Alicante.

Rodabell proudly participated in the cast-house expansion project carried out in Aludium Amorebieta DC3 cast-house during 2018. The objective of the project was to increase the annual capacity by adding 60.000 Metric Tons of metal produced by using state of the art recycling technology.

Rodabell scope in the expansion focused on the design, manufacturing, and installation of a 5-slab casting machine and the needed ancillary equipment.

The equipment produced by Rodabell included metal treatment equipment to achieve the required metal quality for high demanding product lines as packaging or automotive products.

The casting machine designed for a casting load of 50Tons. The machine provides the final shape of the slabs ranging in width from 850 mm up to 1770 mm, 575 mm in height and 6000 length wise. After the slabs are produced, they are transported to the adjacent rolling mill where they are rolled into coils.

The synergy between Rodabell project team and Aludium production and maintenance divisions played an important role in the successful consecution of the project in both budget, and schedule. It is also important to mention the role of Spanish engineering (EPC) company IDOM acting as the global coordinator.

The vision of RODABELL is to be leaders in the manufacture and maintenance of equipment for the aluminum industry through a personalized quality service and a management oriented to achieve international alliances to confirm our position as a reliable and transparent partner. www.rodabell.com

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Alicante plant, Spain (cold mill &finishing, research & development, prototyping & training).

SUSTAINABILITY AT ITS BEST

The company is well placed to meet evolving market requirements. With its R&D centre in Spain and three mills, 50% of Aludium’s business is converting aluminium scrap purchased in the market into new aluminium products. A huge amount of investment

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ALUDIUM

Aludium’s Cindal R&D facility in Alicante (Spain) is one of the world’s ai161608321923_Rubix_QUARTER PAGE AD_v1_Final_Trazos_v1.pdf leading aluminium research centres.

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goes into automation as well as renewable energy sources at the plants, and overall, sustainability is a big topic.

Aludium also is a member of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) and in 2019, Aludium’s facilities in Alicante and Amorebieta (Spain) achieved certification against ASI’s Performance Standard, an outstanding achievement.

Mr Chapis explains that aluminium is infinitely recyclable.

It remains essentially unchanged no matter how many times it is processed and used. Therefore, it can be considered as a material with permanent characteristics, one that is not consumed but used over and over again, without the loss of its essential properties. “Another key aspect is that re-melting aluminium scrap requires just 5% of the energy needed to produce new raw material, which therefore keeps its value very high,” says Mr Chapis.

During 2017 and 2018, Aludium invested more than 30 million euros to increase its aluminium recycling capacity in the Amorebieta and Alicante plants. Between 2017 and 2021, the percentage of recycled aluminium used by Aludium will grow by approximately 40%.

Not only will Aludium increase the percentage of recycled aluminium used, but it will also increase the capacity to recycle lower-quality aluminium.

“At the moment, 70% of the volume sold externally is made from scrap. The target is to reach 85%. This is a strategic change for the company and is aligned with the new Action Plan for the Circular Economy published by the European Commission.

This increase in recycled material gives Aludium a unique opportunity to optimize costs, better control our supply chain and significantly reduce our CO2

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ALUDIUM

footprint. Our goal is to build the most efficient recycling circuit for aluminium,” says Lionel Chapis.

THE MATERIAL OF THE PRESENT

Speaking about business development in the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Chapis points out that the industry’s recovery has been surprising. “The impact last year was significant, with considerable volume drop across the months. However, now, one year on, we are experiencing demand which is higher than at the same time last year, before the pandemic.

The recovery has been such that we have had to extend our lead times for some niche products to accommodate our clients’ requirements.”

Internally, the company is set to continue its investment programme, both increasing the re-melting capacity and in the capability for better in-house aluminium sorting. “Aluminium is a valuable material and retains so much of its value. Although initial costs may be higher, the full cost of ownership is very different. Re-processing costs a fraction of raw material production.”

He points out that demand for aluminium products has been increasing over the last 20 years, with the packaging industry being a strong contributor to this growth. “Aluminium, with its strong execution potential and indefinite recyclability is not the material of the future but the present. It fits perfectly into the EU’s Circular Economy

programme and can help make Europe almost independent from imports of the raw material.

This is the perfect goal.”

“ALUMINIUM, WITH ITS STRONG EXECUTION POTENTIAL AND INDEFINITE RECYCLABILITY, IS NOT THE MATERIAL OF THE FUTURE BUT THE PRESENT.”

Aludium invested more than 30 million euros to increase its aluminum recycling capacity in the plants of Amorebieta and Alicante.

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DECOART

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DECOART

DECOART, A MANUFACTURER OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY ACRYLIC PAINTS AND CRAFT SUPPLIES HAS ENJOYED RAPID GROWTH DURING THE PANDEMIC, AS PEOPLE RE-DISCOVER THEIR CREATIVE TALENTS.

ARTFULI

INSPIRATION PROJECT MANAGED BY: DEAN BROWN

Kentucky-based DecoArt manufactures a wide variety of acrylic paint and speciality finishes for arts, crafts, education and home decoration. A focus on the concepts of quality, value and service has carried the business far and proved to be particularly invaluable during the pandemic.

T

he company’s 35th anniversary in 2020 could not be celebrated in better shape - over the last 12 months, DecoArt has experienced a 300% increase in sales, as people in lockdown were pushed to look for meaningful, rewarding activities that could be safely performed in their homes, be it redecorating or venturing into more creative activities.

TRUSTED BRAND

Stan Clifford, CEO, DecoArt.

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In its core business line, craft paints, DecoArt enjoys a prominent market position, being one of the two largest companies in this segment in the US. The company’s wide range satisfies diverse customer groups from crafters, DIYers and fine artists through to decorative painters and mixed media artists.

“We pretty much dominate the landscape of all the major chains in the United States, which is our key market.

International markets are also important, although there we face strong competition, as most countries have their local wellestablished paint manufacturers.

Nevertheless, we export to some 70 countries worldwide,” says CEO Stan Clifford.

He points out that as a familyowned company, DecoArt takes pride in producing the highest quality acrylic paints that customers can trust, whether they are engaged in projects big or small. The products undergo extensive research, development and testing before arriving on the customer’s shelf.

DecoArt works hard to keep its costs down, in order to provide the best possible product at the most competitive price, while continuously improving the customer service experience.

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DECOART

The company offers an impressive product range to please all likes and preferences.

Its flagship acrylic paint brand - Americana® Acrylics, the first brand that the company launched 35 years ago, is still the strongest product group.

Available in hundreds of colours, Americana® Acrylics is the trusted brand for artists, crafters, art educators, students and painting enthusiasts.

Mr Clifford acknowledges that apart from innovation, one of the issues that the company is now looking closely at is sustainability. DecoArt’s paints are sold in plastic jars that are all recyclable but unlike in Europe, recyclability levels in the US are still relatively low. “We as a company recycle everything.

In terms of the products themselves - they are passed strict toxicology requirements in various countries. We don’t want to sell anything toxic.”

GROWING BY INNOVATION

“WE LISTEN CAREFULLY TO OUR CUSTOMERS AND TRY TO SUPPLY EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. CUSTOMERS DRIVE OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.” 132 | MANUFACTURING

He affirms that innovation is a continuous process at DecoArt. “New products are launched every year and 2021 has been no exception. We have recently introduced two new lines - the water marbling paint programme, a complete system of ready-to-use water prep, vibrant marbling acrylics, surface preparation, and tools.

All safe and non-toxic.”

All that is needed, he says, is to dissolve the Marbling Magic Medium in distilled water; drop the vibrant, perfectly balanced marbling acrylics onto the surface and use the tools to swirl and create individual designers - no limits to creativity.

The second innovation is the wax-effect concept – ready-touse straight from the jar, these acrylic waxes recreate the sheer and luminous qualities of traditional beeswax encaustic.

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DECOART

for everyone and we are going to expand the project to include every demographic,” says Mr Clifford.

PLANNED EXPANSION

DecoArt currently employs some 200 people at its location in Stanford, Kentucky, consisting of a production facility, a distribution centre and headquarters with support functions. But given the rising demand, the company is in expansion mode.

“We are in the process of hiring an additional 50, or possibly more, people for both production and office roles, and investing in increased capacity.

This will include increasing our bottling capacity with 3 new production lines to support the filling of all product lines, and an installation of state-of-the-art mixing equipment that will more

Again, customers may buy all the tools and accessories they require.

“Quality was our initial competitive advantage and one that continues today. The utmost quality and product consistency are what our customers really appreciate,” says Stan Clifford. “We listen carefully to our customers and try to supply exactly what they want. Customers drive our product development.”

While increasing the business, DecoArt will continue to support the community and its makers - the influences that

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have helped to spread the company’s reputation. “For 35 years, we have been committed to supporting artists and art educators to do their best work using our products. We will continue with our The DecoArt® Helping Artist, a programme for artists who teach art classes in some form and/or publish the artwork in magazines, digital magazines, or other publications.”

In addition, the company has also launched the Art for Everyone project, free online art lessons - an initiative inspired by the pandemic. “Art is great

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DECOART

than double our base making capabilities,” says Mr Clifford.

Following a record-breaking 2020 with tripled sales, Mr Clifford hopes that at least 30% of those who found their hidden artistic skills during the lockdown will sustain the interest once the pandemic is under control. “The fact is that we were growing by 10-15% per annum even before the pandemic, as more channels started to look at craft painting.”

“One aspect of the pandemic is the shift to online commerce.

Even people who would never

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have done it before have started shopping online. This will never stop, and online sales are going to be another growth factor for the company.”

The investment worth about $2 million will further boost the company’s already strong position and will hopefully satisfy demand. Since 1985, DecoArt has armed artists and enthusiasts with the colours and tools they need to help the world see something extraordinary through their creations. A noble task that is clearly going to continue on a grander scale.

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DECOART

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AFRICAN UNDERGROUND MINING SERVICES

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AFRICAN UNDERGROUND MINING SERVICES

WE LEARN HOW AFRICAN UNDERGROUND MINING’S LATEST PROJECT IS ALSO PROVING TO BE A VALUABLE SKILLS INJECTION FOR THE LOCAL WORKFORCE.

A FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

African Underground Mining Services (AUMS) has been providing unmatched mechanised underground mining services for its clients in Africa since 2007. AUMS combines Ausdrill’s local knowledge, drawn from over 15 years of experience operating in Africa, and the underground mining expertise of Barminco, to create a unique joint-venture.

T

hat joint-venture has set itself the mission of achieving the highest global standards in underground mining for all of its clients in safety and operating standards. Specifically, AUMS is a venture whose goal is to share its mining knowledge across all levels of the business. In this way, it will leave a positive legacy of underground mining in every country in which it operates.

The only way to achieve that goal is with training and up-skilling, something that AUMS has carried out with over 20,000 operators in Africa.

With offices in Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso and Tanzania, each outlet is strategically placed to create the best possible access to major transport routes for current and future clients.

Major clients across Africa can attest to the quality of AUMS’s work, while local contracting companies can testify to its value as a partner, and the knowledge and experience it has to share.

A fantastic example of the African Underground Mining Service’s approach to projects, and the upskilling and training that comes with them, is its recently launched Subika Project in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana, West Africa.

In this highly significant gold project, AUMS has partnered with Newmont to develop a mine that will eventually become one of the highest producing underground operations in the continent.

THE BEST TOOLS

AUMS began work at Subika in 2017. Within three months the company had 300 people working on the site, but as well as having a dedicated workforce, the project also needed access to the right tools.

AUMS brought state-of-theart technology and mining equipment that has proved crucial to the delivery of a project.

Typically, when one thinks of the mining industry, they

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do not imagine cutting edge technological innovation. After all, safety and reliability are the number one priorities in the sector, which can lead to a reluctance to use anything but the most tried and tested tools.

But AUMS brings advanced technologies in underground mining to the table. Partnering with the Sandvik Group, AUMS has implemented an underground remote loading system that is fully autonomous, controlled remotely and can

even be operated from the surface. It’s the first tool of its kind in the African mining sector.

This one of a number of remote technologies and automatic production drilling technologies which AUMS uses to streamline production activities. It also makes use of machine learning and collision avoidance systems to support critical safety systems, powered by an underground wi-fi network.

“SPECIFICALLY, AUMS IS A VENTURE WHOSE GOAL IS TO SHARE ITS MINING KNOWLEDGE ACROSS ALL LEVELS OF THE BUSINESS.” BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

A TRANSFER OF SKILLS

But machine learning is only part of the equation. Far more crucial to AUMS’s approach is people learning. Its parent companies are both Australian contractors, and what the jointventure is seeking to deliver in Africa is essentially the same as what both companies have already achieved in Australia.

Fundamentally, AUMS’s mission is to bring the operational excellence it has developed in Australia to the African continent, transferring and building upon those skills in its African workforce to create a lasting legacy.

However, AUMS is the first to recognise that what works in Australia won’t necessarily be successful in Africa, and no

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mining operation is without its challenges. For this reason, the strategy has a strong emphasis on training and transferring skills to AUMS’s local workforce. The foundation of the company’s belief is that it already has the right people and systems in place in Africa to provide a safe, high-quality product to its business partners. More than that, it means the communities

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AUMS works alongside benefit from its operations.

This is why companies such as Newmont Ghana choose to partner with AUMS. Its strategy is to develop its people in every country where its operations generate long-term success, in knowledge transfer, personal development, and the financial prosperity of the surrounding community and individuals.

At the time of writing AUMS has trained well over 1,000 Ghanaians and nearly 3,000 Africans in the skills necessary for large scale mechanised, safe and productive underground mining. When AUMS began working on Subika, it had a core group made up of expatriates and Ghanaian operators working together. The company implemented training systems

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AFRICAN UNDERGROUND MINING SERVICES

that Barminco has established over 25 years.

At the same time, AUMS has purchased specialised equipment simulators to help its employees grow and develop.

Its work goes far beyond simply launching a successful and profitable mining operation. It is working to leave a legacy that will improve people’s lives in the area for years to come.

“An integral component of AUMS’ vision is to develop the national workforce to the level where we expand the foundations of our national skill base and essentially nationalise the workforce to the point where senior management and executive management roles are filled by that national workforce,” Blair Sessions, AUMS’ Chief Operating Officer has said. “We can ensure that we impart the necessary and required skills into the African underground mining community as a wider skill base and provide real value to that community

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as well, leaving a long-lasting legacy.”

These systems of work, and the processes and training systems that go with them, are the ones AUMS’s parent companies have brought to all their operations, whether in Australia, Tanzania, Burkina Faso or Ghana. The important thing is to ensure safety, operational and maintenance systems are tailored and optimised to the local environment.

Ultimately, what African Underground Mining Services seeks to achieve with the Subika Underground Project is a high-production underground mine with a life-of-mine of over 20 years, a robust case for future growth and long-term production output of over 2 million tonnes a year.

It’s an exciting prospect, with plenty of scope for expansion and further drilling exploration, but with AUMS’s training and upskilling, its value goes far beyond the minerals it will find.

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ALACER GOLD

WE LOOK AT HOW A LEADING INTERMEDIATE GOLD MINING COMPANY’S NEW SULFIDE PLANT WILL BE A REAL GAME-CHANGER.

GOLDEN

OPPORTUNITY PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

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ALACER GOLD

For roughly the last decade Alacer Gold has produced gold at the Çöpler mine through processing oxide ore at its heap leach plant. The trouble was that beneath those oxide ores there are sulfide ores that also contain gold, but simple leaching won’t work to recover that. The top layer of those sulfide ores had been gradually converted into oxide ore by natural oxidisation, but that process could only go so far.

A

s the oxide ore at the site became depleted, it looked like the Çöpler mine was doomed to declining production and eventually the prospect of winding down operations and closing the mine.

This is why Alacer Gold set about constructing the Çöpler Sulfide Plant. This plant grants Alacer the ability to accelerate that natural process, rapidly oxidising the sulfide ores and opening up the considerable gold value trapped within them to recovery.

With the construction of the Çöpler Sulfide Plant or CSEP, the Çöpler mine has transformed

from a nearly depleted resource to one with another 20 years of operational life left.

The plant marks a stellar achievement for Alacer Gold and the 3,000 strong construction and operations teams that made it happen.

The project’s construction was completed on time and cost approximately 90% of its projected $744 million budget.

Over the 13 million working hours that went into the plant, the project was entirely Lost Time Injury free, while its Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate was 1.84 per million hours.

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WEIR MINERALS Since 1871 we work in partnership with our customers to solve their toughest operating challenges safely, efficiently and sustainably, helping to provide the essential resources needed by a growing world. We have research centres and manufacturing facilities around the world designing and producing a range of highly engineered solutions used in high wear applications. These are supported by an unrivalled global service network that ensures Weir engineers can provide our customers with the solutions they need where and when they need them.

Weir Minerals are specialists in designing, manufacturing, delivering and supporting critical process equipment solutions including pumps, hydrocyclones, valves, comminution equipment, rubber and wear resistant linings for the global mining, mineral processing, sand, aggregates and industrial sectors. We are proud of our extensive global service and manufacturing presence in more than 70 countries that develops, supports and sustains market leading technologies to deliver enhanced performance in your process critical applications.

At Weir Minerals we have over 20 design centres technology groups across the globe, which are the research and development centres for specific product categories.

More than 300 engineers are responsible for product development, customisation and providing day to day support.

We invest heavily in our material development capability and state of the art wear resistant materials with properties that allow longer life cycles. Backed by a global network of research and design support, our metallurgy, polymer science and hydraulic experts develop and implement the wear resistant products of the future. Our sophisticated laboratories are designed to conduct advanced material analysis on all our technological developments.

ALACER GOLD

GRAND DESIGNS

The design and construction of the CSEP were overseen by Project Director John Ebbett using a state-ofthe-art “Integrated Project Management Team” model to break down inter-company barriers, build transparency and promote individual accountability.

It’s a system that allows issues to be highlighted and dealt with in a timely manner.

From very early on in the development of this model, organisational transformation consultants 4 Points helped to develop a structured program to instil the right culture and behaviours in the teams working on the project. They then remained involved to perform organisational health checks and assist with changes as the project progressed.

Through a customer focused strategy Weir Minerals has used its unique technologies to develop an unrivalled range of comminution, mine dewatering, process water and slurry processing equipment for some of your most critical processes. This means that today’s Weir Minerals is much more than a pump company.

We have been partnering our customers in Turkey for more than 10 years to maximise productivity of their operations and minimize equipment total cost of ownership.

Weir Turkey Mineralleri Ltd. Şti.

T: +90 216 688 16 06 F: +90 216 688 13 03 E-mail: turkey.sales@mail.weir www.global.weir

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Alacer made good use of the existing infrastructure onsite but also built additional accommodation for the 3,000 temporary workers at standards well above the typical local standards for a construction site. Ebbett’s team also provided over 100 apartments, including three-bed family units, for the

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ongoing operations team. The site also benefited from eastern Turkey’s superb infrastructure, with a great road to the mine site, a 50MW hydropower station only five kilometres and other hydro station dams in the area.

The CSEP itself comprises three major sections- the tailings storage facility, the support infrastructure and the processing plant itself.

The tailing storage facility, or TSF, consisted of a fully lined impoundment with extensive drain systems, delivered through the mining contractor, Çiftay. On the infrastructure side, the project required upgraded access roads, accommodation apartments for staff, an upgraded water supply system and other site facilities. Most of this was carried out by local contractors, making the CSEP

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itself a source of considerable community involvement. As well as being an opportunity to prolong the life of the mine, it enabled Alacer to develop local contractor capability and help create a sustainable operation and surrounding community.

Finally, the plant itself would need to include crushing, grinding, acidulation, pressure oxidation, iron/arsenic precipitation, counter-current decantation, leach, carbon in pulp, elution, electrowinning, detox/neutralization and tailings pumping capabilities.

A key feature of the new plant is its twin autoclave circuits which needed to be assembled and receive post-weld heat treatment on-site, due to transport constraints.

While there was a diverse range of projects, disciplines and activities occurring

simultaneously on-site, the various branches of the Engineering, Construction & Project Management (EPCM) team demonstrated a vital level of unity. The integrated, owner-operated team meant no duplication of roles, and that the team could make decisions quickly.

The IPMT structure inspired high levels of collaboration while ensuring no part of the project fell through the cracks due to poor information sharing.

“RATHER THAN TAKING RISKS WITH INNOVATIONS, IT FOCUSED ON FOLLOWING ESTABLISHED BEST PRACTICE.” BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

ALACER GOLD

A TIMELY SUCCESS

Looking for lessons to learn from the on-time and to-budget completion of the plant, it’s clear Alacer succeeded by focusing on getting the basics right. Rather than taking risks with innovations, it focused on following established best practice. Indeed, by the time the Alacer board approved the project the team was already well advanced in its engineering.

Where other resource projects will overspend and miss deadlines because they have been approved without sufficient engineering and project definition.

The end result is a plant that has been completed speedily, but to a quality, that means it can deliver consistently on its design. The Çöpler Sulfide Plant is expected to have the capacity to perform well beyond its nameplate design, and Alacer Gold is already looking at optional modifications which could improve operations and increase production still further.

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At the same time, there is a significant exploration to carry out adjacent to the Çöpler mine, and Alacer will keep its oxide plant running concurrently with the new sulfide plant, still further increasing the ore available for processing.

Looking to the future, Alacer Gold has plenty of options for how it can accommodate growth and different ore characteristics now that the new plant is up and running. That flexibility opens up a bright future for a mine that was ready to be retired.

Meanwhile, there have been new oxide ore discoveries around the original Çöpler deposit which will open up the possibility of extending the life of the oxide ore processing plant well into the future.

The Çöpler mine has gone from a declining operation to a promising site with a very bright future for both its oxide and sulfide plants. It’s a great outcome for the business, its employees, and the communities supported

by Alacer Gold’s operations.

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ALACER GOLD

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BLUEJAY MINING PLC

BLUEJAY, GREENLAND’S PREMIER MINING EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, IS ON ITS WAY TO RELEASE THE ISLAND’S POTENTIAL.

THE ARCTIC PROMISE PROJECT MANAGED BY: MAX HUTCHINGS

Breath-taking views at one of the drill ready targets defined by Bluejay at the Disko Project in West Greenland.

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BLUEJAY MINING PLC

Bluejay Mining Plc is an Arctic-focused multi-commodity, multi-project exploration and development resource company. Bluejay currently has four projects in Greenland, which it is actively developing, aswell as several projects in former Finnish mining districts - two countries with very stable jurisdictions and very high environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards.

A

s the parent company, Bluejay Mining runs several wholly owned subsidiaries that are in charge of project execution. The company has experts positioned in various locations throughout the world from Helsinki and London to Calgary to draw on the best expertise available. The amount of online communication and management has been high, a winning factor during the pandemic.

CEO Bo Møller Stensgaard affirms that the company has a very strong project portfolio in both countries and the fact that its teams are specialists in these challenging environments is a clear advantage when compared to competitors.

“We have extensive in-house expertise - we are not only geologists, but almost everyone in our team also has a professional background in mining, logistics and project management plus sound experience of operations in

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the Arctic paired with a profound understanding of the mineral business. While there are other companies with recent interest in Greenland, our unique ability to handle Arctic challenges - from climatic conditions to working with local communities - is what sets us apart.”

He explains that Greenland represents one of the last underexplored mineral regions that has the potential to contain globally significant resources.

Finland on the other hand offers opportunities of a different kind - it has a long mining tradition and the company is looking at some of the brownfield areas in the former mining districts, re-evaluating the data with new eyes and testing areas with proven resources.

ONE OF A KIND

Geochemical soil sampling on the Disko Project have revealed several very promosing targets for nickel, copper, cobalt.

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The prime focus at the moment is on advancing into production Bluejay’s primary Dundas Ilmenite Project in Greenland, the world’s most significant, highest grade mineral sand ilmenite deposit, in the near term.

Ilmenite concentrate is used for the production of titanium - a metal regarded as critical by the European Union, the US and Canada.

The purpose of the Dundas Ilmenite Project is to extract ilmenite from the onshore raised and dry beaches of the ‘black sand’ deposit on the south coast of Steensby Land peninsula in North-West Greenland. The black sand is located on the surface of the raised and active dry beaches, and therefore requires simple surface mining and processing.

The project will consist of onshore automated continuous surface miners, a wet plant, a dry plant, a small port, a ship-loading facility, an airstrip, workforce accommodation, concentrate storage, and general utilities such as power and water supply.

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PANGAEA LOGISTICS SOLUTIONS - GREENLAND & THE DUNDAS TITANIUM PROJECT PANGAEA’S PERSPECTIVE Mining activities generally require years of planning, hard work and investment. In today’s environment, the importance of having the proper mix of qualified and experienced human resources is a prerequisite for success.

The rewards of success benefit numerous interests. The Dundas Project for the mining of Ilmenite, the primary source of titanium, is no exception, and under Bluejay Mining’s stewardship, the commercialization of this mineral resource will stand to positively enhance the evolution and progress of Greenland and its people, in many ways.

Pangaea Logistics Solutions is honored to have been chosen to play a small role in assisting Bluejay Mining in the development of this very interesting project.

Pangaea’s businesses are focused on Maritime Logistics: Port & Terminal Operations, Projects, and the Ocean Transportation of Dry Bulk commodities, on a global basis. One area of expertise and leadership is in Arctic waters where it has been active for many years and has transported millions of metric tonnes of bulk commodity to global markets – assisting in the advancement of the people, and their communities, above the Arctic circle.

These capabilities, together with Pangaea’s reputation for innovation, quality, and reliability, supported Bluejay’s decision to choose Pangaea as their counter-party and partner in their requirement to export 42,000 metric tonnes of Ilmenite Ore from Moriusaq in the summer of 2019.

Bluejay had successfully worked through the many tasks expected in the establishment of a greenfield mineral resource and mining operation but validating the project’s viability, by delivering its first shipment of product, was a remaining objective upon which many hopes, aspirations, and substantial investments were hinged.

During the month of February 2019, Pangaea Logistics Solutions (through its wholly owned division, “Phoenix Bulk Carriers”) was approached to provide the expertise, assets, and services required to accomplish Bluejay’s objectives. Discussions commenced and before too long a design concept was vetted and agreed.

In early July, a site visit to the Dundas project at Moriusaq in North-West Greenland was organized. Pangaea’s team then had the opportunity to finetune the many analyses and requirements needed for a successful logistics execution.

Bluejay’s team were well-prepared in providing Pangaea with the necessary data and input. This included engineering reviews of bathymetric and geo-technical data, the choice of a ship-loading location, the manner of ship-loading, environmental and safety controls. Bluejay’s highly experienced team was fundamental to the project.

Team members from Pangaea and Bluejay worked closely on-site for 4 days.

On their departure to Moriusaq, Pangaea’s team had already secured the needed input and were well on the way to finalizing many of the execution details and ensuring the necessary human resources, equipment and timetable was identified.

As they say, “Planning Is Everything” but that is only part of the story - the most important component is Human Resources, and that is what makes the difference between success and failure.

By mid-August, everything had been finalized, boxes were “ticked”, equipment was scheduled and deployed. The Pangaea Team arrived on-site

during the last week of August. The planning paid off and after setup of the ship-loading facilities, the robust assets employed handled the loading of 42,000 metric tonnes of Ilmenite in just under 48 hours, after which our ship sailed, uneventfully, to its destination and delivered Bluejay’s (and Greenland’s) precious cargo. The ice-free open-water window at Dundas is approximately 4 months per year and, when in production, Bluejay plan for 11 shipments per year which leaves more than sufficient time for ship-loading operations.

The teams from Bluejay/Dundas and Pangaea had built a strong camaraderie during this project. They continued this relationship after the ship had sailed, and they assisted each other in dismantling the temporary port facility. Once all equipment was safely stowed for the trip home, the teams bid each other a happy and fond farewell.

By all measures, the first shipment of Ilmenite Ore from the Dundas Project was a success, with the parties having met their objectives and left the work site, in the same pristine condition found on arrival, leaving behind a Zero Footprint – 800 nautical miles from the North Pole.

Pangaea is a proud partner of Bluejay Mining and consider it a privilege to have Bluejay’s confidence and having been chosen to assist them in this challenging undertaking.

PANGAEA LOGISTICS SOLUTIONS We are a highly motivated group of logistics professionals, inspired by challenge, and dedicated to providing our clients with “Best Of Class” service and solutions that meet both their expectations and needs.

We are Ship-Owners, Ship-Operators and Ship-Managers providing ocean transport services for dry bulk commodities. We complement and support our maritime capabilities being invested in and actively operating Port & Terminal facilities. We are “project” focused and eager to provide innovative solutions where we efficiently and effectively integrate our various services in the supply chain. Our team, and partners, prioritize safe and environmentally responsible operations at all levels.

We have offices in U.S.A., Denmark, Greece, and Singapore. We are a publicly traded company (NASDAQ), providing transparency and confidence.

Under the Pangaea umbrella our wholly owned ship-operating divisions, Phoenix Bulk Carriers, Americas Bulk Transport, Nordic Bulk Carriers, and Seamar Management are well-known, respected and operate within the global Dry Bulk Shipping markets.

Peter Koken / Senior Vice President / Phoenix Bulk Carriers (US) LLC www.pangaeals.com

BLUEJAY MINING PLC

Mr Stensgaard summarised the project’s uniqueness: “The resource is chemically homogenous, with low impurities, which is unusual on a global scale. Only three simple processes are required – mining, wet gravity processing and dry magnetic processing.

The low-cost production will have minimal environmental impact. Its proximity to the US and Europe provides multiple export opportunities with relatively low shipping costs.”

“THE RESOURCE IS CHEMICALLY HOMOGENOUS, WITH LOW IMPURITIES, WHICH IS UNUSUAL ON A GLOBAL SCALE.”

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The high-grade ilmenite black sand from the Dundas Ilmenite Project. The black colouring is created by the ilmenite minerals which are black.

BLUEJAY MINING PLC

The Dundas project underwent a successful public hearing and experiences local support from the surrounding communities in North-West Greenland. The Government of Greenland granted a 30 year mining permit for the project in December 2020 - a permit that can be extended.

Whilst the feasibility study has initially identified a reserve for a 10-year mining operation, it is expected that additional resources in the area should be capable of supporting an operation for many more years.

“WHILE THERE ARE OTHER COMPANIES WITH RECENT INTEREST IN GREENLAND, OUR UNIQUE ABILITY TO HANDLE ARCTIC CHALLENGES FROM CLIMATIC CONDITIONS TO WORKING WITH LOCAL COMMUNITIES, IS WHAT SETS US APART.”

MINIMAL IMPACT

Unlike most mining projects elsewhere in the world, the Dundas Ilmenite Project will have minimal environmental and positve social impact. Mr Stensgaard explains that where present, the uppermost part of the raised beaches with their organic plant material will be stripped off and deposited for later remediation work when the ilmenite has been mined from the black sand and the mining voids have been back-filled with sand rejected by the wet gravity separation.

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Visit our workshop in Nuuk!

See all details on zeppelin-cat.dk

ZEPPELIN DANMARK

AUTHORISED CATERPILLAR DEALER. ENGINES AND MACHINES BUILT TO LAST ALSO IN THE ARCTIC CLIMATE OF GREENLAND. SERVICE TECHNICIANS IN YOUR VICINITY. FAST DELIVERY OF SPARE PARTS

zeppelin-cat.dk

ZEPPELIN DENMARK

BLUEJAY MINING PLC

WORLD CLASS CAT DEALER IN GREENLAND Zeppelin Danmark is your authorised dealer for Cat engines, generators and machines.

We understand that you want to have your service provider in your vicinity; therefore, we offer you different kinds of services at our workshop in Nuuk for your machines, engines or generators.

With its 750 square metres, the workshop is the biggest construction workshop in Nuuk. We have 5 colleagues working at the workshop which is equipped with state-ofthe-art Caterpillar diagnostic tools, special tools including a complete hydraulic hose department for both Caterpillar machines and other brands and cylinder and pump stations.

We are at your disposal if you need a talk about your options or if you need advice and guidance regarding your machine or engine.

WE KEEP YOUR BUSINESS RUNNING We know and understand your business through many years of experience working in the Arctic environment; from the Thule Air Base in the North, to the east, west and southern parts of Greenland. From 2020 and several years ahead we are in charge of the Caterpillar machine and service set-up for the Nuuk and Ilulissat airport enlargement.

We offer total and customised solutions whether you need service, spare parts or new equipment: • Service and repair on generators and engines • Repair of gearboxes • Electric work on Cat engines (eg. Switchboard service- and replacement) • Production and repair of all types of hydraulic hoses • We have a store of spare parts, lubricating oil and coolant for fast delivery • Cat containerised Power moduls: full scope solutions on generator sets for production of electric power and standby power • Service personnel in your vicinity for fast support • Single point of contact: you will have one contact person for all your requests.

ZEPPELIN NORDICS Zeppelin Denmark is part of Zeppelin Nordics which covers Sweden, Denmark, The Faroe Islands and Greenland. With more than 700 dedicated employees. Zeppelin Nordics is founded in the Zeppelin Group, which is present in 38 countries with around 220 locations and 10.000 employees.

ZEPPELIN AND CATERPILLAR Since 1954 Zeppelin and Caterpillar have built a strong and lasting cooperation.

Caterpillar is one of the world’s oldest and largest manufacturers of construction equipment and produces one of the most valuable brands in the world within construction machinery, engines and mining. When you buy a Cat product, you are not just getting a superior machine. You get over 100 years of experience and expertise in the trade.

The Zeppelin Group is a company steeped in tradition, with technical expertise gained over the course of many years. Zeppelin offers solutions in the sectors of construction and mining, agricultural machinery, rental, construction logistics and construction site management, drive systems and energy, engineering, and plant engineering, and develops new digital business models for the construction industry.

Zeppelin has more than 60 years of experience with Cat products. It is these strong shoulders that Zeppelin Denmark stands on, and which means that you get the best solutions, the strongest machines and engines as well as the best service in the industry. www.zeppelin-cat.dk

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Drilling the unconsolidated raised ilmenite-bearing beaches at Dundas.

“The project is also very much suited to the emerging mining sector in Greenland. The mining processes at Dundas are very simple, and a local workforce will be supported by the training courses available in Greenland,” he says. “With Greenland’s very high ESG standards, beneficial relationships with local communities are key and we have done and will continue to do everything we can to lessen our environmental impact and to create as much benefit as possible for the local community.”

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The company is experienced in handling other Arctic challenges such as the need to create the entire infrastructure on a mobile basis. “Everything needs to be brought out there, and it all needs to be taken out again when the project is finished. As much as possible will be modularised, as few foundations as possible and nothing permanent built unless agreed with the authorities and local communities,” says Mr Stensgaard.

“EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE BROUGHT OUT THERE, AND IT ALL NEEDS TO BE TAKEN OUT AGAIN WHEN THE PROJECT IS FINISHED.”

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BLUEJAY MINING PLC

The mining at Dundas is simple - it’s more an excavation of sand than traditional mining. In 2019 was a trial mining operation executed.

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BLUEJAY MINING PLC

As the project is located in the so-called Arctic desert with only a small amount of snow, it will be possible to operate the mine all year round. The produced ilmenite concentrate will need to be kept in a storage facility, ready to the shipped during the four-months ice-free window, within which 11 shipments are expected to be made.

EXPANDING THE FOCUS

While the Dundas Ilmenite Project is the most advanced, Bluejay is also set to drive value by developing its other large-scale high-grade projects providing access to commodities including nickel, copper, lead, zinc and platinum.

These include the Kangerluarsuk Zinc-Lead-Silver Project, further south in West Greenland in an area with a

NIRAS – Sustainable progress of society NIRAS is a value-driven, multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy fundamentally committed to sustainable progress and service delivery. The company was founded in 1956 with Greenland as its main market. Today, we are an international consulting group with 2,300 experts.

NIRAS has many years of experience in the arctic areas and several of our experts have resided in Greenland for multiple years.

The main areas of expertise in Greenland are infrastructure, environmental services, planning and Social Impact Assessments and financial feasibility studies on larger projects.

Our local office is in Nuuk but through the years, we have worked in all parts of Greenland – from Nanortalik in the South to Qaanaaq and Station North in the North.

The Social Impact of mining The Social Impact of mining is of great importance in Greenland and is therefore taken very seriously by successful mining exploration companies like Bluejay Mining.

These ambitions have guided NIRAS’ work on the Social Impact Assessment of the Dundas Ilmenite Project.

development in Greenland – from initial permitting processes and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) to related field surveying and monitoring. NIRAS’ experts bring in-depth knowledge of the Arctic and cover all environmental habitats, from the depths of the icy fiords to the heights of the harsh mountainous landscapes.

In cooperation with the Greenlandic Authorities and Bluejay Mining NIRAS has uncovered all potential social impacts. At the same time, solutions to increase positive social impacts and mitigate potential negative social impacts have been developed. Through continued involvement of local and national stakeholders, we have been able to present a sustainable project, which will benefit the local community for years to come.

NIRAS successfully delivered the EIAs for the expansion of Nuuk Airport to meet international demands and the construction of a new international airport in Ilulissat.

We currently facilitate a successful year-long environmental monitoring program for the Aappaluttoq Ruby mine, and we are the preferred partner for delivering the EIA on the promising Majoqqap Qaava mining project. With our local partner, NIRAS also conduct EIA studies related to the expansion of the largest Greenlandic hydropower plant.

NIRAS possesses all the professional skills and the broad knowledge of Greenlandic Society needed to conduct a comprehensive Social Impact Assessment.

Pristine Environment and Passionate Experts NIRAS is your strong partner in all environmental aspects of project NIRAS Issortarfimmut 13 Postboks 769 3900 Nuuk, Greenland

Expanding the national infrastructure Greenland is currently in the process of greatly expanding the national infrastructure. Whether it is roads and airports on permafrost, harbors under severe ice conditions, energy and water supply in cold climate,

T: +299 32 31 11 E: niras@niras.gl WWW.NIRAS.COM

NIRAS will deliver the expertise.

NIRAS is currently involved in developing airports in Nuuk, Ilulissat, and Qaqortoq.

The Port of Nuuk constitutes the primary supply gateway to Greenland and is one of the largest construction projects in Greenland.

NIRAS delivered the construction programme for the 40,000 m2 container port with a 360 m quay for container ships and cruise ship traffic.

Green transition for a sustainable future NIRAS and our local partner Inuplan have led the engineering processes for establishing the majority of Greenland’s active hydropower plants. We are currently involved in the expansion of Greenland’s largest hydropower plant supplying the capital Nuuk, and we delivered engineering services for the first ever hydropower station in permafrost conditions, currently active in Ilulissat.

Our vast experience in hydropower and green energy solutions in general enables us to assist clients in developing industries for a sustainable future.

The environment is a crucial part of future mining projects In WSP we are proud to be a part of the Dundas Titanium mining project. We have contributed with the environmental assessment, and this is one of the least invasive mining projects, we can imagine.

In our view the mining industry should be part of the solution to a green transition with high ethics and thorough environmental investigations. Thank you for showing the way, and for a great collaboration.

Contact: Morten Christensen, morten.christensen@wsp.com

wsp.com

WSP THE LEADING CONSULTANT FOR MINING COMPANIES IN THE ARCTICS WSP (formerly Orbicon) has a long history working for the Greenlandic mining industry.

During the last decade several environmental assessments are completed for mines for gold, rare earth, titanium, zinc, iron, molybdenum and anorthosite. WSP has a very strong local presence in Greenland with offices in both Nuuk and Ilulissat. Being part of the local society, we know the challenges that the arctic environment brings.

WSP has recently acquired Golder, and together with Golder we have been involved in almost all mining projects in Greenland. We can now offer full-service consultancy to mining companies and have experienced experts in environment, geology, planning and infrastructure.

The local presence is backed by international know-how and expertise. Globally WSP has 54,000 employees of which 14,000 are environmental experts.

Meeting the immediate and long-term needs of mining clients requires in-depth knowledge of the industry and hands-on experience in all phases of a project cycle. Successful mines must balance costs while increasing productivity, ensuring environmental and safety standards in order to meet investor expectations in a socially acceptable manner.

Our experts have successfully delivered a wide range of mining projects locally and worldwide, drawing on the skills of our integrated multidisciplinary teams using state-of-the-art technological tools to develop optimal solutions tailored to the needs of each project. Regardless of complexity, WSP is the partner of choice for successful mining projects in the Arctics.

Contact Technical Director Morten Christensen, morten.christensen@wsp.com, if you want to know more. www.wsp.com

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LEGAL ADVICE IN GREENLAND Nuna Law Firm is the leading law firm in Greenland.

Our offices in Nuuk were established in 1967.

We are local. We have a unique insight into the special conditions prevailing in Greenland and extensive experience thereof. We are present every day and we know the local people (and they know us).

We are also international.

During the latest 20 years, Nuna Law Firm has assisted several multinational companies involved in the mining industry in Greenland.

Nuna Law Firm Qullilerfik 2, 6.

3900 Nuuk Greenland www.nuna-law.gl

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BLUEJAY MINING PLC

A trial-shipment of more than 42,000 tons of high-grade ilmenite-bearing black sand from Dundas was done in August 2019.

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recent history of mining from the world famous Black Angel Mine.

Bluejay’s licence areas here are acknowledged as containing the strongest cluster of stream sediment zinc anomalies in the whole of Greenland.

A hidden jewel in Greenland is the Disko-Nuussuaq nickelcopper-platinum-cobalt-gold project located on the west coast of Greenland. The project has a high potential to host mineralisation similar to the world’s largest nickel/copper sulphide mine, Norilsk-Talnakh in Siberia.

Bluejay also has three highgrade, multi-element base metal deposits in southern Finland, a country with a strong

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BLUEJAY MINING PLC

mining tradition particularly in commodities including copper, nickel, zinc, cobalt, chromium, iron and vanadium. The projects are “cost sustainable” for the long term and the company is continuing to assess the best ways in which to realise value.

Recently Bluejay entered into a $20 million joint venture with the mining giant Rio Tinto on one of the projects in Finland.

The project portfolio reflects the company’s strategy, says Mr Stensgaard. “Our strong multiple-commodity project portfolio taps into global trends - critical metals for sustainable growth on the one hand, and key metals for the green transition on the other. Our strategy is to deliver projects to a high standard with value for shareholders, and with the promising potential in both Greenland and Finland, we are in a good position to achieve that.”

The outcrop in Greenland is unmatched and allow the exploration geologist to study rocks that elsewhere would be under cover.

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BLUEJAY MINING PLC

“OUR STRONG MULTIPLE-COMMODITY PROJECT PORTFOLIO TAPS INTO GLOBAL TRENDS - CRITICAL METALS FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH ON THE ONE HAND, AND KEY METALS FOR THE GREEN TRANSITION ON THE OTHER.”

The Disko Project is the hidden crown-juvel in the Bluejay project portfolio - it has drill ready targets for nickelcopper-cobalt and platinum group metal mineralisations.

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COMPAGNIE DES BAUXITES DE GUINÉE

COMPAGNIE DES BAUXITES DE GUINÉE IS A GLOBAL LEADER IN THE BAUXITE INDUSTRY, BUT THIS COMPANY DOES SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

MORE THAN JUST BAUXITE PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

From its centre of operations in the northwest of the Republic of Guinea, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée, or CBG, ships over 15 million tons of premium bauxite a year. Owned jointly by the government of Guinea (49%) and Halco Mining (51%), a consortium composed of some of the most respected international mining players, the company is a world leader in the bauxite industry.

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H

owever, for Traore Souleymane, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée ‘s CEO, the heart of the company is about much more than mineral output.

“We are a pioneer in community development and local content. We have some of the highest standards in the

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COMPAGNIE DES BAUXITES DE GUINÉE

world with respect to Health and Safety, along with social and environmental practices – we have set the International Finance Corporation (IFC) standards as our benchmarks,” Souleymane explains.

“Operational excellence, integrity and respect are among the values we uphold.”

Since the company commenced operations in 1973, it has contributed over $5 billion to the revenue of the government of Guinea. This surpassed the DGP of the entire country, some ten years ago. Since 2016 it has also invested nearly $1 billion in a plan to modernise its assets and expand production capacity.

“By producing high-quality bauxite used in various industries, we believe that we

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contribute to the advancement of mankind,” Souleymane points out. “This is summarised in our slogan: we do more than just bauxite – ‘Nous faisons plus que de la bauxite’.”

This means not only succeeding in the bauxite industry but remaining a role model in local community development and in the promotion of what Souleymane calls its “industry local content”.

This means ensuring that most of the skills CBG uses are sourced locally. It also means most of the contracts for service and other operations works are awarded, wherever possible, to local companies.

“Maybe most importantly, we have some of the highest standards in the world with respect to Health and Safety, along with social and environmental practices,” Souleymane adds. “Our LTI for

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COMPAGNIE DES BAUXITES DE GUINÉE

last year, for example, was 0, 21, one of the best in the industry.

We have also voluntarily subscribed to the IFC social and environmental standards.”

CARE IN THE COMMUNITY

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170 | MINING

The welfare of local communities is paramount to Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée, but sometimes those communities can face their own challenges.

“One of the biggest challenges is the demographic boom of the local population in our operations areas,” Souleymane explains.

This boom is due to Guinea having one of the highest fertility rates in West Africa, but also a big migration influx in the urban centers, a pattern that is common in mining regions all over the world. This poses serious challenges, and potentially even threats to the stability of local communities. It generates more needs and demands for employment along with other social basic needs such as running water, electricity, health care, and education.

Souleymane illustrates the issue with one statistic, “When we began our operations in the early 1970s, there were only handful villagers - I think seven in our mining areas and about ten in the port area – but today over the two combined we have almost half a million of people!”

Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée works to meet these challenges driven by its ambition to be the best citizen company it possibly can. Over the decades it has invested nearly $60 million to support local communities.

In the last four years alone it has developed a program that allows CBG to invest $2.5 million a year in viable projects to sustain decent standards of living for the local community.

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COMPAGNIE DES BAUXITES DE GUINÉE

“It has paid off as we have peace of mind and for most of the cases when there is unrest in the region our assets are safe,” says Souleymane. “I think that’s a demonstration that the local communities know who we are and what we have done for them.”

More than 90% of CBG’s personnel is Guinean, and over 70% come from within the local communities of Boké, the region where CBG operates. This makes Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée one of the largest and best employers in Guinea outside of the government. Beyond that, the company has invested heavily in three main areas.

These include Infrastructure, where CBG has constructed a total of 164 facilities since 2015, including schools, health centres, water wells and more.

“We are not only funding infrastructures in urban centres, but we are also investing in the

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most remote rural areas, thus helping to open up the villages,” Souleymane says.

CBG is also helping to boost local entrepreneurship, which Souleymane strongly believes is the bedrock of Guinea’s longterm economic development.

“Recent data from Guinea’s Private Investment Agency, suggest that over 90% of the country’s economic enterprises are in the informal sector, not a well-structured business,” Souleymane informs us. “In the last ten years we have devised, and we are now implementing with impressive success, a program consisting of enabling and supporting the development of Very Small Businesses. To date 14 TPEs have been created thanks to a comprehensive package that includes a revolving fund of US$ 200,000, along with other training programs in human resources, business and finance

management, with the help of international experts such as the IFC advisory, to promote youth and women employment.”

These TPEs have created a total of 1,800 direct and indirect jobs in the Boké region.

The final area is Income Generating Activities, where in the last three years Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée has enabled and supported 48 local groupings known as “Groupements d’intérets économiques”, or “Economic interests grouping”.

These groups consist of more than 1,000 members, over 60% of whom are women.

“I just chaired last week the completion of the first phase of this program. It was a great success as the income rate of some of them has raised by over 80%,” Souleymane says. “We help the communities structure their grouping and businesses.

We provide them with capacity building on entrepreneurship, on technical aspects of their activities, including literacy, along with funding for their infrastructure and the implementation of a revolving fund, to ensure the sustainability of their businesses.”

A key aspect of this initiative, just like all Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée’s projects, is the focus on the sustainability of our actions driven by the active participation of the local community members and local authorities at every stage.

But this is just the beginning, and Souleymane has big plans for the future.

“We are working now to start the second phase of our project to expand the production capacities of our company,” he says.

Feasibility studies are about 90% complete, and with the second phase we are looking to reach 25 MTs of bauxite per annum.”

As that kicks into gear, the people of the Republic of Guinea will be the ones to benefit.

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EQUINOX GOLD

WE LEARN HOW THE MERCEDES GOLD MINE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES TO EQUINOX GOLD’S PLAN TO BECOME A MILLION-OUNCE GOLD PRODUCER.

THE AMERICAS’ PREMIER GOLD PRODUCER PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

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EQUINOX GOLD

Equinox Gold is a growing company, having recently acquired Premier Gold, alongside its assets at the Mercedes and Greenstone mines. The purchase brings the company’s asset portfolio up to eight operating mines and one of the largest gold reserves in its peer group, across mining-friendly jurisdictions of Ontario, California, Mexico and Brazil. This is alongside a strong, near-term growth profile with its construction of the Santa Luz mine in Brazil well underway, and Greenstone’s construction scheduled to start this year, as well as significant expansion projects at Los Filos, in Mexico, and Castle Mountain, in the US.

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ed by its Chair, Ross Beaty, Equinox Gold boasts it has the properties, the people and the plan to achieve the unique challenge of becoming a million-ounce gold producer while operating entirely within the Americas.

MERCEDES

The Mercedes resource is a key part of Equinox’s efforts to achieve one million ounces of gold a year. Equinox Gold acquired Mercedes in April 2021 through its acquisition of Premier Gold Mines. The underground goldsilver mine is located in the State

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of Sonora in northern Mexico, approximately 250 km northeast of Hermosillo, Mexico and 300 km south of Tucson, Arizona. These operations are now exploiting low sulfidation quartz veins and quartz veinlet stockwork for gold and silver. Equinox is using underground modified overhand cut and fill, narrow vein longitudinal long-hole mining, and long-hole open stoping methods to achieve an ore extraction rate of approximately 2,000 tonnes per day. The mining company is using wet milling with a MerrillCrowe recovery system.

The resource’s andesite sequence is situated between two northwest-trending anticlines and hosts all the economically important epithermal veins and Au-Ag resources identified on the Mercedes property.

The gold-silver mineralization is primarily epithermal low sulphidation. The sites boast a total of 14 fissure vein zones with a cumulative strike length of 12.35 km of gold-silverbearing veins over a vertical range of more than 600 metres, with lengths ranging from 100 m to 3 km.

Of course, the mine has also seen its challenges. Last year the Mercedes mine was placed on care and maintenance as part of Mexico’s nationwide governmentmandated restrictions in response to COVID-19.

Since last June the mine has been undergoing a phased re-start, with the process’s highest priorities being the completion of key access ramps to the Diluvio West and Lupita Extension stoping areas, alongside definition drilling at

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the Marianas, Diluvio West, and San Martin.

Things are already looking up for the operation. 106,597 tonnes were mined at Mercedes during the third quarter of 2020, compared with 163,030 tonnes during the same period in 2019.

While that figure might appear disappointing at first glance, it is the result of a restructure of Mercedes’s mining zones, consolidating the average of six zones in 2019 into two main areas, Diluvio and Lupita.

This change has had a positive impact, considerably reducing the tonnes of waste produced at the site while decreasing costs and increasing average gold grades from 2.94 g/t in Q3 2019 to 3.37 g/t in Q3 2020. The lower tonnage extracted from the mines means the plant has now changed its operating schedule, with an average of 20 operational days per month and ten days off. This allows reagents, electricity and maintenance to be optimised.

Regarding the future of Mercedes, there are a number of exploration targets on the property that could potentially allow for the life-of-mine to be extended. As well as potential targets close to the existing infrastructure at Mercedes, Equinox Gold also plans to explore the several kilometres of unexplored vein systems to the northwest of the property that the existing mines sit on.

GOLD STANDARD TALENT

Mercedes, like Equinox’s other 49 mines, is built upon the company’s 500 years of accumulated experience. The company’s executive team and directors possess experience across the technical, construction, operations and financial sectors of the mining industry, and they use that knowledge to advance

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Equinox’s assets, including Mercedes, and help build upon the company’s position as a premier gold producer.

While this team has wellestablished credentials in terms of experience, they have retained their entrepreneurial spirit, and Equinox has remained nimble and creative in its approach to evaluating and executing on new opportunities.

These executives and directors have a personal stake in the company’s success, as each of them has invested personally to hold more than 8% of the company. This is one of the highest insider ownership rates in the industry, and it ensures the interests of investors and Equinox Gold’s leadership team are aligned.

That strong leadership is reflected in the quality of

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Equinox’s governance, which is upheld to the highest industry standards.

Equinox Gold’s success with both the communities in which it operates and the public markets is built on its reputation for sound corporate governance and ethical business practices.

That leadership team have built Equinox a strong reputation, managing the companies and their projects to the highest standards with a clear commitment to governance, responsible mining and transparent communication.

“THE MERCEDES RESOURCE IS A KEY PART OF EQUINOX’S EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE ONE MILLION OUNCES OF GOLD A YEAR.”

For Equinox Gold, from here the sky is the limit. The company has established a clear plan to produce over one million ounces of gold a year from the assets it already holds.

The Mesquite, Castle Mountain, Los Filos, Mercedes, Aurizona, Fazenda, and RDM gold mines are already in operation, while Santa Luz is under construction with Greenstone construction targeted for H2 2021. Equinox is also advancing expansion projects at Los Filos and Castle Mountain while exploring and optimising all of its projects, with the objective of mine life extension and potentially increasing production.

By joining Equinox’s portfolio the Mercedes mine has become part of a story of growth and success that is set to continue for years to come.

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GOLDSOURCE MINES

WE LOOK AT GOLDSOURCE MINES TO LEARN HOW PHASED DEVELOPMENT AND CAREFULLY CHOSEN RESOURCES CAN REAP AMAZING DIVIDENDS.

ENJOYING THE SIMPLE THINGS PROJECT MANAGED BY: LEE PHOENIX Goldsource Mines is a Canadian exploration and development company led by an experienced management team and board bringing a diverse range of experience to its work.

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hat we do is target high-quality exploration assets in jurisdictions with a well-defined mining code,” explains Steve Parsons, Goldsource’s CEO. “In terms of high-quality, we target projects that offer favourable size and margin potential, a low CAPEX intensity, straightforward development plans and projects that are distinctly scalable with opportunities for phased development.”

Goldsource Mines is currently exploring the Eagle Mountain Project, an asset 100% owned by the company. In line with Goldsource’s MO the resource is high-quality, with tangible opportunities for phased development, starting with softrock mining with the opportunity to phase into fresh rock mining in later years funded by cash flows. The resource is 1.7 million ounces from the surface down to 80 metres.

“The deposit itself is something that suits our corporate objectives very well,” Parsons

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observes. “In a nutshell, what we have with the Eagle Mountain Project, an asset with resource scale and production scalability, a resource that sits at the surface and a team with the vision and expertise to develop it. What we’re looking to do is continue to define and expand the resource, while further exploring other targets to bring it all together with another resource update later this year. That resource will then be the basis of a prefeasibility study we will deliver in 2022. We will then carry on with permitting and enter production probably in 2024.”

PHASE DEVELOPMENT

The cornerstone of the Goldsource Mines strategy is phased development, which is something of a focal point for Parsons.

“This is something that I talk about a lot, especially in my previous career working for investment dealers as a mining analyst,” he says. “I used to focus on the mining cycle, not just in the gold sector but in mining as a whole. Knowing where you are in the mining cycle, specifically with respect to the construction backdrop, is critical for developmental success and generating favourable returns for shareholders.”

The issue is that the mining industry as a whole is quite small, especially concerning access to expertise. The talent pool of engineering firms for consulting and mine development is very small, which can cause issues when demand is high.

“Due to the capital intensity of this industry, decisions tend to be very pro-cyclical and consequently everything happens at the same time,” Parsons points out. “When metal prices go up and hit a critical point many, many companies with higher capital intensity assets start sanctioning the development of projects.

Invariably the industry becomes congested very quickly.”

Knowing that this is the industry backdrop that needs to be effectively managed, the team behind Goldsource Mines targets high-quality assets that are distinctly low capital intensity, scalable and cater to phased development.

“A lower capital intensity project and phased plan can help navigate the industry pressures and provide the opportunity for materially better outcomes for stakeholders,” says Parsons. “These are the style of projects that get built with less pressure on CAPEX and development timelines. So

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3 drills are focussed on expanding the current mineral resource while testing new targets within the license area.

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we look for projects that offer these attributes. They can be navigated through a congested procyclical backdrop and also offer the margin potential to be built off-cycle.”

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

Simplicity is key to Goldsource Mines’ approach.

“It’s important to find an asset that’s not complex from a mining, processing or permitting perspective and that is located in an industrysupported jurisdiction like Guyana,” Parsons tells us. “The more complex it is the more consulting firms you need, so human resources are critical all the way through the cycle.

So, we have a straightforward asset. It’s simple in that it’s shallow, with a very large resource contained from the

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GOLDSOURCE MINES

set as would be the case for a project with more complex development plans.”

THE NEXT PHASE

Alluvial gold has been exploited in the Eagle Mountain area since at least 1884.

surface down to 80 metres.

We have got a significant deposit.

Moreover, the surficial gold is contained in soft-rock saprolite, which should support a free digging operation, mining without drilling or explosives. We can just use an excavator while in the saprolite.”

Even with a resource, this straightforward, expertise is still necessary. Fortunately, it’s the precise expertise that under-explored Guyana has in abundance.

“Guyana particularly has a pedigree for mining, with 100 years of history, mostly in artisanal mining, but with some large commercial operations,” Parsons says. “As a result, there is expertise with respect to open-pit mining. We won’t require a deep expatriate skill

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From here, Goldsource Mines plans to provide further definition to the resource with drilling, followed by further engineering and a pre-feasibility study.

“Then things will start moving really quickly as we bring in engineers and look at next steps to take it from exploration to a mid-size gold operation,” Parsons says.

Meanwhile, Goldsource will be parallel tracking many activities alongside that, including expanding its CSR efforts and building and maintaining its dialogue with government agencies and local communities.

“We have a tremendous opportunity with an asset quite different to what you typically see in Guyana, where many projects are quite remote or not

road accessible,” Parsons says.

“We have a road-accessible project, close to a town with a commercial airport. These are really important features to maintain the simplicity of the project, eliminating complexities and leveraging what we’ve got to expedite a development plan.”

The point Parsons keeps coming back to is that Eagle Mountain is no pipe dream, this is a concrete prospect that will yield excellent results for the company and its stakeholders.

“The goal for the company is to continue to get out and impress upon the stakeholders, our investors, that this is an eminently buildable project,” he tells us. “This is more than a story this is a tangible project with attributes that cater to a straightforward development plan. We’re looking to expand the existing resource and uncover and unlock the additional potential on our property.”

Company geo technician logging drill core.

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GRAN COLOMBIA GOLD

Lombardo Paredes, Gran Colombia Gold’s CEO.

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GRAN COLOMBIA GOLD

GRAN COLOMBIA GOLD HAS BUILT UP AN IMPRESSIVE PORTFOLIO OF LEGACY MINING RESOURCES, BUT MORE THAN THAT, THEY ARE MAKING PROFOUND INVESTMENTS IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES.

GIVING BACK MORE PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

Gran Colombia Gold is a mid-tier gold producer based in Canada, but its operations have been primarily focused in Colombia where it has built a name for itself as the largest underground gold and silver producer in the country. Gran Colombia Gold operates several mines at its high-grade Segovia Operations, as well as owning approximately 44% of Aris Gold Corp., a Canadian mining company whose underground operations at its Marmato Project are undergoing a major expansion and modernisation.

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hose projects are the headlines of a project portfolio that includes an approximately 18% equity interest in Gold X Mining Corp, an approximately 36% equity interest in Denarius Silver Corp, and an approximately 26% equity interest in Western Atlas Resources Inc, all with projects in various stages of development in South America.

Colombia in particular, however, is a country Gran Colombia Gold’s leadership

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particularly see as a site of potential mining opportunities.

“The region where we are, Antioquia, produces 41% of the gold in Colombia. Gran Colombia Gold is one of the main producers with its operations in the municipalities of Segovia and Remedios,” points out Lombardo Paredes, Gran Colombia Gold’s CEO. As will turn out to be a recurring theme during our conversation, Noguera also believes that mining can be a huge benefit to Colombia as a nation as well.

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“Mining projects in the region are estimated to add more than 9,000 jobs in the region,” he tells us. “Additionally, for gold projects, the government plans to double production by 2030 to 60 tons per year, which implies a long-term investment and commitment by companies.

The National Government has stipulated to prioritize the development of mining-energy projects that would add 53,000 additional jobs.”

Gran Colombia Gold certainly has a lot to show for its progress in the country, as can be seen in its Segovia operations.

“We’ve been running our Segovia operations for ten years. We’re well-positioned, and we’re producing a bit more than 200,000 ounces of gold and 220,000 ounces of silver a year,” says Paredes.

Gran Colombia Gold’s Segovia Operations cover an area of approximately 9,000 hectares in the Segovia-Remedios mining district of Antioquia.

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GRAN COLOMBIA GOLD

“The asset is unique because that mine has produced 5 million ounces of gold over 150 years and there are a vast amount of resources still there,” says Paredes. “In the past, they had no records about exploration, so we started re-exploration in 2017. Now we have around 650,000 ounces of gold as a reserve. There is no question that there is a lot of gold in that concession. There is still a lot of gold there. Our main target this year is exploration and development campaigns. We have been drilling since 2017 and we have found resources buried deep. So, we are developing the mine to reach those resources.

There are 22 veins in the area of the concession which have not been explored or drilled. We intend to increase the reserve to around 800,000 ounces of gold and in two and a half years, reach 1 million ounces of reserve.”

Already the results Gran Colombia Gold is getting are very promising.

“That’s why we call our asset unique. It is located among the top ten mines with the highest grades in gold in the world,” Paredes tells us. “Our grade last year was 14g of gold per ton.

So, we’re confident we have a unique asset.”

Of course, while Colombia is full of opportunities, with plentiful resources, there are also risks.

“THAT’S WHY WE CALL OUR ASSET UNIQUE. IT IS LOCATED AMONG THE TOP TEN MINES WITH THE HIGHEST GRADES IN GOLD IN THE WORLD.” BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

Jose Ignacio Noguera, Corporate Vice-President of Gran Colombia Gold.

“The mining sector continues to have illegal mining as its main challenge,” Paredes acknowledges. “At Gran Colombia Gold we work under the Supply Chain Small Miners initiative in formalization and education in environmental and economic matters for small miners.”

GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY

Challenges such as illegal or “artisanal” mining can only be solved with the full cooperation of local communities and talking with Jose Ignacio Noguera, Corporate Vice-President of Gran Colombia Gold, it is clear that a strong relationship with those communities is the foundation of anything Gran Colombia Gold hopes to build.

“Nowadays a mining company cannot exist without a social license. It’s essential

to connect with the culture and beliefs of the communities you are working among,” Paredes says. “We’re in the northeast of Antioquia in Colombia. We cross two municipalities, and about 70 thousand people are living in those municipalities and historically there has been some concern.”

Fortunately, Gran Colombia Gold has been able to base that relationship on the many benefits its largescale exploitation of gold resources has brought to those communities.

“At Gran Colombia Gold we believe that coordinating work between private companies, local municipalities and communities is the best way to achieve a positive impact in the region and the country,” says Noguera. “In the company, we

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understand the importance of our operation for its economic contribution to the territories where we have a presence.

Our company depends on the livelihood of our workers and their families.”

Currently, the company generates more than 1,450 direct jobs from which more than 4,000 families depend on the operation in northeast Antioquia benefit. On top of that, the company has contributed more than $60 million in tax and royalty payments from its operations to Colombia since 2010 and invested more than $10 million in social investments since 2016.

As Noguera tells us, “We carry out an efficient and responsible mining management that

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generates, in addition to profitability, important dividends for the development of the country expressed in the payment of royalties, taxes and other legal obligations.”

THE GIFT OF EDUCATION

One of the most significant avenues for Gran Colombia Gold’s investment in local communities is the support it provides for local education.

“Now, for example, we are practically revamping all the schools and education infrastructure of those municipalities,” Noguera says proudly. “We bring Canadians to teach English to local kids, and the school has a good reputation. We’ve even recently expanded it to include secondary education.”

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“We develop alliances for the improvement of higher education and generate strategies for the productive use of free time in children,” adds Noguera. “We seek to strengthen the formal education area so that schools have an adequate infrastructure, which in the future will generate greater professional skills.”

In partnership with the Fundacion Angelitos de Luz, Gran Colombia Gold sponsors the local elementary school Gimnasio La Salada in Segovia. In 2020, the school has approximately 500

students enrolled in kindergarten through to grade seven. Since 2012, the school has provided quality education to more than 3,800 students. The first class of bilingual students will graduate in 2024.

“In 2020, we finished construction of a new high school in Segovia to increase the opportunity for children to access a higher-level education in their own community,” Noguera says.

Gran Colombia Gold is creating a gold standard future for Colombia in more ways than one.

“WE SEEK TO STRENGTHEN THE FORMAL EDUCATION AREA SO THAT SCHOOLS HAVE AN ADEQUATE INFRASTRUCTURE, WHICH IN THE FUTURE WILL GENERATE GREATER PROFESSIONAL SKILLS.”

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PAN ASIA METALS

Paul Lock, MD, Pan Asia Metals.

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PAN ASIA METALS

WE TALK TO PAN ASIA METALS ABOUT THE EXCITING OPPORTUNITY TO BE FOUND IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND THE SPECIALTY METALS MINING SECTOR.

AN OPPORTUNITY TO PRODUCE PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER

Pan Asia is a South-East Asian focused minerals exploration and development company that specialises in battery and critical metals such as lithium and tungsten.

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he company was founded in 2017 by David Hobby, now the company’s Chief Geologist, and Paul Lock, its Managing Director, based on work they had carried out in 2013.

“We started doing a lot of work in Southern Myanmar in tin and tungsten, which is difficult from a policy perspective, and from there we found a prospect in Southern Thailand,” Lock explains.

Today Pan Asia Metals has projects in the South-East Asian Tin – Tungsten Belt, which extends from Myanmar in the north through Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia to the Tin Islands in the South. It is an appealing location for specialty mining exploration due to the occurrence of a suite of specialty metals associated with granite related tin, such as tungsten, lithium, tantalum, niobium, rubidium, and caesium, as well as rare earth and other rare metals.

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It’s an area that is home to some of the largest historical tin producing districts in the world, and yet has experienced relatively little modern exploration.

“We focus on South-East Asia because it’s a low-cost environment with a lot of industrial activity. We know out of the box we’ve got a head start on most of our peers because we’re competitive on a labour and operating costs perspective,” Lock tells us.

DOWNSTREAM POSSIBILITIES

However, Pan Asia Metals’ objective isn’t simply to find sites that can be mined cheaply.

Their vision goes much further than that.

“Our objective with our projects is to explore, develop and operate projects where we can move downstream, value-add and produce a more sophisticated chemical product,” Lock explains. “We have one tungsten project in Australia, a feeder to what we’re doing in Asia and we’re looking for more opportunities in and around where we’re operating.”

That ability to downstream their production is a larger driver behind Pan Asia Metals’ focus on specialty metals.

“We ultimately want to be producers, not just mine gate sellers,” Lock says. “We want projects that can realistically move downstream. We want to produce value-added products, get the company re-rated. We want to go all the way. The reason for that goes back to why we look at specialty metals in the first place.

If we explored for iron or coal, it is very difficult to do anything but sell a mine gate product.

Even the biggest miners in the world still sell iron ore to Japan, Korea, China and elsewhere. They don’t do anything with it. Barriers to entry for bulk products are impossible to get across.”

Lithium, on the other hand, is a growth sector, and the natural process of mining lithium ore, producing a lithium concentrate and then process this into a battery ready lithium chemical is a fairly simple hurdle for a mining company with the right circumstances to overcome.

At the same time, converting tungsten from concentrate into ammonium paratungstate is an easy process in a low-cost environment like Thailand.

And these are products that are expected to see skyrocketing demand over the next few years.

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“If you look at the battery metal space globally it’s going to be a booming sector,” Lock points out. “Endless reports showing lithium consumption by 2025 to 2030 will be ten times what it is today, and there’s already a squeeze on the market. There’s a lot of exploration going on, it’s definitely a place to be.

Our positioning there is to be a supplier into a market for the most critical metals because it’s absolutely necessary for industrial production. That’s why we’re looking at these metals and other speciality metals.”

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CREATING VILLAGE SCIENTISTS

While Thailand is ideal for Pan Asia’s purposes from a geological and economic point of view, there is also the regulatory environment to consider. As Lock points out, the permitting process here is very different from what he was used to in Australia.

“Licensing is complex and has many steps. If I’m in Australia I can go online and put in an application for an exploration license somewhere. In Thailand, the process is longer, takes six to seven months,” he says. “It starts at the community level, with sign off from the regional government, then the federal government. There are several journeys there, it goes to community votes and so on.”

Paul Lock (L) & David Hobby (R) in the field, Australia.

Khao Soon Ridge - Location of the Khao Soon Tungsten Project.

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PAN ASIA METALS

PAM Field Geologist exploring for tungsten at Khao Soon Tungsten Project 1.

At the same time, once a project has acquired a licence in Thailand the journey is far more straightforward than it might be elsewhere.

“Once you have your licence no more permissions are required, while in Australia you get the license quickly but have to submit applications for drill programmes,” Lock tells us. So the licensing is quick but permissions for normal exploration can be long-winded. At the end of the day, the timing is about the same even if Thailand frontends everything. But Thai law is very clear, easy to understand, and it’s the easiest place to get a licence in South-East Asia.”

A licence isn’t the only thing you need to ensure a project can go ahead, however.

“We work very closely with our communities to make sure we’re part of the community and welcomed by the community,” explains Lock. “With exploration and mining projects if you are not accepted by your community, you might get your licence but you won’t get buy-in from the local population. Many companies have failed because of community backlash.”

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PAM Field Geologist measuring drill core from Reung Kiet Lithium Project 2.

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PAN ASIA METALS

For this reason, from the start Pan Asia Metals has worked to bring the community on board, working with them, answering questions, and letting the community see the jobs and opportunities it is bringing to their home.

“If we dig a hole in the ground, they accept the negatives are outweighed by having that project in and around their community,” Lock tells us. “We focus on education, health, and sports, and donate where it’s needed.”

A big part of this is Lock’s passion project, the Village Scientist, a community program developed to help communities create an environment conducive to inspired childhood education.

The grassroots focused initiative is intended to grow with the participation of like-minded individuals and companies operating in the South-East Asian

region and elsewhere around the world, but its origins are tied into the very beginning of the Pan Asia Metals story.

“It came about when David Hobby and I were in Southern Myanmar looking for tin. We were at an old mining site, mined in the 30s, and a village had been there for a long time,” Lock recalls. “We saw there were a lot of kids but no school.

I was thinking it is a real shame there is no school, but also that it would cost very little to build and populate a school. The idea is anyone can be a scientist if given the tools to get there.”

Far more than a PR-based CSR stunt, this is a project that is clearly close to Lock’s heart.

“I’ve committed 10% of my gains out of mining and exploration to it,” he tells us.

With the plans that Pan Asia Metals has in place, that could prove to be worth a great deal.

The Village Scientist - Happy kids with new school equipment.

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ST BARBARA MINING

ST BARBARA MINING HAS AN IMPRESSIVE PORTFOLIO OF PROPERTIES, BUT WHAT IS REALLY IMPRESSIVE IS THE WAY ITS VALUES HAVE GUIDED THE COMPANY TO SUCCESS.

VALUES-LED MINING PROJECT MANAGED BY: NEIL STOWE

As of June last year, St Barbara possessed almost 12 million ounces of mineral resources, including reserves of 6 million ounces of ore which contained gold. These resources are part of extensive landholding with granted tenements and tenement applications across Canada, Papua New Guinea and Australia.

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his portfolio is the outcome of a globally coordinated exploration strategy whereby all activity is carried out in the areas near to or surrounding St Barbara’s existing operations, allowing it to extend the lifeof-mine of each of its projects while revealing future growth opportunity.

The Australian company’s assets include its Leonora Operations in Western Australia, Atlantic Gold Operations in Nova Scotia, Canada, and its Simberi Operations in Papua New Guinea. Each of these projects share St Barbara’s values-led culture and its five key commitments, “Safety always”, “Empowered people and diverse team”, “Stronger Communities”, “Respecting the environment” and “Growing sustainably”.

GOLDEN BEGINNINGS

To understand St Barbara’s values, you need to understand the company’s history. St

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Barbara was incorporated and listed in 1969 as Endeavour Oil after being founded in Western Australia.

From the outset, St Barbara’s activities were focused on mineral exploration, but in the early 2000s, the company began to focus on gold production, beginning with its operations in Meekatharra in Western Australia. By July 2004, St Barbara had undergone a change in management and was broadening its activity to include gold production and exploration. In March of the very next year, St Barbara acquired the Southern Cross, Leonora and South Laverton gold assets in Western Australia from Sons of Gwalia Limited. With this new resource base established, St Barbara sold off its South Laverton and Meekatharra assets a year later.

Not long after that, in October 2008, St Barbara commissioned a new, high-grade Gwalia gold mine at Leonora, then in 2011 commissioned its King of the

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Papua New Guinea Freezers (a wholly owned subsidiary) is the largest Manufacturer of Small goods and value added products in Papua New Guinea this along with our Trading arm for domestic & imported meat enables World class products to be processed & manufactured locally and is proudly HACCP certified to Australian & New Zealand standards as well a ISO 22000;2018 certification.

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Puma Energy supports Simberi Operations and communities through the reliable delivery of excellent quality Puma Lubricants, PumaGas LPG, and locally refined Diesel from PNG’s only refinery at Napa Napa.

Energising Communities Port Moresby Lae Kokopo Kiunga Manus Mt. Hagen Alotau Buka Head office contact nos.: +675 303 6550 / +675 741 10800 Email: info@bngtrading.com.pg / www.bngtrading.com.pg www.pumaenergy.com.pg

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Leaders in Mine Cooling

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gordonbrothers.com.au

Hills mine to provide additional feed to its Gwalia mill. That mine operated between June 2011 and April 2015, producing over 225,000 ounces of gold.

This mine would eventually be sold to Saracen Metals Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Saracen Mineral Holdings Ltd, but St Barbara’s gold activities would continue to expand.

The company expanded into Papua New Guinea in September 2012, with the purchase of Allied Gold Mining Plc. The acquisition built up St Barbara’s portfolio with the addition of gold operations at Simberi, Papua New Guinea and Gold Ridge in the Solomon Islands.

In December of the same year, St Barbara’s Southern Cross Operation ceased and was sold in April 2013 to Hanking Gold Mining Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of China Hanking Holdings Limited.

Meanwhile, in the Solomon Islands operations were suspended at Gold Ridge after

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ST BARBARA MINING

torrential rain and flood in April 2014. When it became clear production could not be resumed due to factors outside of St Barbara’s control the company issued force majeure notices under certain mining and supply agreements, and the Gold Ridge Project was sold to a Solomon Islands company associated with local landowners in May 2015.

In July 2019 St Barbara added Atlantic Gold Corporation and its Nova Scotia operations to its portfolio.

2050 VISION

While St Barbara has built up an impressive portfolio of resources and successful mining projects, it also cares deeply about the environmental impact its work has. The company is committed

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to caring for the environment.

Using the innovation and creativity that fuel the company’s business practices, St Barbara thinks differently in its search for solutions to manage and neutralise its environmental impact.

The company boasts a consistent approach to environmental management across all its operations. Key aspects of its innovative environmental management program include ongoing, progressive rehabilitation of previously mined areas, with a focus on water and energy efficiencies and sustainability. St Barbara’s is engaged in proactive reporting and management of environmental hazards and incidents, and environmental training and awareness are practised throughout the company to ensure compliance with statutory guidelines.

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This, combined with the company’s business-wide gas emission reduction targets, will help St Barbara achieve its commitment to being a carbonneutral company by 2050. In the process its aims to improve its production emission efficiency (gold ounces/CO2 t) by 18.6% (on 2013 levels) by 2030. However, the mining company is led by science, and as it engages with the United Nations’ Science Based Targets Initiative, these goals may change to accommodate new findings.

The efforts to achieve this goal are visible across St Barbara’s operations. At Atlantic Gold, planning is already underway for carbon neutrality via wind turbines and scalable salt-water batteries. Last year Leonora completed the construction of its underground Paste Aggregate Fill (PAF) infrastructure to allow the permanent underground

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ST BARBARA MINING

as possible, since 2008 St Barbara has also carried out rehabilitation work on legacy mining structures. Most recently it has worked to digitise and map all disturbance on St Barbara’s tenements in its ArcGIS database.

The company has also developed a Strategic Environmental Improvement Plan to address key challenges and opportunities facing St Barbara while suggesting action plans to manage these issues.

Every year the company compiles an Annual Environmental Report which it submits to the Department of Fines and Petroleum as well as the Department of Environment Regulation. These reports are a comprehensive account of St Barbara’s environmental activities at St Barbara’s Leonora Operations.

With a strong portfolio and a strong environmental strategy, St Barbara has struck gold in more ways than one.

“USING THE INNOVATION & CREATIVITY THAT FUEL THE COMPANY’S BUSINESS PRACTICES, ST BARBARA THINKS DIFFERENTLY IN ITS SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS TO MANAGE AND NEUTRALISE ITS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT.” storage of up to 100% of waste rock. The process involves underground crushing and mixing with paste-fill, which is piped down from the surface, then pumped to fill mining voids. The project will reduce Gwalia mine’s greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 3% by reducing truck diesel usage by ~18%, and saving 3,000 tons of CO2 a year.

Their efforts have been recognised on a national level, with St Barbara’s village accommodation at its Leonora operations receiving the Golden Gecko award from the State Government for the energy savings it made through installing solar panels last year. St Barbara has also been recognised as a Gold Waterwise Business by the West Australian Water Corporation for the second time.

As well as ensuring their operations have as small an environmental footprint

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TELSON MINING CORPORATION

WE LEARN HOW THE TELSON MINING CORPORATION IS EXTRACTING THE BEST VALUE IT CAN FROM ITS TWO KEY PROJECT SITES IN MEXICO.

FROM Au TO Zn PROJECT MANAGED BY: TIM GARWOOD

Telson Mining is a junior mining company operating in Mexico listed on the TSX Venture exchange. Primarily its operations centre around two key projects in Mexico. The first of these is the Campo Morado project, which is in commercial production and boasts a position as the sixth largest zinc producer in Mexico. Telson’s second project is Tahuehueto, a very high-grade gold mine currently 60% through its construction phase. After a brief hiatus, work on this project has just resumed following the acquisition of new funding.

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TELSON MINING CORPORATION

E

ach of these projects is at different stages and bring with them their own opportunities and challenges.

IN PRODUCTION AT CAMPO MORADO

With Campo Morado, the challenge is to extract as much value as possible from the operational mine site.

“Although Campo Morado is a zinc mine at the moment, we have considered a number of ways to increase our revenue for that project,” explains Ralph Shearing, CEO of Telson Mining.

“For instance, we have the

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ability to expand the flotation circuit. Construction on that was 80% complete when the mine’s previous owners shut it down. So, when we purchased the mine, we acquired that equipment and we can put that additional circuit into production increasing our production by a third. It will require an updated engineering cost estimate and we believe the required capital to complete construction on this expansion will not be large as 80% of the expansion is complete and the vast majority of equipment already on site.”

Other revenue streams for Campo Morado may be available through increasing

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ACARREOS MINEROS CAPRICORNIO SA de CV

For 30 years we have dedicated our work to offering MINERAL AND TEPETATE HANDLING services in INTERIOR MINE AND SURFACE. We have strategically located facilities in the units where we provide our services, with more than 350 employees with specialized technical training and experience in the trucking industry.

MISSION: Provide services for the hauling of mineral concentrate inside the mine that meet the quality and safety standards established by our clients.

VISION: To be a leading national mineral concentrate hauling company inside mine. Recognized for the high quality and safety of its services. Through highly qualified personnel, continuous improvement procedures, state-of-the-art equipment and state-of-the-art infrastructure.

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We strengthen market links between producers and end-users and supply our customers with the products they require when and where they need them.

Strategic alliances with selected counterparties extend the scope of our activities such as Metallica, MCC Non-Ferrous Trading LLC, Minas de Campo Morado, Minera Mexico, Ferromex, GEPP. We are proud to be part of AMMJE (Asociación Mexicana de Mujeres Jefas de Empresa A.C).

T: +52 55 5035 8056 E: veronica.silva@vtrade.com.mx

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M: +52 55 4347 2875 www.vtrade.com.mx

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recoveries of both base metals and precious metals. Telson is embarking on several metallurgical testing work streams, the first of which will bring an Imhoflot Flotation pilot testing plant to Campo Morado.

The Imhoflot technology along with Leachox Process are patented technologies developed by Maelgwyn Mineral Services. Maelgwyn has developed proven technology that successfully reclaims refractory gold and silver and increases base metal recoveries at the microfine grind of ores.

“Maelgwyn performed testing on Campo Morado ore when it was owned by a previous operator and achieved a large increase in precious metal recoveries with their Laechox Process,” Shearing points out.

It’s a solution that is particularly welcome given the complexity of Campo Morado’s resource.

“Campo Morado ore bodies were formed on the ancient seafloor millions of years

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TELSON MINING CORPORATION

ago, creating large pods of volcanogenic massive sulfide (“VMS”) mineralisation with very fine mineral grain size where gold and silver were encapsulated within the mineral grains. This phenomenon is generally referred to as producing refractory ores,” Shearing tells us.

“Currently, the orebody we are mining gives us 15% recoveries of gold and 30 to 40% recoveries of silver. Previous first pass Leachox testing in 2015 returned excellent results demonstrating that gold recoveries up to 60% and silver recoveries up to 80% are attainable using this technology. Campo Morado’s global measured and indicated resources of 16.6 million tonnes contain significant gold at 1.7 g/t and silver at 123g/t. This is a high-grade precious metal VMS deposit, so we’re going to take this testing through to completion and if successful results are achieved, we will have a pathway to opening a very large new potential revenue stream.”

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While precious metals are an interesting source of potential revenue, Telson’s primary focus at this point in time remains on base metals, and the company is also working to increase its recoveries of those at Campo Morado.

“CURRENTLY, THE OREBODY WE ARE MINING GIVES US 15% RECOVERIES OF GOLD AND 30 TO 40% RECOVERIES OF SILVER. PREVIOUS FIRST PASS LEACHOX TESTING IN 2015 RETURNED EXCELLENT RESULTS DEMONSTRATING THAT GOLD RECOVERIES UP TO 60% AND SILVER RECOVERIES UP TO 80% ARE ATTAINABLE USING THIS TECHNOLOGY.”

“This pilot plant will potentially show a pathway to increase base metal recovery (copper-zinc and lead) with micro-fine grinding of ore using Imhoflot Flotation Technology which obtains much better recoveries with microfine grinding,” Shearing says.

“If we can increase either, or both base metal and precious recoveries we will obtain much higher revenues. Positive first phase Leachox testing already achieved presents the pathway forward for a high probability of success.”

Overall, Campo Morado is already providing significant success. The mine recently achieved a steady-state production of 2,100 tons per day.

The site is producing regularly every month, providing Telson with decent monthly cash flow.

“We have considerable debt on that asset, but we’re starting to pay this off,” Shearing acknowledges. “We believe that if Campo Morado performs throughout the rest of 2021 as it has during the past two quarters, we should have the mine back in the black towards the end of this year.”

One source of support that has been invaluable to Telson is the support of its main funder, Accendo Banco S.A de C.V, one of Mexico’s foremost mining banks.

“They’re very much behind us, recognising Telson’s Tahuehueto Gold Project as a premier nearterm gold producer and have become large shareholders in our company,” Shearing acknowledges. “They helped fund a large portion of our $10 million private placement closed at the end of March 2021. They’ve put a lot of capital behind us and also brought in Endeavour Financial, a high profile and widely recognized UK mining investment group to also invest in support Telson.”

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THE EXPLORATORY PHASE

While Campo Morado shows what Telson Mining can do when production is in full swing, Tahuehueto is a great example of how they carry out their initial exploratory evaluative work leading to a production decision.

The Tahuehueto Project is made up of 28 mining concessions occupying approximately 7,492 hectares which cover approximately 80% of the mineral district known as Tahuehueto. Telson has been exploring Tahuehueto for some time, and although they have developed a robust reserve and resource allowing them to initiate construction of a 1000 tonne per day underground mining operation, there is still plenty of resources yet to be discovered.

“Although our current reserves and resources have been identified mainly along one principle through-going structure there are at least eight more known mineralized structures that are yet unexplored with drilling. Along the principal structure that we have explored with drilling, which contains over 90% of our current reserves and resources, we’ve not found the limit of the ore bodies to depth or along strike to the north and south. All of these vein structures occur within a structural corridor that I believe is over 7.5 km long and at least 3 km wide,” Shearing explains. “Current reserves provide a ten-year mine-life and currently identified resources could add an additional ten years of mine-life when elevated into reserves categories with additional drilling. Our 100% owned Tahuehueto Project has fantastic exploration potential and we are very confident we can continue to bring in new resources and reserves with

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exploration drilling to potentially double or triple the size of mine we’re currently building.”

As well as delving for valuable resources beneath these sites, Telson is also seeking out talent near their projects.

“Our policy is to hire as much as possible from local communities. We have a good training programme in place to help unskilled workers become skilled in the various aspects of mining, so that’s a very strong focus of the company to improve the economic conditions of local people,”

Shearing points out. “In Tahuehueto, the Company constructed for the community the first school and medical clinic in this remote area. It also contributed to improving infrastructure, such as roads, electricity, water supply and filtration systems, and sanitation improvements.”

Telson is also actively working towards the implementation of a green energy strategy.

At Tahuehueto we will be generating power with natural gas instead of diesel to minimize carbon emissions

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TELSON MINING CORPORATION

“CURRENT RESERVES PROVIDE A TEN-YEAR MINE-LIFE AND CURRENTLY IDENTIFIED RESOURCES COULD ADD AN ADDITIONAL TEN YEARS OF MINE-LIFE WHEN ELEVATED INTO RESERVES CATEGORIES WITH ADDITIONAL DRILLING.”

and at both Campo Morado and Tahuehueto, management is actively analysing different proposals for the potential installation of solar power to generate electricity to both reduce long term power costs and reduce the Company’s carbon footprint.

As Tahuehueto gets closer to production, Shearing expects that investment to grow, as will Telson itself.

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CAMPBELL SHIPPING & CAMPBELL BULK

CAMPBELL SHIPPING BOASTS COMPETENCIES IN EVERY ASPECT OF THE SHIPPING BUSINESS, BUT IT’S WILLING TO SHARE ITS EXPERTISE.

THE COMPLETE SHIPPING SOLUTION 204 | SHIPPING, PORT & MARINE

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CAMPBELL SHIPPING & CAMPBELL BULK

CS Jaden, dry bulk vessel.

The shipping industry is one built on collaboration, with any one shipping journey being the work of a combination of companies and contractors.

PROJECT MANAGED BY: DAVID GARNER BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

“I

t’s an industry that has many components that all need to work together,” explains Captain Rajesh Dhadwal, Managing Director and CEO of Campbell Shipping.

Campbell Shipping is the exception that proves the rule, being one of the few businesses in the industry with the expertise and capability to carry out every aspect of shipping.

“We’re shipowners, technical managers, crewing managers, commercial managers, and we also do accounting, purchasing, and procurement.

That’s very distinctive in this industry,” Dhadwal says.

“You may find businesses in technical management or that own a ship, but we do all aspects of shipping under one roof.”

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Alfa Laval’s PureBallast 3 Bulker-fit configuration matches differentiated ballast and deballast flow requirements.

Bulk carriers can now benefit from an Alfa Laval PureBallast 3 bulker-fit configuration, which is specifically adapted to their flow needs. The bulker fit configuration offers savings in footprint, installation, OPEX, and especially CAPEX, yet it retains the high performance, easy operation, and the expected global service coverage from Alfa Laval.

https://www.alfalaval.com/microsites/pureballast/vessel-types/bulker/ This boutique, all-in-one approach to shipping is a valuable USP for Campbell Shipping, but that doesn’t mean they don’t collaborate with other firms. The company regularly contracts out its services to other shipping companies, often carrying out shipping operations for the ships of other businesses.

It’s a business model that gives Campbell Shipping a unique understanding of their clients’ needs.

“We bring a boutique governance to our clients, both internal and external, and an openness and transparency to our operators,” Dhadwal says. “We’re owner-operators ourselves. We’ve brought in that mindset of being a shipowner ourselves, not just a third party who may only be interested in extracting value from the owners.”

Campbell Shipping is a company driven by a clear vision, with a well-defined operating model for how the

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company will function and where it is heading. What’s important, Dhadwal insists, is that this vision isn’t just understood by the Board of Directors, but by every level of the company.

“If the board are the only ones who understand it, it has no value,” Dhadwal says. “The lowest crew member on a ship needs to understand how we do things. We have that with every person on all our ships. When you bring in that kind of human energy and make it function to provide value to the client, that’s where we can show what we’re capable of.”

This is reflected in Campbell Shipping’s commercial arm, Campbell Bulk.

“Campbell Bulk is the commercial arm of an esteemed ownership company with a modern view that offers flexible freight solutions,” says Felix Knick, Chartering Director of Campbell Bulk.

“Dry-cargo freight trading is all about customer relations, offering

competitive pricing, and maintaining business focus.

To overcome the challenges of the ever-evolving freight and commodity markets today, it is imperative that special attention to timing and skilled staff is prioritized. At Campbell, we are committed to being an independent, experienced, and highly motivated carrier that provides flexible freight solutions to traders & industrial customers at market levels.”

“WE’RE SHIPOWNERS, TECHNICAL MANAGERS, CREWING MANAGERS, COMMERCIAL MANAGERS, AND WE ALSO DO ACCOUNTING, PURCHASING, & PROCUREMENT.” BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

CAMPBELL SHIPPING & CAMPBELL BULK EMPLOYEE FOCUSED

Campbell Shipping believes that to harness the power of that human energy, you need to show the people that work for you that their work will be rewarded, and building better lives for employees is a core part of Campbell Shipping’s philosophy. While the company’s business is moving cargo, it never forgets its commitment to its team members. With their support and sound leadership, Campbell Shipping is gaining recognition and growth on the way to becoming a household name in the industry.

But it isn’t always smooth sailing, as this past year has shown.

“Some of the biggest challenges we face obviously include COVID-19, but I credit our success to the team and the way we have all worked together through this very difficult phase,” Dhadwal tells us. “Maintaining continuity was one of our biggest challenges.

We had people stuck on ships because borders were closing, consulates and visas stopped working. Bringing people home and replacing the people on the ships was the biggest challenge we saw through COVID-19.”

It’s a challenge that has thrown into sharp relief the value of Campbell Shipping’s philosophy, “Employee focused, client-driven”.

Once again, at Campbell Bulk, Knick has a similar view.

He tells us, “Our management philosophy—Our people, your strength—is centred on people: those we employ and those we serve. We believe that meeting and exceeding the needs of our clients is a key component to our success. Our well-experienced, driven team share a common passion for developing shipping and trading solutions.”

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“When you have the right people on the job it’s the best thing that can happen,” Dhadwal emphasises.

Campbell Shipping values its employees by respecting each individual, treating them fairly while providing them with opportunities to grow and develop professionally. This also means providing employees with a work environment that empowers them to manage their personal and family life effectively. This commitment to Campbell Shipping’s employees is the foundation of its “One Team Campbell” environment.

“We have to rely on the quality of our people’s experience. We make sure the people working with us are looked after and that they know we value their contribution,” Dhadwal explains.

“Our chartering and operations team is a well-versed, diversified, and experienced team spread across the globe and is actively engaged with the vessel and clients’ needs round the clock,” Knick adds.

Ultimately, Dhadwal believes that word-of-mouth remains

the most powerful recruitment tool there is. He tells us, “We work well with our staff and that becomes a talking point from them to others. We have to make sure we maintain good credibility in the market to become the choice employer.”

“It will include all aspects around our people through their full life-cycle with the company,” Dhadwal says. “This strategy, at its heart, aims to provide an extraordinary experience to our people. They each have their own journey, work with us for years and move on, but when they move on, we want their experience to be rewarding.

Our People Strategy is geared towards providing our employees with continuous Learning & Education, Mentoring and Career Development, Rewards & Recognition and Leadership development.”

Campbell Shipping’s leadership also believes that its intellectual growth is embedded in diversity.

“The shipping industry can be a conservative when accepting diversity, however, here in Campbell, we have

Capt. Rajesh Dhadwal (Left), presenting 10-year service achievement to a Campbell Seafarer.

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CAMPBELL SHIPPING & CAMPBELL BULK

females forming a key part of the executive team,” Dhadwal admits.

Dhadwal further adds that business intelligence is a key aspect for the company for taking timely and right decisions.

“We have therefore migrated to MARIAPPS, an award-winning IT solution to form a backbone to all our ship management functions,” he explains. “In addition, we are working with an IT company to develop electronic recordkeeping to replace all manual paperwork. The digitalization provides feasibility to convert data to a business intelligence rather than lying dormant on paper records.”

CLIENT DRIVEN

The flipside of Campbell Shipping’s philosophy is that it is driven in all its activities by the needs of the customer. In the delivery of all its services, whether as a holistic shipping provider or in contracting for others, Campbell Shipping achieves excellence through the unique level of understanding Campbell Shipping’s people have of their clients’ needs.

They meet those needs while adhering to high ethical standards and drawing upon a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the risks associated with the environment where they work.

So, to “Employee Focused, Client Driven”, Campbell Shipping also adds the slogan “Safety Our Priority, Excellence Our Commitment.”

The company adheres to a rigorous Safety Management System to ensure that its practices and procedures will always minimise potential risks. Standards and targets for improvement are set so that Campbell Shipping can engage in a continuous improvement

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Teamwork - Our Core Value

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CAMPBELL SHIPPING & CAMPBELL BULK exercise. The Company is aligning its operational SOP with the best industry practices of Dry Bulk Management Standards (DBMS).

QUALSHIP 21 a prestigious recognition by United States Coast Guard was awarded to the Company in 2003. The Company has also received IMO recognition for the largest rescue operations undertaken by a commercial vessel besides winning 4 InterManager awards for safety leadership.

“We have the unique initiatives of STOPP-TAKE 5 and COMPLACENCY WILL BITE to promote and manage Risk Management,” Dhadwal says.

“The Company has recently added a key position of Chief Culture Officer (CCO) to harness the team motivation and the consistency of Campbell culture throughout the organization.”

Campbell Shipping will also be looking at imparting soft skill training to its people so that they can harness their potential on top of their technical core competencies.

“We have over many years worked our way to a strong foundation for the company, with a good governance model.

We are now very much open to doing third-party management, using our expertise and experience to provide services to third-party clients, and this is an area we would like to expand further into,” Dhadwal says.

Knick adds, “We are opportunistic and flexible

with a dedicated focus on the spot as well as the future market. We strongly believe in providing value-added services to our clients through our responsiveness, reliability, and strong insights into the current market conditions.”

It’s a competitive field, and there are some large third-party management companies in the sector that Campbell Shipping can’t necessarily compete with on numbers. However, the smaller, more focused nature of the business can give them an edge.

“Inherently, when a shipowner has a ship with a large third-party company its attention to that owner can be diluted,” Dhadwal tells us.

“We are small, focused and able to provide much-needed feedback and close interaction with the shipowners. We have recently made in-roads into managing 3rd party cruise vessels, which is a very niche sector.”

But wherever Campbell goes, throughout the various arms of the business its philosophy remains the same.

“At Campbell, we believe in a friendly, cooperative dialogue with customers, suppliers, brokers, other business partners, and stakeholders,” Knick says. “Our well-structured and compact setup gives us the advantage of making quick decisions in dynamic markets whilst being risk-conscious and competitive.”

“AT CAMPBELL, WE BELIEVE IN A FRIENDLY, COOPERATIVE DIALOGUE WITH CUSTOMERS, SUPPLIERS, BROKERS, OTHER BUSINESS PARTNERS, AND STAKEHOLDERS.” BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

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ESWATINI RAILWAYS

Nixon Dlamini, Eswatini Railways’ CEO.

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ESWATINI RAILWAYS

WE LEARN HOW THIS RAILWAY COMPANY IS CONNECTING ESWATINI TO THE WORLD.

CONNECTING ESWATINI TO THE FUTURE PROJECT MANAGED BY: JOHN HOLLIMAN

Eswatini Railways is a railway operator and state-owned enterprise in the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland. It operates a 300 km railway line importing and exporting commodities, resources and products to and from the Kingdom.

A

s Eswatini Railways’ CEO, Nixon Dlamini, says, “We have a state-of-the-art dry port, which we operate and use for our main exports, sugar, ethanol and canned fruit. We also import petroleum products because we’re located in an industrial area close to a number of private fuel depots.”

Eswatini’s railway network extends east from the Matsapha Industrial Site to Phuzumoya, where it connects with the South Rail Link to access the South African ports of Durban and Richards Bay. Meanwhile, the Northern link gives Eswatini access to northern countries including Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC and South Africa. Access to the port of Maputo in Mozambique is by a branch line from Mpaka junction.

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With a staff of 374 people, Eswatini Railways moves an average of 7 million tonnes every year. The railway system also has the capacity to handle up to 80 wagon trains, a capability that is useful in Africa particularly on this North-South corridor.

While traditionally Eswatini Railways hasn’t carried passengers, in the early nineties it played a major role in repatriating Mozambican refugees who had sought asylum in Eswatini during their country’s civil war.

Whichever way you look at it, Eswatini Railways has played a crucial role in the story of the Kingdom.

“We provide an important service for the bulk freight sector. We serve countries such as Zambia, the DRC, South Africa,” Dlamini says.

“There’s a lot of mining activity and the commodities from those mines, copper, and magnetite, among others, need to be ferried down south to Richards Bay or sometimes Durban. We provide a North-

South corridor, with the running stock these mining companies require.”

It’s a role the railway firm has excelled in, but they have never stopped to rest on their laurels.

“We’re constantly improving our operations and we operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so there’s always somebody on-hand to take your call and our turnaround times are short,” Dlamini points out.

This remains essential as Eswatini Railways must remain competitive with the road haulage companies. Although the company is a governmentowned entity, it receives no government subventions, and Eswatini Railways is responsible for funding its maintenance and upkeep from its own budget.

“We have various streams of income which include transit traffic. We have also explored other options in terms of diversifying our income.

We’ve got a large portfolio of assets so we’ve started renting out warehouses, residential accommodation and so on.”

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ESWATINI RAILWAYS

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“This is in line with the revised strategy put in place since Dlamini took on the role of company CEO last year”. The main pillar of that strategy is diversification.

“We’re building a larger inland dry port which is right in the heart of Eswatini at Mpaka, connecting to the KMIII International airport, Richards Bay and beyond,” Dlamini explains. “Diversification is the key for us, as well as exploring private finance partnerships within the private sector. It’s not an easy operation but we’ve remained robust for a long time now.”

TRAINING

Of course, the resources Eswatini Railways relies on aren’t just capital. Another significant challenge the company faces is building and nurturing the talent pool necessary to keep itself operational.

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ESWATINI RAILWAYS

“The skills that are required in running railways are not offthe-shelf,” Dlamini insists. “You need to train people from Day One onwards. So what we would like to strengthen going forward is to attract bright young people and take them through an internship for three years. We would offer them work based training and permanent placement if successful.

“We train people in every aspect of running a railway, from building the tracks to, with our partners, sending recruits to a School of Rail to learn how to drive trains,” Dlamini tells us.

“People really grow with the company.”

A NEW LINE

When construction is complete, the link will create over an estimated 300 long term jobs in Eswatini and in South Africa.

As with Eswatini Railways ongoing work, this project is also expected to help develop local skills and catalyse economic development.

“This is an exciting project for us, and we’d like as many participants as we possibly can nationally and internationally,” Dlamini says.

The rail link is emblematic of the company’s commitment to the future of Eswatini.

“Our philosophy is we invent our future. Our vision is to have a railway line, one of the best in the region, and we want to take things further even than we have so far,” Dlamini explains. “I believe this rail connection will bring great opportunities and be a platform for embracing the fourth industrial revolution.”

“I BELIEVE THIS RAIL CONNECTION WILL BRING GREAT OPPORTUNITIES AND BE A PLATFORM FOR EMBRACING THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.”

As well as growing its talent pool, speaking with Dlamini it is clear there is another project he is very excited about.

“There is a railway project called the Eswatini Rail Link Project,” he says. “This will be a line connecting Eswatini and South Africa.

The joint inter-railway strategic initiative between Eswatini Railways and Transnet Freight Rail, is currently in the fund acquisition stage, which will shortly be followed by the construction phase.

This project will create a dedicated General Freight Business (GFB) corridor for Transnet whilst providing muchneeded additional capacity for Eswatini Railways. The 150km railway link will be constructed between Sidvokodvo in Eswatini, and Lothair in South Africa.

As well as providing muchneeded transport infrastructure, the project will create new business opportunities and local jobs. Over 2700 construction related jobs are expected to be created in South Africa and ESwatini during the construction of the link.

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GB RAILFREIGHT

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GB RAILFREIGHT

WE LEARN HOW GB RAILFREIGHT IS WORKING TO BRING THE RAIL SECTOR INTO A MORE SUSTAINABLE AGE.

RAIL FOR ST THE 21 CENTURY PROJECT MANAGED BY: CONNOR LOVE

GB Railfreight’s origins lie at the turn of the century, in the post-privatisation rail market, where company founder and CEO John Smith saw a niche for a new rail freight company.

W

e specifically set the business up to compete with the other rail freight operators created post-privatisation in 1995,” Smith recalls. “At the time there hadn’t been much competition within the freight operating market. We started with an initial contract with what was Railtrack and is now Network Rail, the biggest customer of rail freight in the UK.” It was the start of a trading relationship that continues today. Kings Cross Station is currently undergoing renovations, and it’s a common sight at the station to see GB Railfreight’s trains coming in and taking material out.

The business is active across a number of key sectors- construction, energy, infrastructure, rail services, and what Smith calls a “catchall” department for everything else. The company even carries

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out a little bit of passenger work, contracting to pull trains for other passenger-based rail services.

“We’ve grown the business through 20 years on a fairly organic basis and we’ve reached the point now where we employ about 1,000 people and will likely turn over £220 million this year while in our first year, we turned over about £5 million,” Smith says. “We operate through the Channel Tunnel, as far north as Inverness and as far south as you can go in the UK.”

A FLEXIBLE WORKFORCE

When it comes to discussing the reason for GB Railfreight’s success, Smith is surprisingly nuts and bolts about how it happened.

“The utilisation of the rolling stock we operate and the people we employ is the key driver to our ability to make a profit. It’s about productivity,”

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Our goal is to provide efficient, flexible, and bespoke solutions and deliver on our promises.

Each and every time.

Engineering and maintenance services • Engineering & technical solutions • Rail vehicle & component overhaul, maintenance & repair Network services • Fleet management • Train care & facilities • Stabling & refueling • Vehicle leasing, dry through wet

A: Leicester TMD, Beal Street, Leicester, LE2 0AA, UK | T: 0116 2622783 | E: info@ukrl.co.uk | www.ukrl.co.uk

Transitioning to a greener future Minimising environmental impact through decarbonisation and pollution reduction.

CO2

Environmental consultancy

Contaminant risk reduction

Net-zero strategy and implementation

Asset decommissioning

Environmental emergency response

Talk to us today to understand how we can help you decarbonise and minimise your risk.

0800 592 827 adlerandallan.co.uk

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UK RAIL LEASING (UKRL) UKRL is an independent railway vehicle solutions partner, providing Level 1 to 5 maintenance including field support, engineering, ECM and leasing. We offer support and advice to develop and implement strategic plans for traction and rolling stock and pride ourselves on our “can do” attitude, delivering professional and flexible solutions to the railway industry - as we continue to build strong and lasting partnerships with our clients.

Skilled engineering staff and a customer focussed operation have been key to the success, ever since our 2013 founding. UKRL is based on the Midland Main Line at Leicester Maintenance Depot, which has developed and installed brand new facilities including re-fuelling, CET and potable water systems to meet demands by TOC’s for overnight level 3 services, removing unnecessary empty stock operation and increasing fleet utilisation. We continue to develop the T&RS, Level 4-5 operations, component overhaul and technical solutions, including 24/7 call out service for breakdowns and an engineering team supporting fleet reliability, modification, and design projects across all disciplines, including rail decarbonisation initiatives.

Over the years, UKRL has established itself as a trusted supplier to a growing number of the UK’s leading railway operators, and since 2017, we have been a key partner for GBRf, providing bespoke technical, engineering and support services.

It is UKRL’s mission to support the railway industry as a dynamic and innovative rail vehicle engineering, fleet management and train service provider, developing exciting new partnerships with the industry and a growing clients base. www.ukrl.co.uk

Fast, Flexible, Competitively Priced No-one offers a greater variety of passenger and freight rolling stock for lease across Europe.

www.beaconrail.com

ADLER & ALLAN - THE ROUTE TO NET-ZERO As the world looks to reduce its impact on the climate, the Government has designed the ten-point plan to help us achieve net-zero and promote a green recovery. Whether your business is transport, utilities, food manufacture, telecoms, banking, data storage or even renewable energy, to meet ongoing legislation you will need to diversify your energy infrastructure and investment.

Adler and Allan explains how businesses can achieve decarbonisation through greener fuels and new energy sources while managing their existing legacy infrastructure to reduce their environmental impact.

MAINTENANCE OF LEGACY INFRASTRUCTURE There are a lot of uncertainties with net-zero. But what we do know is the world won’t change overnight. Businesses are trying to keep legacy infrastructure going to see them through to new technologies. You need a partner that can support you with the technology of today and can prepare you for the future, designing a strategy of maintenance, testing and inspection that fits around your unique decarbonisation journey. An evolving programme of infrastructure maintenance, testing and inspection will ensure your operation remains safe, compliant and cost effective.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION STRATEGIES Today’s risks are ever present and accentuated by the presence of aging infrastructure. Rightly, investment should be made in new technologies that will support the net-zero future. But aging infrastructure leads to a higher risk of emergencies such as fuel leaks and tank failures. Equally, a net-zero future is not risk free, there are simply new environmental risks at play. As we move our reliance from carbon-based fuels to low carbon alternatives to decarbonise and meet net-zero targets, you need a strategy to protect the assets you already have, while evaluating and accommodating the new risks, to ensure our greener future isn’t marred by environmental disaster.

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DECOMMISSIONING LEGACY INFRASTRUCTURE When you are ready to embrace the new and let go of the old, an efficient, effective, and environmentally responsible approach to decommissioning demands a wide-ranging team of experts – from geo-environmental specialists and DSEAR-qualified demolition engineers, to skilled project managers, who coordinate the entire operation. A skilled partner will ensure every decommission is responsibly managed from first inspection to final handover, protecting assets, investments, and business growth – and the vital natural resources they’re built upon.

DESIGNING AND INSTALLING NET-ZERO INFRASTRUCTURE Whether you are looking at diversifying your infrastructure into electric vehicle charging or hydrogen fuel cells, you need to understand your existing legacy hydrocarbon infrastructure and use this knowledge to ensure your operation remains safe and compliant. As we transition the risks become more complicated to manage. A specialist will work with you to develop a strategy to transition your energy through design and installation of new assets / systems.

CONCLUSION The road to net-zero is certainly not without its challenges. Legacy infrastructure will not simply switch off and so requires careful management.

Equally, new energy technology requires new thinking. Working with an environmental risk reduction specialist with a full suite of turnkey solutions will help you plan your decarbonisation strategy, so your operation remains, safe, compliant, and cost effective.

www.adlerandallan.co.uk

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FROM FURNACE TO FLEET

Innovative service solution provider for

bogies, wheelsets, wheels, axles and final drives.

LUR provides a one-stop solution for bogie and wheelset overhaul offering a “Furnace to Fleet” service. The dedicated team boasts a wealth of experience which has underpinned LUR’s emergence as a leader in the UK traction and rolling stock market. From the manufacture of the steel through to the delivery of the bogie, LUR brings together world-class manufacturing and distribution from the LUR stakeholders.

Our expertise spans over 20 years and, while our core business remains in bogies, wheelsets, and gearboxes, we have expanded our services to bring innovative solutions to the market including R&D, design, and on-site operational services including NDT and new product trials. LUR can also provide supply chain and subcomponent management services through a ‘Tier 1’ supplier methodology, as well as digital services for asset storage and tracking of wheelsets, gearboxes, and bogies.

Ever-evolving, the company recently unveiled LUR Services. With over 20 years of Non-Destructive Testing, LUR is now bringing this professional capability directly to the customer.

Solutions include Ultrasonic Axle Testing; Ultrasonic Testing; Magnetic Particle Inspection; Visual Inspection; DyePenetrative Inspection; and Metrology.

www.lurservices.co.uk

KGJ Price (Railway Contractors) Ltd is delighted to be associated with GB Railfreight delivering track projects, throughout the UK including specialist works within Depots & Sidings.

Our services include full survey and track layout design, including manufacture & installation of bespoke switches & crossings.

We have a large stock of new and serviceable railway materials with a supporting fleet of commercial vehicles ensuring delivery anywhere in the UK.

E: enquiries@kgjprice.co.uk | T: 029 2088 9220

www.kgjprice.co.uk

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Re-Railing, Recovery and Wheelskating Specialists Class 08 Locomotive Hire and Maintenance Specialised Road Transport Services Permanent Way Maintenance, Inspection & New Build projects

Contact Andrew Goodman on +44 (0) 7794 480410 Montpellier House, Montpellier Drive, Cheltenham, GL50 1TY info@railwaysupportservices.co.uk www.railwaysupportservices.co.uk

he says. “Our key USP is just the attitude of our people. We endeavour to be inclusive, to communicate with people. We try to be professional about what we do which is a key safety driver. We empower people, but we look after them. When the pubs were open, we celebrated with them.”

The result is a flexible workforce that is committed to GB Railfreight’s mission.

As Smith points out, “We’re not always perfect but it’s something that is a foundation stone of the business and is our unique selling point, the commitment of everyone that works here.”

Of course, building that team in the first place is another matter entirely. GB Railfreight has taken several approaches to recruitment over the years.

As it was growing rapidly it was sometimes necessary to hire talent from other rail companies as it couldn’t train people quickly enough.

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GB RAILFREIGHT

“That’s settled now, even while the number of people we employ has increased,” Smith says. “We can bring in graduate and undergraduate trainee schemes and apprenticeships.

I’m keen to bring young enthusiastic people into the industry. Until Covid, I would have said a job in rail is a job for life, but we’ll see what happens moving forward.”

To nurture young talent in the industry, GB Railfreight has built a bespoke training school into its new offices. It includes simulators and training facilities all geared towards building the momentum necessary to train

a generation in the business’s day-to-day operations.

But while the tools are state of the art, some things have remained unchanged since the age of steam.

“Quite a few of our new recruits are family and friends of current staff, but I’m all for that,” Smith says. “It’s a traditional way of approaching rail employment. You’ve got to be visible to the staff, talk and communicate and help and support them when their life is difficult. To employ the best staff you can’t just do it and say it’s done. It’s a perpetual journey of engagement.”

WE ENDEAVOUR TO BE INCLUSIVE, TO COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE. WE TRY TO BE PROFESSIONAL ABOUT WHAT WE DO WHICH IS A KEY SAFETY DRIVER. WE EMPOWER PEOPLE, BUT WE LOOK AFTER THEM. BUSINESSFOCUSMAGAZINE.COM

A GREENER FORM OF FREIGHT

As well as training the next generation of rail workers, Smith is also working to prepare the industry for the next generation.

He believes that a big focus for the rail sector moving forward needs to be sustainability.

“Rail freight is naturally more sustainable than other forms of freight,” he says. “We flog that right down to the statistical details and it’s already underpinning the business as being more carbon-efficient than the road is. Before Covid, the government was moving heavily towards its carbon agenda and they saw rail freight being a key element of that.”

However, Smith believes that the rail sector can do more, but also that it has to do so while making an economic case for a greener form of transport.

“While the sustainability argument is strong, there are still customers driven by price and when it comes to key

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GB RAILFREIGHT

commodities that might migrate to rail that move is starting to happen, but if it’s not getting a good return that won’t work,” Smith says. “So strategically we have to move with that while also making a stronger case for sustainability. We’ve gone far enough off the fact rail is naturally more sustainable, but we have to move on.

That’s about committing to decarbonise assets.”

The issue is that decarbonising rail assets is no small task. With road assets, for example, a company that has purchased a new vehicle will likely sell it after five years and then after ten, that vehicle will

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GB RAILFREIGHT

go to scrap. In rail transport, on the other hand, it’s not uncommon for assets to have a lifespan in the region of 40 years. This means that when vehicles in the industry change it tends to line up with a major industry shift.

“First there was the switch from steam to diesel, then during the process of privatisation the industry switched from old diesels, introducing the new standard component, a class 66 diesel locomotive,” Smith recalls.

“Now there’s a need to take the next step and that underpins what we’re doing at the moment.”

The vehicles on the rails are just a part of this process.

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GB Railfreight has also just built a new, efficient office in Peterborough.

“It’s built at a level far more sustainable level than our previous accommodation,” says Smith. “It’s nice PR but the prime mover is we need the trains to take the next step.”

To achieve these goals, GB Railfreight needs to continue its growth trajectory.

“We’ve got to continue to grow the business. I’m committed to it,” says Smith. “It’s about following the growth model and getting momentum behind employing another 1,000 people.”

Talking to Smith, however, it’s clear that the thing that’s

driving him isn’t just growth or profitability. What shines through our conversation is that Smith has a deep and sincere love of the industry.

“I like railways. A lot of the people here like railways. I like that,” he says. “Railway people, this goes back decades if not centuries, they’re immensely proud and loyal to the industry they operate in. I hope in years to come people will review GB Railfreight as part of railway history. People will look back at this as a success and something that’s added value to the industry as a whole.”

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