Kaolin EAD

THE OLDEST OPERATING MINING FIRM IN BULGARIA

KAOLIN EAD

Mining in Bulgaria Dr Wolf Harlfinger, CEO at Kaolin, discusses the state of mining in Bulgaria today Writer: Sean Galea-Pace Project Manager: Thomas Arnold 2 | EME Outlook issue 40

Particularly in Western Europe, now more than ever, the mining industry has to manage a number of partially diverging stakeholder perspectives,” begins Dr Wolf Harlfinger.

Harlfinger has served as CEO at Kaolin since 2013. During his tenure, he has witnessed how the industry has

changed over the years and believes it is this dynamism which keeps him engaged.

“There is also the customers’ demand for a reliable supply of first-class products, society’s expectation for sustainability and nature preservation, the staff’s need for a safe and predictable work

MINING

environment and, last but not least, owners’ expectations for long-term path of growth,” says Harlfinger.

“It is my role to understand these perspectives, balance them and communicate the way forward. This is a very exciting and colourful job – with the cultural differences between Germany and the Balkan countries

giving some additional spice.”

Upon initially joining the firm, Harlfinger was fascinated by the combination of a long and proud history.

“As luck would have it, a few days after my joining of Quarzwerke Group the acquisition process for Kaolin EAD/Bulgaria started which

we successfully closed in 2013,” he says.

“That is when I had the great opportunity to become a member of our Bulgarian team and step in as CEO of the company. Getting my wife and my four kids on board proved easier than expected – we all moved to Sofia for this exciting experience.”

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KAOLIN EAD

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DR WOLF HARLFINGER

It’s been a tough period for most.

The world is feeling more than a little uncertain.

“After my high school graduation, I enrolled in the study of laws at the universities of Marburg, Germany and Lausanne, Switzerland. My first seven years as a professional I spent in the international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Cologne, Germany and London,UK servicing clients in commercial, financial and restructuring activities.

So it’s reassuring to know the things that were truly important yesterday still really matter today. Maybe even more so. Like the power of a human connection. Working together to keep doors open - for schools, hospitals, businesses, and even at our borders.

For us, these things haven’t changed.

Neither has our commitment to a world that trades more, shares more ideas and solves more problems.

Together.

When you think about it like that, thankfully not quite everything has changed.

“In 2012, I joined Quarzwerke Group – a family-owned and family-run mining company with 137 years of history. Initially, I was part of Quarzwerke’s legal team.

I subsequently moved on to become CEO of Kaolin EAD after Quarzwerke’s acquisition of the company in 2013.

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“I’m married and have four kids aged nine to 13.”

However, by his own admission, his route into the industry wasn’t traditional.

“My way into the industrial minerals industry in Bulgaria was not usual,” explains Harlfinger.

“After my high school graduation, I enrolled in the study of law. I spent my first seven years as a professional in an international law firm in Germany and the UK servicing various industrial clients in corporate and commercial activities.”

The industrial minerals industry is one of the foundations for almost all sectors within the manufacturing space. Today, Kaolin is one of the leading producers of industrial minerals in South Eastern Europe.

Its activities are focused on the extraction, processing and refining of kaolin, quartz, feldspar, limestone, 4 | EME Outlook issue 40

Petko Petkov - 24 Ltd. dolomite and clay, while the company’s products are key raw materials particularly for the ceramics and the glass industry.

With almost 100 years of experience, Kaolin EAD sits under the Quarzwerke Group and the firm operates 12 plants in Bulgaria, Serbia and Ukraine, providing employment to more than 1,300 people and serving customers worldwide in 40 different countries.

The firm has also upgraded its rotary kiln in Vetovo which is used to fire kaolin at temperatures above 1,000°C, turning into chamotte for special applications.

“The new installation allows us to use sunflower husks as fuel instead of natural gas,” he says. “Thus, approximately 10 cubic metres of natural gas were saved in the last five years.

Petko Petkov-24 started its activity in 1992. Throughout the years the company took an active part in installation, repair and maintenance of Bulgarian major Power Plants Boiler equipment and pipelines.

We are also experienced in construction of facilities and factories.

Company has a well-equipped workshop. Main accent in our activity are European standards of welding, quality, environmental health and safety and social responsibility.

We are proud to have well-trained and motivated staff with innovative thinking and willing to improve.

Our ambitions are to establish the company as a reliable and trustworthy partner.

MINING

EVERYTHING AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED

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PETKO PETKOV-24 LTD. office@petkopetkov24.com

CONSTRUCTION, INSTALLATION AND REPAIR OF MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT

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KAOLIN EAD A huge success for our engineering team which brought us a number of innovation awards.” Harlfinger believes that the investment brings significant benefits and is proud to have played his part in bringing the project to fruition.

The most significant project in the entire Quarzwerke Group is the greenfield investment into a new plant for the processing of kaolin and silica sand in Dulovo, Bulgaria.

“After extensive exploration works, two substantial deposits near Dulovo in North Eastern Bulgaria could be secured. Mining operations will start in 2021, the new plant in the vicinity of the quarries shall go into operation in 2024,” says Harlfinger.

“Another focus area of our current investment activities is energy efficiency and CO2-footprint reduction. In that context, we will start to operate our own solar plant in 2022 which will feed electricity directly into our single biggest plant in Vetovo,

replacing a material part of electricity supplied from the grid.”

Despite mining often being considered as an industry that is slow to adopt new technology; automation, digitisation and electrification are beginning to play a more influential role in the sector.

“Technology serves two main functions in the mining industry: ensuring consistent supply of premium quality products and analysing and controlling costs,” explains Harlfinger.

“Both aspects have been driving modernisation of our production units – on the one hand through modernisation of processing equipment and on the other hand through an automation and digitalisation of all processes, ensuring a constant and reliable tracking of all performance data.

“The technological upgrade of the plants is, however, only one part of the picture. Technology is of little use without staff to operate it, so investing Trainees

The most significant project in the entire Quarzwerke Group is the greenfield investment into a new plant for the processing of kaolin and silica sand in Dulovo, Bulgaria 6 | EME Outlook issue 40

Dual education workshop

Systems Automation Technologies SAT Ltd. was founded 1991 in Sofia, Bulgaria. SAT Ltd. provides project management engineering and design, manufacture, programing, electrical erection and installation, supervision, testing, commissioning and maintenance of Turnkey automated systems for production facilities.

During the years SAT Ltd. has become a major Bulgarian supplier of automated systems for cement, glass, concrete, metallurgic and other industries.

For the last years SAT Ltd. has supplied and successfully commissioned more than 200 turnkey projects for our clients not only in Bulgaria, but as well in Russia, Balkans, EMEA, South America.

www.satbg.com

MINING

Industries

• Cement • Glass • Concrete • Metallurgy • Energetics • Alternative fuels (RDF, SRF)

Our Clients

• Lafarge Holcim • Heidelberg • Titan • CRH • Kronospan • Henkel • Schade • Saint-Gobain • Kaolin AD • TPP Varna • KCM AD

Products

- Spillage Conveyors - Industrial Panels (LVD, MVD, MCC, DMC, DIO, PC/PLCCC) - Industrial Application Software - Standard Software Modules for DCS, PLC & SCADA - Weight Belt Feeders and Scales - Automation Systems for Rail & Truck Weighbridges - Automated Dispatching Control Software Systems

Turnkey Projects

- Research & Analysis - Consulting - Designs - Manufacture - Programming - El. Installation - Supervision - Testing & Commissioning - Training - Maintenance - Performance improving & Energy Efficiency

“Electro & Automation”

30

Years

Turnkey Solutions

Process Automation Crushing, Material Reclaiming, Dosing & Mixing, Raw Material Grinding, Clinker Burning, Cement Grinding, Packing, Palletizing, Shipping, Storage Integrated Automated Systems Cement/Raw/Coal Mills, Rotary Kilns, Clinker Coolers, Glass Furnaces, Stacker and Reclaimers, Portal, Bridge and Tower Cranes Modernization and Completely New Production Lines Electro & Automation, Substation Retrofit Power Automation MV & LV Distributed Systems Prefabricated Containerized MV & LV Electrical Control Rooms For Machinery Reclaimers, Stackers, Scrapers and Wagon unloading stations

1614 Sofia, Bulgaria, 1 “Hristo Stefchov” Str. T:+359(2)9576929 F:+359(2)9577019 E: office@satbg.com www.satbg.com

The TEMA Fluid bed dryers are specially preferred in mineral drying in combination with after cooling and heat recovery, resulting in better end product quality and very low energy consumptions.

“WE WILL START TO OPERATE OUR OWN SOLAR PLANT IN 2022 WHICH WILL FEED ELECTRICITY DIRECTLY INTO OUR SINGLE BIGGEST PLANT IN VETOVO, REPLACING A MATERIAL PART OF ELECTRICITY SUPPLIED FROM THE GRID”

CONTACT T: +31 88 5225800 info@temaprocess.com www.temaprocess.com

Tema Process BV Ir. R. R. van der Zeelaan 5, 8191 JH Wapenveld The Netherlands

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KAOLIN EAD

WHAT DIFFERENTIATES KAOLIN FROM ITS COMPETITORS? “Kaolin is the oldest operating mining company in Bulgaria. The pride in our tradition is a stimulus for corporate continuity. It is not the short-term success we are striving for, but the long-term and sustainable partnership with our clients and the community around us.”

- Dr Wolf Harlfinger, CEO, Kaolin

8 | EME Outlook issue 40

in training and qualification is as important as investing into technology.”

Indeed, investing in staff is a key pillar to Kaolin’s overall strategy.

Harlfinger believes that finding, training and retaining staff in remote areas of Bulgaria is a ‘seismic challenge’, but has introduced initiatives to help navigate the situation.

“In recent years, we have established an internal qualification programme, the Kaolin Academy, which focuses on hard as well as on soft skills for all employee levels,” he says. “We also cooperate with external institutions, particularly national and international mining universities, to train our management.

“Mutual trust and respect, a sharing of success and disappointment, transparency and reliability are the values on which we want to build our internal culture. We seem to be doing well and staff loyalty is high with a turnover rate of less than five percent.”

As the coronavirus gripped the world, Bulgaria was among one of the first countries in Europe to lockdown in a bid to curb the spread of the disease.

For Kaolin, the firm introduced a set of measures to avoid the spread of the disease within the organisation.

“We had to adapt our operations and logistics to the material impact the worldwide lockdowns had on the markets,” Harlfinger elaborates.

“So far, we have been successful with our very quick and decisive approach. There have been individual infection cases among our staff which we identified and isolated. In terms of our business, we faced a steep decline in demand during the most severe phase of the crisis in April and May 2020. During that phase, we stopped production in our main plants in Bulgaria for a period of about one month. The second half of the year showed a recovery of demand.”

To Kaolin, partnerships are central to operations and Harlfinger explains that as a producer of raw material, his firm isn’t reliant on pre-products.

MINING

Kaolin’s activities are focused on the extraction, processing and refining of kaolin, quartz, feldspar, limestone, dolomite and clay, while the company’s products are key raw materials particularly for the ceramics and the glass industry

“We primarily rely on producers of mining and processing equipment as key suppliers. Many beneficiation processes in our plants are tailormade. That is why we are looking for partners who do not only want to sell equipment, but who consider themselves as solution-oriented technology providers.”

The organisation also believes in sustainability. For Harlfinger, he affirms that ‘social responsibility is not only a mission statement, but a credo.’

“We do not appear as an anonymous corporation, but as an approachable and sincere family-run organisation,” he adds.

“All of our corporate social responsibility initiatives focus on the local communities we work in and

are tailored to the local needs and expectations. In Germany, we are engaging intensively in numerous activities around the fascinating nature in and around our quarries and recultivation areas. In Bulgaria, where we primarily operate in the country’s poorest regions, our attention lies on the basic needs of supporting healthcare, education in kindergartens and schools and help for elderly and disabled.”

With the future in mind, Harlfinger has a clear idea of what the next few years could hold.

“Firstly, we have to overcome the crisis and keep staff healthy and secure,” he affirms.

“We are striving to combine longterm partnerships with our customers

with the commitment to social commitment and biodiversity. We are proud that this ambition is publicly recognised and awarded with multiple prices. Secondly, we have to stabilise the business. In terms of the strategic development of the company, we will become more energy and labourefficient in our existing core business lines and strengthen our footprint in specialty applications.”

KAOLIN EAD Tel: 00359 2 48 93 686 office@kaolin.bg www.kaolin.bg

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KAOLIN EAD Ulitsa Oborishte 43 1504 Sofia Bulgaria Tel: 00359 2 48 93 686 office@kaolin.bg www.kaolin.bg

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