WADE WALKER COMPLETES CONTRACT AT FOSKOR

July 2011

South African electrical, control and instrumentation specialist, Wade Walker has successfully completed the electrical instrumentation contract for Foskor’s R600 million Extension 8 de-bottlenecking project in Phalaborwa, South Africa.

This project, which began in October 2009, was commissioned to de-bottleneck Foskor’s Extension 8 processing plant to its design level of 5.2 million tons per year. This has been achieved by adding two million tons a year of crushing and milling capacity.

The overall scope of the project involved the design, supply and construction of a 250 tph tertiary crushing, rod milling, ball milling, classification and flotation feed thickener circuit. This circuit will be fully integrated into the Extension 8 process facility to make use of the surplus flotation capacity left by the existing milling circuit.

Michael Hanna, Wade Walker’s E&I construction manager, explains that the electrical instrumentation works contract consisted of both the high voltage and low voltage installations for the conveyors, silos, milling and crushing area as well as the flotation feed thickener circuit in the upgraded processing plant facility.

“The sizeable electrical instrumentation works contract commenced in June last year and was completed on budget and within six months. The feedback that we received from the client is that they are very happy with our safety performance, meeting project milestone dates and the quality of work. It is a very neat installation.” Hanna says.

The EPCM contractor on this project is Bateman Engineering, and Hanna says that Wade Walker has undertaken several successful contracts with this company.

“Wade Walker has an established reputation in Africa and has successfully transformed from private ownership into what is now a much more sustainable business. Because of the retained depth of the company’s site skills and diverse experience of the leadership team, we are extremely well positioned to continue to prove our ability to deliver projects safely, on time, within the often challenging working conditions on mines on the continent.”

Wade Walker is currently assisting Bateman Engineering with the hot commissioning of the upgraded processing plant.