SA engineering proves its mettle at Phillippines mine
Three South African engineering firms were instrumental for designing and building headgear, shaft collar and winder house for a new service shaft at the Philsaga Mining Corporation in the Philippines owned by Medusa Mining.
The project commenced in 2015 and was a collaboration between Thuthukani Engineering, Tech Edge Group and WJ Engineering.
The nature of the South African mining industry makes local engineers uniquely equipped to deal with any type of mining landscape. “The shaft sinking and vertical shaft expertise really lies in South Africa,” says Erik de Jongh, technical director at Thuthukani.
“It would be safe to say that no other country mines to the deep levels that we do in South Africa – this gives us great potential to serve large mining companies overseas as there is a wealth of experience here that can be leveraged.”
Thuthukani provided the infrastructure design, Tech Edge was tasked with building the winder and W J Engineering fabricated all of the infrastructure components.
The infrastructure components were fully fabricated and tested in South Africa before being disassembled and transported to the Philippines for final installation. “All of the infrastructure components were delivered to and installed at Philsaga in mid-2016 except for the winder which was commissioned and delivered in early 2017.”
