SNC-Lavalin’s South African office has successfully fulfilled an order for the engineering of the civil layout and procurement of equipment for a 60 t/h Dense Medium Separation (DMS) plant for a diamond mining company in the northern hemisphere. The DMS plant is part of a greater greenfield operation and the equipment procured by SNC-Lavalin will tie in with equipment provided by other suppliers.

“We established a modular group in 2010 to focus on the specific market requirement for compact plants that can be broken down into smaller sections and easily transported anywhere in the world,” says Roger Rousseau, Manager of SNC-Lavalin’s modular team at the South African office. “This approach reduces time spent on site, because the equipment can be cold commissioned prior to being delivered to the customer. Another benefit is that additional modules can be installed at a later stage to increase capacity. In addition, the modular group specialises in building containerised plants, which also makes logistics far simpler. This small projects group has a team of highly skilled professional members, all capable of multitasking. This gives us a price advantage when tendering for small projects, while these smaller customers enjoy the benefit of having full access to the resources of one of the world’s leading engineering and construction groups.”

He adds: “SNC-Lavalin offers modularisation and containerisation opportunities to the African mining and metallurgy sector to address the risks associated with working at remote sites on the continent. For companies operating in Africa, one of the biggest challenges is erecting equipment in remote locations where there are always concerns about safety and access to reliable services or resources. The ability to modularise plants makes it possible to complete most of the work in a local workshop, while applying the highest standards of health, safety and quality.” Rousseau says that on this particular project, his team was able to tap into SNC-Lavalin’s substantial global network of technical resources and specialists. These experts provided valuable input with regard to the properties, standards and specifications of the structural steel needed to construct the DMS plant for the harsh northern hemisphere climate.