Anglo American has announced the completion on 23 November of the sale of Scaw Metals Group, a key mining wear parts supplier including cast products, chain, wire rope and grinding media. Anglo had previously announced the intended sale in April 2012 of Scaw Metals to an investment consortium led by the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC) and Anglo American’s partners in Scaw Metals, namely Izingwe Holdings, Shanduka Resources and the Southern Palace Group of Companies.

For a mining perspective, Scaw Metals is an important supplier of wear parts. Its Standard Foundry manufactures a wide range of earthmoving ground engaging tools (GET), dragline wear parts and bucket components and general engineering products in plain carbon and low alloy steels of up to 8 t in finished weight. The Boksburg Foundry manufactures the complete range of manganese mill liners, screens and grids used in the gold mining industry. The Eclipse East Foundry specialises in low alloy steel and high chromium iron mill liners, manganese crushing wear parts for gyratory crushers and jaw crushers and low alloy steel earthmoving under carriage wear parts.

All of the foundries are serviced by in-house machine shops which include vertical and horizontal boring mills, CNC machining centers, lathes and planers. Castings of 25 t and 5 m in diameter can be machined to close tolerances. Smaller castings that require CNC batch production runs are also accommodated.

Chain Products manufactures a wide range of round link welded chain products sold under the recognised McKinnon and Max-Alloy brands. Scaw Grinding Media is a leading producer of high chrome and forged grinding balls supplied primarily to the African platinum, copper and gold mining industries, with operations located at Scaw’s Union Junction site near Johannesburg.

Finally, Scaw Metals Group also has a 31% shareholding in GSI Lucchini (Italy), and a 50% shareholding in Consolidated Wire Industries (South Africa) as well as a 50% share of Proacer, which produces cast steel grinding media in Chile.