PPC to expand Botswana Business

Staff Writer | Friday June 5, 2009 00:00

 

PPC told Engineering News on Tuesday that its aggregates unit had moved its semi-mobile crushing plant from a quarry in Mooiplaas in South Africa's Gauteng Province to the Kgale Quarry near Gaborone, allowing it to increase its production from 500, 000 tonnes per year to 620, 000 tonnes per year of aggregate products, lifting capacity by 24 percent.

'Gaborone is busy with major infrastructural developments; the improvement of the Sir Seretse Khama airport, the Tlokweng border road, the Lobatse road and various other SADC building developments,' said PPC executive for aggregates, Riaan Redelinghuys.

'Moving our semi-mobile plant to Kgale will allow us to support these developments,' he added.

The plant will produce the full range of quality construction and road-building aggregates for Botswana and provide extra- flexibility to meet demand.

In 2007, PPC Botswana spent close to P6 million on an expansion to help cope with rising demand of cement during the commodity boom. The expansion included equipment which automatically stack-bags cement onto portable platforms. The expansion, which was completed last November, included a new warehouse.

'Currently, product is stacked manually. The automation of this process through the new palletising machine will significantly improve operational efficiencies and customer service,' PPC General Manager, Botswana Operations, Werner de Beer, said last year.

The company said the mechanised process increases the level of stock ready for loading and radically improves the turnaround time in loading customer vehicles. It also improves safety for staff members involved in the stacking.

'The good news is that the current staff involved in the manual stacking operation, several of whom joined PPC when we opened the Gaborone plant in 1996, will remain a key part of the PPC Botswana Team having been up-skilled and re-deployed to other areas within the plant,' de Beer said. 

The Gaborone plant currently produces more than 20, 000 tons a month of PPC's general purpose cement Botcem ('Bot'swana-'cem'ent), a brand manufactured by PPC exclusively in Botswana.