Optimising water usage is a priority for Weir Minerals Africa – it is an area that can often be overlooked but contributes significantly to a mine’s Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) drive as well as its bottom line. “Our product and service offering aims to assist mines reduce their overall water consumption while optimising their usage requirements,” says Marnus Koorts, pumps general manager.

He says that when assisting a mine with its water requirements, Weir Minerals Africa’s starting point is to gain an understanding of the mine’s often unique challenges (for example, seepage in unknown areas and water accumulation), evaluate the site which often reveals unexpected outcomes and put together a tailor-made solution designed to integrate into existing infrastructure and resolve the problem areas.

Koorts’ colleague, Christian Stehle, who is head of engineering at Weir Minerals Africa, emphasises that the delivery of such solutions is generated in collaboration with the company’s in-house engineering team, an offering few OEMs provide. “When dealing with water it is important to understand that it is a dynamic situation where changes can be frequent. Our team understand this and know how to manage it with the support of our extensive product range.”

So strong is Weir Minerals’ engineering capability that it has coined the term ‘engineered to order’ – a phrase that demonstrates its focus on delivering customised integrated solutions.

The company designs and engineers a full range of dewatering pumps and equipment under well-known brands Multiflo®, Warman®, Envirotech® and GEHO® – suitable for any dewatering, drainage or water transfer application, providing optimum pumping performance in the most arduous conditions in applications all over the world.

These dewatering pumps are part of Weir Minerals Africa’s extensive range of mine and dewatering products, including Cavex® hydrocyclones, Enduron® dewatering screens, speciality Linatex® hose, Isogate® valves, and tailored Multiflo® pontoons and barges.

Following a partnership agreement with Andritz, the company also offers the Isodry® brand. This incorporates a range of equipment that has been specifically developed to deliver first class solid-liquid mechanical separation for the mining and aggregates industries including thickeners, filter presses, centrifuges, and vacuum belt filters.

Both Stehle and Koorts confirm that Weir Minerals Africa (together with all Weir Group companies) have, are and remain invested in technology – because this too assists with any sustainability drive, particularly when used in conjunction with water management solutions.

A prime example of the company’s dedication to providing technology-driven solutions is Synertrex® – an intelligent analytics platform that can easily be integrated into existing systems. It helps operations to understand wear rates, forecast replacement part timing and assists in making decisions to improve overall efficiency without unexpected downtime.