Suppliers Roundup (March 08, 2004)

ALS expands in South Africa

ALS Chemex is preparing to open a new, full-service lab in Johannesburg.

The lab will service the growing need for sample analysis in Africa and help ALS Chemex expand its presence in the continent. The company already has a sample reception and preparation facility in Mwanza, Tanzania.

Adriana Alexandru has been appointed regional manager and will head up the company’s African operations. Before this posting, she managed ALS Chemex’s labs in eastern Canada.

The Johannesburg facility will be equipped with the latest in environmental protection and contamination control. For exploration and mine samples, separate preparation circuits and fire-assay facilities will be used to avoid contamination. A third fire assay section will be dedicated to platinum group analysis, employing nickel sulphide fusion followed by a inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry finish.

ALS Chemex is based in Vancouver and operates in 15 countries.

Atlas, First American hook up

Atlas Mining Co. has bought a KDS Micronex grinding and drying system from Surrey, B.C.-based First American Scientific to aid in the processing of halloysite clay at the miner’s Dragon open-pit mine in Juab Cty., Utah.

The companies also agreed to an arrangement whereby First American will assist Atlas in developing methods of clay mining in return for being made the sole supplier of grinding and drying equipment.

Atlas intends to begin mining at Dragon later this year.

Bucyrus sends dragline to China

Milwaukee, Wis.-based equipment manufacturer Bucyrus International will ship a dragline to a coal company in China.

The model 8750 dragline features a large, 117-cu.-yd. bucket and is being bought by the Shenhua Group for the Zhungeer coal mine in Inner Mongolia for US$58 million.

The facility is expected to boost coal production to 20 million tons annually from the current 12 million tons.

Bucyrus anticipates building and shipping the dragline components by year-end, and the entire system should be up and running by the fall of 2006.

EBA buys into Hayco

Edmonton-based EBA Engineering Consultants has bought a controlling interest in Hay & Co. Consultants, also known as Hayco.

The Vancouver-based firm specializes in water-based engineering projects. Hayco won an environmental award from the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia in 2002 for a study into how the physical properties of Lake Okanagan were affecting the quality of drinking water in Kelowna.

Hayco will continue to operate under its own name. EBA is an engineering firm with geotechnical, environmental and earth sciences expertise; it employs a staff of more than 400.