SRK's global network of mining expertise shone through when industry needed it the most, chairman Mark Noppé told Mining Journal.
The pandemic strengthened the group's cross-border communications leading
to an appetising range of business opportunities in an ever-changing global
mining industry, according to Noppé.
Speaking alongside South Africa MD Vis Reddy and principal mining engineer
Andrew van Zyl at Mining Indaba, Noppe said: "We have the advantage of relying
on feedback from our colleagues in different offices around the world to let us
know about their experience with a particular model or approach."
Van Zyl added: "It might be power generation in Western Australia, where some of our colleagues are delivering hybrid power plants. We haven't done this yet in South Africa, it's only coming in now, but we're ready to draw on some of that knowledge."
Noppé said COVID was mostly responsible for facilitating this transnational way of working. "We've had to work more closely with our local offices to see if they have someone who can fill in the gaps on a particular project. It helps a lot when you have a person on your team who is local to the area and understands the people, community, environmental pressures and can facilitate communication."
"In South America, for example, we had a client looking to conduct due diligence at the peak of the pandemic. We were able to bridge a gap by providing our on-the-ground knowledge of the local area and technical expertise, and ultimately get to site where the client couldn't."
Peeling back from the macro picture to discuss the group's Africa remit against the backdrop of Indaba, Reddy said West Africa was a focal point looking forward. The region has grown over the past 20 years to become a globally significant gold producer.
South Africa was also hot on the list which Van Zyl said was driven by healthy company coffers.
"A lot of global miners have generated enough money to create some assurance that if they overspend on capital budgets there's still a bit of wiggle room," Van Zyl explained.
