The partnership between industrial valves supplier Process and Allied Contracting Equipment (PACE Valves) and Australia-based specialist flow control solutions company Proeger, is helping to meet the African market’s growing need for high-pressure backfill valves amid a challenging local valve environment.

While the Covid-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the valve industry as a whole, the downturn began before the outbreak. A key factor in this downturn has been a lack of available spend for infrastructural development and maintenance. There was also a previous dip in the mining commodities market, which has since seen a recent upturn.

PACE Valves MD Charlotte Vaughan explains that the main industries impacted are water and waste treatment, power generation – in the areas of operational maintenance – as well as local greenfield mining projects.

“Cross-border projects have been a lifesaver for several valve companies aligned with the mining and metallurgical process sectors.”

The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition’s preferential procurement policy was introduced to boost the South African manufacturing industry, explains Vaughan. This has negatively impacted several local companies that previously focused on supplying imported valves to State-owned enterprises. “One would hope that local manufacturers have benefited from this policy. However, within the valves industry, the pressure is now focused more on availability as there is increasingly limited competition in supplying goods.”

Despite the various industry challenges, PACE Valves has continued to push through those challenges in order to procure new opportunities to thrive and meet the needs of clients.

Being a project house, PACE Valve’s main focus lies in the manufacture and supply of all types of valves. PACE Valves also provides on-site support services for clients. The range of such services is aimed at helping clients optimise their paste and tailings reticulation systems.

Having recently partnered with Proeger Australia, Vaughan highlights some of the initial challenges of international distribution which had to be overcome in order to successfully deliver on the highly specialised high-pressure backfill valves procured for a copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. PACE Valves continues to provide quality after-sales service for the mine for any repairs, maintenance and replacements.