The Southern Africa launch of the VerderFlex Vantage 5000 peristaltic cased pump will take place at this year’s Electra Mining Africa at the Expo Centre in Nasrec, Johannesburg, from September 12 to 16, says pumps supplier Verder Pumps South Africa (VPSA).
Electra Mining is the biggest mining trade show in Southern Africa. It features exhibitions from 850 local and international companies, with international pavilions for delegations from China, France, the UK and Turkey. It attracts more than 40 000 visitors, making it the perfect platform to launch a product.

Peristaltic pumps manufacturer VerderFlex Pumps Netherlands marketing manager Lekha Bodhe explains that the Vantage 5000 is a highly advanced peristaltic cased pump, with intuitive touch screen technology that offers superior levels of dosing accuracy at high discharge pressures. Its main mining applications are chemical dosing and water treatment.

She states that the Vantage 5000 is one of the few available pump systems with enough memory to save up to 30 dosing and batching programmes and enables users to back up jobs files through its USB data port.

“It also has a smart tube-burst sensing system to detect leaks, ensuring highly reliable performance, compared with standard, basic cased pumping systems,” Bodhe notes.

Aside from its precision dosing, she says the Vantage 5000’s main features include high flow per revolution, enhancing the pump’s tube life and reducing maintenance, as well as advanced touch-screen technology with icon-based menus and a range of remote-control options, including wireless and Ethernet. The pump also offers almost double the flow rate (up to 6 600 mℓ/min at 7 bar) of other leading brands, Bodhe adds.

She notes that the Vantage 5000 was developed and manufactured in the UK, and will be distributed throughout Africa by VPSA. The division operates and supplies Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Mauritius, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Namibia.

Africa Still Key
VPSA MD Keith Gass says the African mining sector is an important market for the company – based on 2015 financial results, about 70% of its turnover can be attributed to mining projects on the continent.

He points out that, owing to the recent decline in commodities demand and the resulting impact on VPSA’s business, the company has expanded into new export markets and geographies to offset the loss in revenue from traditional markets, including South Africa. As such, VPSA has refocused its attention on the rest of Africa.

Gass states: “VPSA undoubtedly sees huge growth potential in Africa, which has more than one-quarter of the world’s arable land and 11 of its countries ranked among the top ten sources of at least one major mineral, for example, Zambia for copper and South Africa and Ghana for gold.”

He comments that, as part of its expansion drive in other African countries, VPSA has bid for work at numerous mining projects and has progressed to the final stages of the approval process for a copper processing plant, in Zambia. Once the contract has been awarded, VPSA will supply peristaltic hose pumps to the processing plant.

Further, VPSA marketing manager Elaine van der Westhuizen emphasises that the company’s service and product offering can effectively enhance almost every mining process, owing to its expertise and technological capability.

She advises any business seeking to benefit from the growth prospects in Africa to first identify its target country and sector of interest in that country, as each country and sector presents its own challenges and opportunities.