The diamond doyens

Having built an impressive reputation within the diamond recovery industry, Oblique Engineering is now making a name for itself in the ore sector as the South African firm looks to make the most of its policy of diversification.

Founded in 1987 with an initial focus on the design and construction of diamond recovery plants, Oblique Engineering has continued to grow impressively, re-registered as Oblique Enterprises CC in 1988.

More than a decade later in 2001 it was reregistered as Oblique Engineering (Pty) Ltd at a time when the company began to diversify its interests and undertake contracts for customers from outside of the diamond industry.

Today Oblique specialises in providing turnkey engineering solutions for its clients, from the conceptual stage to the final handover and has maintained a selection of strategic partnerships with companies from all major project disciplines from civil and structural engineering, to metallurgical engineering, and mechanical, electrical and instrumentation engineering.

Working with some of the big names in the global mining industry, the company’s main focus has shifted to manufacturing machines for the ore industries.

“When the market started wobbling we decided to diversify and when we diversified we entered into the chrome and PGM markets,” says Oblique Engineering managing director Gary da Silva.

“It was purely an economic thing as the market had gone flat and we decided we needed to diversify.

“Subsequent to our diversification we’ve found that the chrome and the PGMs markets have kept us alive.”

Rocking forwards from a hard place

Having overcome market downturns, Oblique today finds itself in a comfortable position with close to 95 % of the company’s business coming from the chrome and platinum markets.

“At the moment we’re busy with the chrome and the PGM circuit near Rustenburg, where we’ve built a major chrome and PGM circuit for the client,” says da Silva.

Despite this, Oblique remains an experienced figure within the diamond recovery industry and has recently been in talks with a potential client to supply some of its machines into the Canadian market.

When things went quiet in the diamond market Oblique decided not to terminate all interests in the sector, instead focusing its efforts in the industry on research and development.

“During the quiet period we redeveloped a diamond machine called the GB2.4; we’re now marketing the new machines we have developed and have been running them in our workshops,” says da Silva. “We’re the only people now that build the GB2.4 in the world.

“The diamond industry is very small,” he notes. “Everybody seems to know everybody — we don’t advertise and it’s all based on word of mouth.”

Da Silva says that there is a lot of trust involved in working in such an enclosed industry.

“All our projects are open book,” he asserts. “In other words we price the job and the client pays us according to the fee; we’re not a bank, we will not put heavy mark-ups on it, and anything we do is at any time open for audit.”

Working across so many fields, it is imperative that the company employees and commissions the right people for the right jobs.

“If we get a project or an enquiry on which we don’t have the expertise in, we pull on resources from other people who will join us for the specific project,” da Silva explains.

“When the project is over, they will leave us and carry on with their own business, which allows us to be a small, dynamic company.

“We don’t recruit through brokers,” he adds. “We identify the person and we offer that person an employment contract for the duration of the project.”

Diversifying its market bases

Known for its century-old diamond industry, South Africa is a bastion of knowledge when it comes to diamond technologies. As a result, Oblique has found itself providing key support to businesses from overseas markets.

“Many foreign companies also come to South Africa as it can be a lot cheaper to build something here than in Canada for example,” says da Silva.

The company has even been able to overcome the logistical problems associated with operating in South Africa and dealing with markets at the other end of the planet.

“If the client needs a machine, we will put it on a ship and then transport it by road to the various mines — for us logistics is not the do and die,” asserts da Silva.

As it looks to move further into the African continent Oblique has recently been looking at the possibility of building a copper plant in Zambia and is currently building a sort house in Botswana, which will act as a final recovery house for a new diamond mine in the country.

The project will be commissioned and constructed in South African, before being dismantled and sent across the border to Botswana where it will be reassembled.

With work continuing to flood into the company’s inbox, and with diversification into other sectors working out as well as could of been hoped, it would seems that diamonds — along with a few other minerals — could see Oblique last forever. 

www.oblique.co.za

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