Travelling into central Johannesburg on the new Gautrain from Oliver Tambo Airport gives a snapshot of the potential of the country, and the challenges it faces. Johannesburg is, in global terms, a young city, built by miners at the end of the 19th century around a gold-filled ridge of hills, the Witwatersrand. All around the city, the spoils of the mines are piled in flat-topped, yellow, hills. Largely, these are exhausted, but South Africans are still mining, at home and across the region, and bringing cranes with them where they, and others, dig. In Angola, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and all across Southern Africa, dealers and manufacturers at the event were finding work for their cranes.

After a hundred years of mining, many of the deepest seams of gold around Johanesburg have been exhausted. But those piles of spoil still contain gold. Carbon-in-leaching, an extraction technique, is increasingly being used to retrieve gold from the spoil heaps around the city. This provides an opportunity for the crane industry, one Linden Comansa dealer Tower Crane Service (TCS) has exploited. Tony Fletcher, who founded the company and whose son Richard now manages it, explains that the process involves installing huge 25m high and 30m wide steel tanks, along with heavy pumps and agitators. The ongoing work requires a crane on site permanently.

Martin Echevarria, Linden Comansa’s sales director, says the companies have recently sold an LC290 and an LC350 for use in an extraction project at South Deep, South Africa’s largest mine. A 21LC290, suitable for this sort of work (pictured above), was the only tower crane on show at the event.

While South Deep represents South Africa’s potential, it also demonstrates the challenges it faces. The process of awarding the licence to mine at the site to Gold Fields has been the subject of corruption allegations in the US and in South Africa. At the same time, the mine has faced a series of strikes, the most recent concluded with a two-year pay deal this September.

Quentin Van Breda has been selling tower cranes in South Africa since the 1970s, first for a division of Babcock and then, in 1982, setting up his own company, SA French, now a part of listed construction equipment and service group Torre Industrial Holdings.

He identifies both striking and graft as an ongoing challenge for the country, pointing to both the July 2013 Competition Tribunal finding that major construction firms had colluded to set margins for World Cup construction projects, and to a series of strikes that have in some cases doubled the length of major projects, often leaving cranes locked on site and unused for months at a time.

Part of the reason for the delays, Van Breda says, is a lack of project engineers: "The one reason collusion could take place, is if the government didn’t have a watchdog in place. Contractors can then overspecify. If the government doesn’t have a professional infrastructure, this problem will never go away."

Van Breda isn’t alone in seeing the problems South Africa faces: Thabo Zulu, sales manager at Terex dealer, and Eqstra subsidiary, Terex Africa, says, "Strikes are our new national sport. People have to strategise around them."

Arnim Schön, Manitowoc’s sales director for English-speaking Africa, says that however you strategise, the wave of strikes dampens demand:

"The strike hits the gold price, which hits expansion, which means projects are reduced or cancelled."

Beyond South Africa’s mines
While the strikes have hit some gold mining expansion projects and slowed construction of much-needed new power plants, demand in the wider region hasn’t stalled. And there are plenty of other sources of demand domestically.

Ed Dickson, managing director of Germiston hire firm Atlas, says, "Historically, we were a jobbing company. Now we’re a bit more more contract focussed.

"We have about 30 machines, including some old Krupps, Demags, Liebherrs, Zoomlions and XCMGs in Johannesburg. We recently bought Hanmag in Sishen, close to the Sishen Iron Ore company. They have 13 cranes and four telehandlers.

"Most of the work here, maybe 70%, is mining or mining-related. Mining companies like Sishan are exporting 40-45 million tonnes of ore. They are doubling that, mainly to China. That has a direct influence.

"We do a lot of bridges. There are only three beam manufacturers in the country, and we have relationships with the biggest.

"Over the next five-to-ten years, the government has promised a substantial amount of infrastructure investment, but I am cautious of government projects.

"At Sasol [an international oil, petrochemicals and related industries company based near Johannesburg] there are some big projects coming up. And there are a lot of energy projects, with a commitment to a wind and solar and to massive coal-fuelled plants."

Powering growth
These last projects are much needed. As Quentin van Breda points out, the country’s energy reserve margin is a tenuous 0.5%, rather than a safe 15%.

These are complex projects, van Breda says: "Power stations are the most complex engineering projects there are. Even labourers have to be skilled. Everything is at height, increasing risks. On Medupi, there are 45 contractors, but space for only eight tower cranes to serve them. Incredible timing is required. You need to programme the site schedule like a Swiss watch."

Mark Bates, of Zoomlion dealer Cranelink, sees the same level of intense, complex, demand from these sites. There is demand, he says, for more than 200 mobile cranes at Medupi, and another 120 on a current Sasol refinery project.

Flip Hennop, sales director of Sany dealer Saxeni Equipment, is also winning sales from the power sector. The company has recently sold 400t, 650t and 750t crawlers for work on the Kusile plant. This last, an SCC7500 is, he says, the largest Sany every exported from China.

As well as these very big cranes, Saxeni is seeing flourishing demand for smaller cranes. Since 2010, Hennop says, the company has sold 104 units, with the 50t XTC500 the most popular. The truck crane is mostly going for crane hire, again for mining and related projects, but also for building construction. At the show, the company was showing its first Sany 220t all terrain for the South African market.

Sany isn’t the only Chinese company working in the region. XCMG had a number of cranes on display at Bauma Africa, and is working with a new dealer to establish its position in the market. Zoomlion, through its dealer CraneLink, has also seen good sales in the country and across the region.

Sichuan Construction Machinery (SCM) is a leading manufacturer of tower cranes in China. Director Baotian Wang, speaking to Cranes Today through import and export division manager Annie Ye, explained that the company is selling cranes to projects in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan and Uganda. Many of the company’s customers in these countries are Chinese contractors, who want to work with Chinese equipment.

Going the distance
On the transport side, Jeff Lee, of Chinese SPMT and trailer manufacturer THI Fulangjie, says his company has a history of sales in South Africa, which it is looking to build on. Like SCM, THI has seen strong sales in Kenya, and often supplies Chinese contractors working in Africa. Mining, and the need to move heavy mining equipment far into the continent, is, Lee reckons, a strong source of potnential demand: the company is aiming its heavy transport trailers at the mining sector, at power plants, and for windmills.

So too are THI’s western rivals. Nooteboom has recently entered the South African market, with a major order for 16 wind turbine transporters from ALE earlier this year, due to serve new wind energy sites across the Cape region. As it develops its business in the country, Nooteboom is offering to train customer staff how to use the trailers.

As THI’s Lee points out, transport is a challenge for South African crane dealers. As the strikes at home have knocked the confidence of local mining companies (and with even some of the deepest seams emptied), South African mining companies are heading further and further out of the country.

TCS’s Tony Fletcher says, "Wherever there’s gold, South African companies have mines. They’re looking at where gold is cheaper to extract, less deep. They’re working on surface mining in Ivory Coast, Malawi, Guinea."

Terex Africa is selling both rough terrains and all terrains across sub- Saharan Africa. "It’s not a production product," Thabo Zulu says, "But is a crutch buy for the the mines. We’ve just two AC80 all terrains to Anglo Gold Ashanti for machinery maintenance."

CraneLink’s Bates says, "We’re sat in this little hub of Africa, and all the guys north of us come down and shop. We’ve sold to Anglogold Ashanti, and to Glencore working in DRC."

Being based in South Africa allows CraneLink to support customers with a level of ease that Chinese based suppliers can’t, Bates says, "We can dispatch our technicians and other staff up there with no visa problems. Our government works closely with these countries. But, for the Chinese, it can take a month to get a visa."

Manitowoc dealer CLT even maintains its own own private jet to get technicians, and sales staff, up to customers in countries like the DRC quickly.

But getting cranes there is a harder job: there aren’t convenient well paved roads stretching from the ports of South Africa all the way to the mines of the DRC. Ryan Wells handles sales for CLT. Recently, he says, the company has purchased a new 80t trailer. This means the company can now strip down even the biggest all terrains, and ship them across Africa using its own trailers.

Home building
In the boom years of the middle of the last decade, South Africa saw a boom in residential and commercial construction. But that boom dropped off suddenly, leaving many with burnt fingers.

Quentin van Breda was one of those who suffered through the collapse in demand. In 2006, Potain delivery times stretched to 18 months, and he had orders for dozens of cranes. In 2007, with the market collapsed, van Breda found himself with these cranes unwanted, and, valuing his relationship with customers to much to force them to take the order, had to negotiate their return to Manitowoc.

Since that experience, he’s cautious about the general construction market. While he is this year seeing utilisation for his rental fleet of 85%, up from 45% last year, he says, "I’ll be more excited when there’s more infrastructure investment. At millions of Rand a crane, I’m not going to invest in just building projects."

On lower level projects, there’s the same level of caution. Donovan Van Antwerpen, Smith Capital Equipment’s sales and product manager for PM cranes, says, "The trend in construction is picking up slightly. Brick handling has been up over the last couple of months, but there are no fireworks."

One sector where CraneLink’s Bates sees potential for growth in local retail developments: "There’s a crime problem, and people don’t want to walk far between their car and their destination. So they ask, ‘What can I safely do?’ That’s leading to the construction of socalled lifestyle centres in the suburbs.

"But, overall, construction is slow. All the listed construction companies have stalled."

As with much of the rest of the world, it’s unlikely South Africa is going to see another boom soon. But with demand for power and mining across the region, it’s crane dealers and rental houses may still flourish.

Evolved in Africa
Manitowoc’s South African mobile crane dealer, CLT, has developed a version of the GBT 35 truck crane aimed at South Africa’s tough road regulations, shown first at Bauma Africa.

CLT is Manitowoc’s second elite dealer in Africa, and a partner in its Encore remanufacturing programme. As well as selling Manitowoc crawler cranes, it offers maintenance services for a wide range of manufacturers, with a specially-built boom bay allowing it to offer full service of telescopic cranes.

Armin Schön, Manitowoc’s sales director for English speaking Africa, praises the company’s work on the GBT 35, saying, "CLT took the initiative of sourcing the Volvo carrier for the GBT 35, sorting the axle loadins and South African compliance." The crane offers a 38.7m boom and jib reach.

CLT managing director Harry Wells says, "We spotted a gap in the smaller truck market. We’ve sold five units so far. The cranes offer cheap roadability, with only one person needed to operate.

"South Africa’s road regulations are not really suitable to Western machines. We have a 12t per axle limit."

Getting the details right
Since establishing CraneLink,Mark Bates has recognised that while Chinese manufacturers like Zoomlion might be increasingly skilled manufacturers, they need help to support and market their products.

Bates, along with two partners, started selling Zoomlion cranes in 2006. Up until 2009, the cranes sold well, with the World Cup keeping the market afloat until 2010. Then, he says, demand was turned off, like a light switch.

With the partnership dissolved, he was left with the Zoomlion dealership. It was a good move, he says: in 2012 he bought 45 of the Chinese cranes into South Africa. In 2013, he expect to sell 65, with the fastest sales coming from 25t and 50t truck cranes.

Key to this growth has been support. Zoomlion provided staff from its factory, including service technicians, warranty administrators and members of its finance division. Bates says 60-70% of sales are paid for using Zoomlion’s captive finance.

Bates has then developed a service base, in the suburbs of South Africa, with availability for almost all Zoomlion parts. Trained technicians from there can also offer speedy support across the continent. Bates continues to develop support infrastrucure: currently the company’s HQ is being expanded.