TECHNOLOGY •

By Sharyn Macnamara

The mining industry relies heavily on control valves essential to the management of pressure and flow in an operation , but this is only the beginning of the ‘ value of the valve ’ in a sector heavily reliant on plant uptime .

While the company works in the petrochemical , oil and gas , ethanol , power generation , ship building , pulp and paper and the food ( sugar ) industries , 95 % of its focus lies in the mining industry across Africa , South America and Oceania . 1

Key differentiator in the Third World Van Niekerk points out a key differentiator of the AR Controls ’ offering to the industries it serves , “ We do not consider ourselves a commodity supplier – we provide valving solutions to the mining industry – all-inclusive specialised solutions to a niche market .” To this end , the company is the largest valve stockist of a comprehensive range of internationally recognised valves and instrumentation on the African continent . In addition to the popular ARVALV , which has been an industry mainstay for over 25 years , the company owns the IncoValve and Controls brand acquired in 2016 , and is the exclusive African and Central American distributor for international OEM , DeZURIK .

AR Controls president and CEO , Julien van Niekerk .

All photo credits AR Controls

The AR Controls range of valves and actuation accessories has proved ideal for harsh mining environments . These include core industry product lines such as knife gate valves , concentric and high-performance butterfly valves , ball valves , non-return valves , control valves , actuation and automation , including value adding pneumatic enclosures . The enclosure product line offers added value in that it protects critical instrumentation , ensuring that valves installed in hard-to-reach or hazardous areas can be operated with ease from accessible and clearly marked safe remote areas .

The company ’ s end user focused business model and service orientated ethos is a competitive advantage in the Third World developing nation market it dominates . Van Niekerk explains , “ We import and locally manufacture a range of premium products , whose features result in key benefits for our end users by ensuring uptime in operations . However , in addition to this , we also drive standardisation , which in turn , results in significant value add in these remote , very often unstable socio-political , yet resource rich , environments where lack of capital and skills shortages are a challenge .

AR Controls head of engineering , Ockert Jacobus ( OJ ) Labuschagne .

Features equating to end-user benefit : Longer service life “ AR Controls has the local manufacturing capacity to produce and sell products with thicker body walls manufactured with premium dura materials for longer service life at economical pricing ,” says van Niekerk . He explains that although this involves additional machining capability and thus added machining and labour costs , which usually inadvertently lead to higher pricing on a commodity-based product , AR Controls ensures that it is able to compete with the global trend of low-