• MTE EXHIBITIONS
© MTE
MTE’ S NEXT STOP IN JUNE – RICHARDS BAY AND PHALABORWA
By Sharyn Macnamara
MTE will take its travelling expo philosophy to Richards Bay and Phalaborwa in June 2025.
Mining and Technical Exhibitions( MTE) will host its Richards Bay Mining & Industrial Expo on 5 June at John Ross College and its Phalaborwa Mining & Industrial Exhibition at Laerskool Phalaborwa Noord( Rooi Skool) on 19 June this year.
Both of these four-hour, high impact tradeshows are popular annual events, custom-built for surrounding industrial operations in the KwaZulu-Natal( KZN) and Limpopo provinces of South Africa respectively. Although both of these expos work off the same MTE principles of a highly focussed, tailor-made tradeshow, the one caters to diverse industries, while the other is an intimate, copper-, vermiculite-, magnetite-, phosphate- commodity mining focussed event.
Richards Bay Mining & Industrial Expo MTE’ s agile business concept enables the company to customise its expos to the market prevalent in any area, no matter how diverse the industry. The travelling exhibition company targets its most varied audience anually in Richards Bay where the surrounding mining industry and smelters, the agricultural sector and sugar milling in Empangeni in particular, the Richards Bay harbour and coal terminal( RBCT) and the paper and pulp sector, create a hive of industrial activity in constant need of innovative solutions for the ever-evolving environment.“ All of these operations are our target market at this expo,” says Andrew Macnamara, MTE’ s operations director,“ The common ground is‘ moving parts’ and industrial process with efficiencies and safety top of mind.”
He adds that in his customary interactions with the market leading up to the expo to enable his team to target relevant suppliers to exhibit at the show, RBCT noted due to increased business that it was looking at new equipment solutions to improve efficiencies. Other operations in the area also pointed to a more upbeat economic mood.
This positive swing in the local industry is backed by SARS data which indicates that nearly 95 % of South Africa’ s coal export volumes( 65-70 million tonnes in 2024) are handled through RBCT. With enhanced Transnet performance last year, coal railed to the privately owned and operated RBCT improved to around 52 million tonnes in 2024 – although still below the levels of more than 70 million tonnes Transnet railed annually to the company between 2017 and 2020, this is a positive improvement which significantly affects the entire surrounding industry. 1
In addition, Minerals Council South Africa noted recently that coal companies continue to work closely with Transnet to secure the 600km rail line from the coal fields to Richards Bay, aiming to mitigate the impact of cable theft and vandalism that act as one of the current constraints to exports.
“ With these positive trends in mind, we anticipate an uptick in most of the industries we serve at the Richards Bay tradeshow,” Andrew points out.
Phalaborwa Mining & Industrial Exhibition MTE will move into Limpopo after its visit to KZN to focus on the copper / vermiculite / magnetite / phosphate industry in the area which is embodied in two well known operations near the town of Phalaborwa, – Palaborwa Copper( Pty) Ltd, a subsidiary of Palabora Mining Company( PMC) and Foskor.
“ Developments such as the PMC Lift ll project which was approved to extend PMC LOM, for example, bring MTE and its valued exhibitors to the area each year to showcase solutions-driven innovation to the mining professionals in the area,” concludes Andrew. •
References:
1. Minerals Council South Africa, Facts and Figures Pocketbook, 2024
26 • African Mining • May 2025 www. africanmining. co. za