PRODUCT Releases
Peristaltic pump
to be launched at Electra Mining
e 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 les through its
USB data port.
“It also has a smart tube-burst sensing
system to detect leaks, ensuring highly
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| May - June 2016
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 ow per revolution, enhancing the
pump's tube life and reducing
maintenance, as well as advanced touchscreen technology with icon-based
menus and a range of remote-control
options, including wireless and Ethernet.
e pump also offers almost double the
ow 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. e 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 nancial
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
| FMDZ
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 nal 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
bene t from the growth prospects in
Africa to rst identify its target country
and sector of interest in that country, as
each country and sector presents its own
challenges and opportunities.