By Sharyn Macnamara
Mining and Technical Exhibitions (MTE) operations director, Andrew Macnamara shares the new MTE 2025 expo calendar launch with exhibitors and visitors.
The company, well known in the mining, power, construction, logistics and paper and pulp industries for bringing buyer and supplier together for tailored high-impact exhibitions of innovative solutions and technology creating worthwhile networking opportunities, has released its highly anticipated 2025 expo calendar.
“High impact, media affiliated trade shows customised to commodity and operation requirements in an industrial area with secured operational buy-in, are the order of the day for MTE,” says Macnamara. “Again, in 2024 we broke several of our own company records when it comes to supplier support and visitor attendance – the Northern Cape, Rustenburg, Zondereinde and Ngodwana being cases in point. Our SADC expos were a great success and Zimbabwe was back on schedule with a bang this year. Efficiencies are being sought, and we are providing the right platform to showcase solutions.
What’s new in 2025?
“Our new MTE 2025 calendar promises to take the exhibitor to the heart of the mines, and other industries too in key areas in SADC with another 26 well thought-out and co-ordinated destinations. Other than the bigger expos in major mining towns, MTE has gone back to its roots – hosting onsite expos for specific mines, targeting and providing key requested innovations and solutions,” says Macnamara.
Next year, Brits will be a new focus area for MTE. Situated in the North West Province of South Africa, Brits is an important platinum producing area in the mining sector with 94% of the country’s platinum mined in the Rustenburg and Brits districts. Together, these areas “produce more platinum than any other single area in the world” and Eland mine, Dikwena Chrome (DCR) and Crocodile River Mine are major players.1
Eland, a primary producer of platinum group metals (PGMs) and part of the Northam Platinum Limited group, is a shallow hybrid UG2 mine. With a LOM of 30 years, two different mining methods are undertaken at the mine at two sections – underground mining at Elandsfontein and opencast mining at Zilkaatsnek. During 2022, the acquisition of the neighbouring Maroelabult mine from Eastplats was concluded, immediately following which re-equipping and development commenced.2 Eland hosts a shallow, UG2 orebody containing 14.4-million ounces of platinum, palladium rhodium and gold, (4E) resources and 3.2-million ounces of mineral reserves.3
Dikwena Chrome (DCR) is close to Western Chrome Mines (WCM). Samancor Chrome acquired the operation in 2029 and its core business is the production of charge chrome using four closed SAFs, a metal recovery plant, and two Pellet and Sintering Plants (PSP).4
Crocodile River Mine (CRM) is a shallow long-life hybrid PGMs mine is located within the Brits Graben, where the UG2 typically consists of a single chromite layer some 1.35m to 1.5m thick. It comprises an operating reclaiming section on the tailings dam, Zandfontein underground operation, two development sections, Crocette and Kareespruit; and a number of processing plants. 5 The initial phase,“soft start”, of the underground operation was announced fully operational on March 6, 2024.
Visitor benefits
Macnamara emphasises, “I visit the mines on a regular basis, throughout the year to meet with management and consult on what solutions would suit their operational requirements, and very importantly, to attain buy-in for a trade show at a particular time of the year. This secures the support of the right decision-maker/visitor for our shows and the correct content for our customised expos. Marketing, including special VIP invites, starts at least five weeks ahead of the expo to inform the market of the event.”The exhibitions are hosted in close proximity to the operations in the area or – in the case of the smaller, more intimate shows actually on site – making the shows more accessible to decision makers with busy schedules. In 2025, MTE has added the Kusasalethu, Mponeng and Doornkop mine-site-specific expos – tailored content according to the engineering requirements of surrounding operations, or that particular operation, at the time are included in the content of the expo to make the visit worthwhile. These ‘high-impact’ expos are traditionally run for four hours, usually 1pm-5pm allowing the visitor enough time to see all the technology in action through demos at the exhibition, end-to-end, before he/she leaves.
MTE’s 30 years in the industry has enabled the company to fine-tune its offering to what works for both visitor and exhibitor. “There have been many changes over the years after tracking the trends in the industry and taking heed of the feedback from both exhibitors and visitors, and we have adjusted and transformed our business accordingly. This fact together with our strong relationships built on a ‘boots on the ground, face-to-face’ strategy have stood us in good stead,” says Macnamara.
Visit https://shorturl.at/WOzv5 or scan the QR code to access the new calendar or contact Andrew Macnamara on +27 (0) 82 720 0083 for more information.
References:
https://miningdataonline.com/property/1165/Eland-Mine.aspx
https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/print-version/eland-mine-complex-south-africa-update-2023-04-14
https://samancorcr.com/business_unit/dikwena-chrome/
https://www.eastplats.com/what-we-do/crocodile-river-mine/