Barloworld building powerful African reach

BARLOWORLD is continuing to expand and transform its power-systems business as electricity capacity constraints emerge not only in South Africa but also in other sub-Saharan African countries.

Barloworld Power, the southern African dealer for Caterpillar power products, received a massive boost in 2008 from Eskom’s frequent load shedding caused by its power generation crisis.
The group has just invested N$100 million to acquire a Boksburg facility in South Africa to expand its power-systems unit, while the transformation of the business from a supplier of low-value projects to high-value turnkey solutions is continuing.
Evidence of this is the N$250 million engineer, procure and construct turnkey contract awarded to Barloworld Power by Namibian electricity utility NamPower in November last year for a new power station planned for Walvis Bay.
Barloworld chief executive Clive Thomson confirmed that Barloworld Power was tendering on additional projects of similar magnitude.
Barloworld spokesman Sibani Mngomezulu said on Friday the company was unable to discuss specific projects but was working on a number of prospects, including mines in Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana, as well as industrial sector projects in Angola totalling about 100 megawatts.
The power business was a product line within Barloworld Equipment for many years but was segmented as a separate unit with a dedicated focus in September 2008.
It has about 240 employees and its workforce in southern Africa has grown by about 40 percent over the past 18 months. New appointments include several skilled engineering professionals.
Mngomezulu confirmed that Barloworld Power had recorded huge year-on-year growth in 2008; this had slowed the following year because of the economic downturn, while remaining consistent with the previous year, but was picking up again this year.
Mngomezulu said the power-systems business of Caterpillar in the US contributed about 30 percent of its global revenue.
Thomson said there was growing electricity demand in southern Africa, which required investment in electricity infrastructure, but these investments did not come on stream immediately and there would be substantial demand in the interim for both standby power solutions and solutions that provided ongoing power into the main electricity grid.
Thomson said Barloworld Power also saw significant growth in power systems in marine and petroleum, particularly off the coast of Angola.
Thomson stressed some countries, such as Namibia, realised they were going to need incremental power solutions over a number of years because they would be unable to bring their new build capacity on stream quickly enough. – Business Report