companies
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08.13
The award-winning A-frame steel headgear at South Deep Gold
Mine, constructed as part of the South Deep Ventilation Shaft
deepening project. Designed by Hatch, the steel headgear was
erected over the existing concrete headframe.
practice – known then as Keeve Steyn & Partners –
emerged in the 1960s as one of South Africa’s leading
civil and structural consulting engineering organisa-
tions and in the 1970s and 80s diversified into being
a full multi-disciplinary practice. In 2001 it merged
with Goba Moahloli and Associates to become Goba
Moahloli Keeve Steyn and, later, Goba (Pty) Ltd.
Recounting his links with Keeve Steyn, Trueman
Goba says he first became associated with the practice
in the 1970s. “At that point, my only qualification was
a Survey Technician’s Diploma but Keeve Steyn put
me through university – I was one of their bursary stu-
dents – and I graduated in 1979 from the University of
Natal with a BSc (Civil), later supplementing this with
an MEng (Civil) from Cornell University in the States.
While I was at Keeve Steyn, I was fortunate to be
mentored by people like Alec Wilson and Jimmy Fitz
simons, who eventually became CEO of the practice.
I also worked in the US for a period with a consult-
ing engineering firm in Baltimore before returning to
South Africa in 1990, working in Johanneburg partly
for an NGO and then starting my own consulting engi-
neering company. In 1993 I teamed up with Ebenezer
Moahloli and we operated as Goba Moahloli until we
joined with Keeve Steyn eight years later – which, in a
sense, brought the wheel full circle for me.”
Goba is arguably South Africa’s most prominent
black civil engineer. In 2002 he served as President
of the SA Institution of Civil Engineers and between
2007 and 2009 he was President of the Engineering
Council of SA. More recently, he has served as one
of the Commissioners of the National Development
Plan (NDP).
Kirk believes that the merger with Goba (Pty) Ltd
makes sense on at least two levels. “Firstly, it helps
us consolidate our position in infrastructure develop-
ment in Africa,” he explains. “While we have consid-
erable skills in industrial infrastructure, Goba brings
in real strength in terms of what we term public infra-
structure – roads, dams, bridges, housing and the like
for public sector clients. Secondly, we’re starting to
see more and more mineral deposits being developed
in remote areas where there is very little infrastruc-
ture. Often when you look at the budgets allocated
for new mining projects in Africa, only about a third
is going into the mine and plant – the rest is for rail,
road, power and housing. With Goba now on board,
we are able to handle all this work in house, thus giv-
ing clients an all-in-one service covering all aspects
of their projects.” He adds that the intention is to take
this model global within the Hatch group.
Goba points out that the increased penetration of
the mining sector was one of the attractions – from
the Goba (Pty) Ltd perspective – of the merger. “Prior
to joining Hatch, we had an extensive involvement
in mining. For example, in 2010 we entered into a
joint venture with a well-known project house to pro-
vide the EPCM services for two of Sasol’s new un-
derground coal mines, Thubelisha and Impumelelo
– with the work on Impumelelo still underway,” he
says. “As part of Hatch, however, the opportunities
will be that much greater – and will also have an in-
ternational dimension.”
Reinforcing this point, Kirk says that Hatch is
truly a global organisation, which operates seam-
lessly across borders. “Many of our clients are global
players and – irrespective of where they have their
projects – they want a single point of interface with
Hatch,” he states. “The organisation has been struc-
tured to allow this to happen and a single project
will often draw on Hatch skills from offices around
the world. An example of this is the K3 expansion at
Mosaic’s Esterhazy potash operation in Saskatch-
ewan, Canada, which will add a further 1 Mt/a of ca-
pacity to what is already the world’s biggest potash
mine. The expansion involves the sinking of two 6 m
diameter shafts to a depth of approximately 1 127 m
below surface, as well as the construction of a con-
crete headframe – now structurally complete – which
we think is the highest in the world at about 114 m.
Hatch is the EPCM contractor and because Hatch
Goba has exceptionally strong shaft engineering skills
much of the engineering is being done here in South
Africa at our Woodmead offices.”
Kirk adds that South African engineering services
are very competitively priced in international terms.
“If a unit of engineering costs US$100 in South Af-
rica, the equivalent figures in other regions are 120
to 130 in South America, 160 to 170 in the US or
Canada and 200 in Australia,” he says. “Combined
with the in-depth skills we have in many areas, this
