Steinmüller Africa secured nine awards at the 2025 Eskom Welding Awards, led by three site-level honours for consistent world-class welding performance at Kendal and Camden Power Stations.
Steinmüller Africa welders were recognised at the 2025 Eskom Welding Awards for quality and consistency in their work.
Building on this site-wide achievement, Steinmüller Africa’s welders also claimed six individual awards, all earned on a single, measurable discipline: high-quality butt welds with consistently low repair rates.
The awards, presented at the Eskom Research & Innovation Centre in Rosherville in December 2025, recognise high-quality welding that reduces rework, prevents leaks under extreme pressure and temperature, and keeps critical plant components operating safely across the Eskom fleet.
This station-level recognition was grounded in measurable quality outcomes, with Kendal Power Station named Most Consistent Station for consistent world-class welding performance over the past five years. This is reflected in weld reject rates of just 1.0% in 2021, 1.2% in 2022, 1.4% in 2023, 1.3% in 2024 and 1.1% in 2025.
Kendal Power Station also won Best Welding Performing Team after the team completed welding 4 241 pressure-retaining butt welds with a world-class reject rate of only 1.06%. Camden Power Station won Best Welding Performing Team after the team completed welding 4 387 pressure-retaining butt welds with a world-class reject rate of only 1.16%.
The Eskom Welding Awards were presented following a technology conference that brought Eskom employees and contractors together to share technical learnings and best practice.
The 2025 awards recognise exceptional skills in SMAW (Shielded Metal Arc Welding) and Steinmüller Africa's welders were honoured for work on ongoing maintenance projects throughout 2025.
"Our welders were recognised because of lower rework on welds. In power generation, that's not just about craftsmanship – it's about safety, uptime and asset integrity. Every weld we deliver is inspected, traceable and done to last under extreme pressure and temperature. The low repair rates achieved are the result of rigorous quality control, continuous training, and a team that takes pride in getting it right the first time," said Orifuna Netshifamadi, Senior Welding Engineer, Steinmüller Africa.
The award recipients included: MA Mbokazi – Winner, Power Plant Welder of the Year, EM Mathebula – Winner, Power Plant Most Consistent Welder of the Last 5 Years, S Mkhize – 1st Runner Up, Power Plant Young Welder of the Year, BJ Maebes – 2nd Runner Up, Power Plant Young Welder of the Year, AC Nkonzo – 2nd Runner Up, Power Plant Welder of the Year, BB Morollwane – 2nd Runner Up, Power Plant Most Consistent Welder of the Last 5 Years.
The awards recognise emerging talent as well as long-term repeated top performance, reflecting Steinmüller Africa's focus on building welding capability that delivers consistent results under real outage and maintenance conditions.
The company will build on its 2025 achievements by expanding simulation-based training to boost welders’ confidence before live work, adopting new site technologies to improve repair rates, and extending the same stringent QA/QC standards across all sites.
For more information visit: www.steinmullerafrica.com
