Underscored by strong demand for gold and copper is the emergence of junior miners in these commodity spaces in South Africa, the likes of whom include West Wits, Copper 360 and Orion Minerals – all of which is good news for the industry and consulting engineers, such as Bara Consulting, which is targeting robust growth in the next few years, MD Etienne de Villiers tells Modern Mining.
“The rise in junior gold and copper miners is driving growth in Bara Consulting’s local business. We remain focused on supporting the junior mining sector and, as a small-to-medium sized consultancy firm, we believe we are a like-minded, entrepreneurial and agile company, and a good fit for junior miners.”
As a result, Bara Consulting is now engaged in significantly more work in-country work than from the rest of Africa.
“2024 has, to date, been a good year for Bara Consulting; we are currently poised for growth through our continued offering of quality consulting services, mainly in respect to feasibility studies and technical due diligence. Additionally, we have grown our service offering by expanding into EPCM, mine closure and the geology consulting services space.”
Given its strong work ethic, Bara Consulting has been receiving positive feedback on the quality of its work from clients, especially as related to studies and due diligence.
“Our core business remains the delivery of feasibility studies and, having recently gone through numerous peer review processes on several projects, the company has been receiving complimentary feedback on the high quality of its work”.
On the back of positive reviews, clients have expressed an eagerness for the consulting firm to take early-stage projects through to the next phase of design and project engineering work.
“Following the completion of a feasibility study for a client in the junior mining space, the client subsequently asked us to transfer our project knowledge into the design and project implementation stage going forward.”
De Villiers explains that with the conclusion of its feasibility study work and the subsequent, often lengthy, fund raising phases for project development, Bara Consulting is not often afforded the opportunity to see the fruits of its labour going into the next phase, which is all the more reason the new turn of events of engaging in project design and development, “is really exciting” for the company.
“Apart from the traditional due diligence and feasibility study work, growth for Bara Consulting is emanating from environmental work, specifically related to mine closure, which has strengthened our workload.”
Interestingly, Bara Consulting is also engaged in “several technical due diligence initiatives related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A)”, specifically around gold investments, covering early stage to advanced stage projects and operations, including those on care and maintenance in South Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa.
“We continue to serve potential investors and lenders with quality technical due diligence to provide reassurance related to these investment decisions,” says De Villiers, adding that the company has also recently established a mutually beneficial B-BBEE partnership to enable it to meet its transformation objectives.
While demand for gold and copper is good news for business, platinum group metals (PGMs), however, have been experiencing weakened demand for its basket of metals.
“There has been a decided reduction in PGM related workload primarily driven by the commodity price and low investment appetite. We have seen lithium also come off its all-time highs; however, there is still interest in the other battery minerals, including copper, cobalt and graphite. What is important to note though is that as a multicommodity consultancy firm, Bara Consulting can pivot away from commodities facing major headwinds in favour of those in demand.”
Among the projects the company is busy with are a feasibility study for Harmony Gold, an EPCM contract involving detailed design work for the West Wits’ Qala Shallows Project, mine design and planning (short medium and long term) for operations such as Paladin Energy’s Langer Heinrich Uranium (LHU) mine in Namibia, Trinity Metals Musha, Nyakabingo and Rutongo mines in Rwanda and Alphamin’s Bisie Tin mine in the DRC.
