2009-02-12 - Record power and automation orders reflect balanced portfolio
Johannesburg – 12 February 2009 - ABB South Africa, a subsidiary of the global power and automation technologies group, has reported a 45 percent increase in revenue to R3.3 billion, and power and automation orders of R4.4 billion – up more than 50 percent - for 2008.
Carlos Pone, CEO of ABB South Africa, says rapid infrastructure development in power generation and transmission to support demand in mining, oil and gas and other sectors drove growth in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
“It has been an excellent year for ABB in South Africa,” he says. “Our broad portfolio of products and services in our power and automation divisions continue to sustain our growth.”
To accommodate its expansion, ABB South Africa and its developer have invested R400 million in new Gauteng premises at Longmeadow, Johannesburg. The modern manufacturing centre will be a green building incorporating solar heating, grey water and an automated building system to control all energy consuming equipment.
ABB South Africa has a strong local manufacturing capability with four sites around the country and employs more than 1500 permanent people. Longmeadow will hold about 1000 employees.
In 2008 ABB South Africa secured substantial power and transmission orders. ABB won a R149 million order for series capacitor banks at Serumula on the Beta-Delphi 400kV transmission line, and Iziko on the Hydra-Poseidon 400kV transmission line. The company also won a R640 million contract from Matla power station to upgrade control systems and instrumentation as well as an order worth R520 million to strengthen the transmission network in the Western Cape region. ABB completed the Apollo converter station upgrade worth R440 million.
ABB’s automation business performed exceptionally well with more than R400 million in mining contracts and large orders for drive systems at Arcelor Mittal and Sappi. Other large orders included a R110 million contract from Sulzer for boiler feed pumps and a R40 million rectifier plant order from Anglo Platinum.
Expansion in the business led to the company employing more than 170 additional staff in 2008, training 28 engineering artisans and investing in industry skills with the Swiss-South African Co-operation Initiative (SSACI) to support technical skills development at FET (Further Education and Training) technical colleges.
“In South Africa the demand for power generation, transmission and distribution products as well as energy-efficient equipment remained solid throughout 2008. Demand in industries such as oil, gas, metals and minerals also remained positive, although some smaller customers in the mining industry began to delay investments in the face of the current market uncertainty,” he says.
Looking at the prospects for 2009, Pone says the demand for in the electricity market remains high because of the renovation of South Africa’s national power infrastructure.
“However, with the current market conditions it is difficult to make near-term forecasts about growth and investments in the industrial sector,” he says.