BIDDING FOR CONTRACTS
Shaft Sinkers regains a firm financial footing as mining activity picks up
Shaft Sinkers, the 55-year-old specialist mining contractor, had put its business back on a firm footing and had bid for about $12bn of work globally in the past year as it saw activity picking up in the sector, executive chairman Marius Heyns said this week. Shaft Sinkers was one of the pioneers in sinking vertical shafts in hard rock, when SA’s gold mining industry started to build the world’s deepest mines in the 1960s and 1970s. The company listed in London in 2010, but in 2015 the listing was suspended as its South African subsidiary was placed in business rescue. Other units were unaffected. The main contributors to the South African company’s financial problems were a $917m damages claim by EuroChem for substandard work on a Russian potash mine, which cost Shaft Sinkers $20m in legal fees to defend. The five-month strike in 2014 at Rustenburg platinum mines added to its financial difficulties. Shaft Sinkers had contracts with Impala Platinum, Royal Bafokeng Platinum and Lonmi...
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