Consulting Engineering's Viability Proportional to Mining's Growth

The consulting engineer-ing industry’s sustain-ability and growth are largely dependent on and proportional to the mining industry’s sustainability and growth respectively, says industry body Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa).

- Nadine James

Cesa CEO Christopher Campbell notes that the success or decline of the mining industry directly impacts on the success or decline of consulting engineering companies, as the two are intrinsically linked.

To illustrate, he cites economic changes in China that have had an impact on commodity prices and, as a result, have impacted on mining consulting.

“China, one of the largest users of mined commodities, decided to temper its growth rate from 7.5% in 2014 to 6.7% in 2016.

“This 0.8 percentage point decrease meant a sizeable reduction in demand for the commodities required for infrastructure development, such as iron-ore, which caught mining and related industries offguard,” he explains.

This resulted in reduced investment in mining-related infrastructure development, with projects undertaken to develop logistical infrastructure for the transport of commodities becoming “pedestrian” and others being put on hold indefinitely.

“To fuel what became a perfect storm, we saw commodities markets worldwide slow down.

“In South Africa, we probably added a bit more fat to the fire by creating a huge amount of political and policy uncertainty to scare offpotential investors even more,” he comments.

“The consulting engineering industry, along with others, became a direct victim of this perfect storm, as investment, even in prospecting, stalled.”