South African Business 2018 edition

OVERVIEW
Engineering
The renewable energy sector holds great promise for engineering firms.
Several South African engineering firms are restructuring,
aiming to become more flexible and better able to pursue
projects in other countries in Africa and overseas.
South Africa has many vertically integrated engineering
and consulting companies that offer a wide range of services. South
African companies have a presence in South American and Australian
mining, African energy and infrastructure and Middle Eastern construction
and project management. All of the biggest construction
companies (including Aveng, Aurecon, Raubex and WBHO) are multidisciplinary
companies. WorleyParsons has a minerals, metals and
chemicals project cluster (and a presence in 17 cities) in Southern
Africa. Its other major divisions are hydrocarbons and infrastructure.
Group Five, which relies on its engineering and construction division
for 80% of turnover, announced in 2017 that it was to split the
division. The group has more than 8 500 employees in Africa and is
active in Europe.
As part of its plan to become a diversified project engineering, procurement
and construction group in specific natural resource sectors,
Murray & Roberts sold Murray & Roberts Infrastructure and Building
Platform to Firefly Investments for R314-million in 2016. Investors in
Firefly include the Government Employees Pension Fund. The sale does
SECTOR INSIGHT
South African engineering
companies are restructuring.
• The WorleyParsons
Mining Centre of
Excellence is based in
Johannesburg.
not include a share in the consortium
which runs the Gautrain.
Whereas Murray & Roberts had a
focus on construction and mining
in South Africa, the drive is
now more international and focussed
on four sectors: power,
oil and gas, metals and minerals,
and water.
While there are many large
projects to occupy engineers
in South Africa, the level of
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