ACTOM subsidiary Marthinusen & Coutts has completed stator winding installations on two of Africa's largest electric motors at a copper mining operation in northern Zambia — a 28 MW SAG mill motor and a 22 MW ball mill motor — in what the company described as record time.
The SAG mill motor installation was completed in 31 days and the ball mill in 28 days.
The SAG mill, with a 15.2-metre diameter and 6.5-metre length, is designed to grind 2,450 tonnes per hour or 20 million tonnes per annum — among the highest throughput specifications for a single grinding unit on the continent.
The completion of the installation is directly relevant to Zambia's copper sector capital cycle. Northern Zambia — home to KoBold Metals' Mingomba project and several Copperbelt expansion programmes — is absorbing substantial new processing infrastructure investment as the country advances toward its 3-million-tonne copper production target by 2031. M&C's established Kitwe facility, which provides in-country repair and maintenance services for large rotating electrical machines across the Zambian and DRC Copperbelt, positions the company as a critical engineering services provider in one of Africa's most capital-intensive mining regions.
