October 19, 2018, Johannesburg, South Africa – Knight Piésold Southern Africa continued its winning streak at this year’s South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) National Awards. The prestigious Awards for the Most Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievements of the Year was held at the Southern Sun Cape Sun hotel in Cape Town on October 12, 2018. Knight Piésold was awarded the Most Outstanding Project in the Geotechnical Engineering Project division for the Gamsberg Zinc Mineral Processing and Infrastructure Project. This award followed Knight Piésold’s victorious win at Consulting Engineers South Africa’s 2018 Aon Engineering Excellence Awards.

SAICE received more than 30 entries from across the country to compete for the illustrious project awards in the international, technical excellence, and community-based project categories. Awards were also presented to the Engineer of the Year, including other individual awards, as well as awards for projects entered by the SAICE technical divisions.

Liviero Civils (Pty) Ltd., together with Knight Piésold, was awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the tailings storage facility (TSF) of the 4 million tons per annum (mtpa) Gamsberg Zinc Mineral Processing and Infrastructure Project.

Situated 300 km from the town of Upington, approximately 1,000 km from Gauteng and 800 km from Cape Town, the Gamsberg Mine is located in a remote region of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Due to the fast-tracked nature of the EPC contract, which had to be completed within 12 months, Knight Piésold executed the detail design within three months in order for Liviero Civils to start construction. One of the main challenges of the project was sourcing materials due to the remoteness of the site location. Significant construction cost savings for the client as well as improved water recovery in this water scarce area of the country were achieved when the design was optimised by changing the deposition method to on-wall cycloning, hugely reducing the earthworks quantities. The project team is proud to have delivered this complex project on time and within budget.

Acknowledgement was given to the client, Black Mountain Mining (Vedanta), for their investment into this facility and into this region, which is expected to have a strong stimulus effect into the future on job creation and economic development.