Fledgling supplier wins Voisey's Bay bid.Jeff Fuller is on a roll. His fledgling Sudbury company was awarded a contract this past spring to rubber-line all the pipe and fittings for Inco's multibillion-dollar Voisey's Bay nickel project on Canada's East Coast. Voisey's Bay Nickel Company (VBNC VBNC Viable Non-Culturable (form) ), a subsidiary of nickel giant Inco, is tasked with developing the $2.9-billion nickel project in Newfoundland. It picked the Sudbury company out of dozens of North American competitors through a bidding process. The contract, worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars," will keep Fuller Industrial busy for six months. Rubber lining protects pipe from abrasion as rock is being milled, thus extending the life of the pipes. The pipes, ranging from four inches to 20 inches in diameter, will be used to transport slurry, or nickel concentrate, at the project site. In July, Fuller was busy setting up the company's pipe preparation area and installing other gear at an 11,400-square-foot plant and warehouse, including a compression moulding press, an autoclave autoclave Vessel, usually of steel, able to withstand high temperatures and pressures. The chemical industry uses various types of autoclaves in manufacturing dyes and in other chemical reactions requiring high pressures. , lathes and sandblasting Sandblasting or bead blasting[1] is a generic term for the process of smoothing, shaping and cleaning a hard surface by forcing solid particles across that surface at high speeds; the effect is similar to that of using sandpaper, but provides a more even finish and painting equipment. His workforce will include about 12 experienced tradespeople trades·peo·ple pl.n. 1. People engaged in retail trade. 2. Skilled workers. Noun 1. tradespeople - people engaged in trade and apprentices. No stranger to this business, Jeff worked for his father, Bill Fuller, who founded Abraflex Ltd., a well-known Sudbury fabrication, machining, rubber lining and moulding shop 25 years ago. Abraflex has been involved in many major mill expansions across Canada such as the Iron Ore Company of Canada's Carol Lake Mine in Labrador, Falconbridge's Raglan Mine in northern Quebec, Placer Dome's Musselwhite Mine in northwestern Ontario, as well as shipping product as far away as Kurdistan. When a company amalgamation involving some new partners didn't work out, Jeff left to start his own business. "There's no learning curve," says Fuller about his former company's track record with Inco. "They know us from our past reputation." The bulk of the work will be done in Sudbury, then shipped out to a Labrador shop where the pieces will be connected. Beyond Voisey's Bay, Fuller has his mind set on submitting bids for other mill and maintenance work projects in northwestern Ontario, Manitoba and internationally. "We're looking at an international focus, particularly with our press moulding (product), ore car suspensions and shotcrete shotcrete or gunite Concrete applied by spraying. Shotcrete is a mixture of portland cement, aggregate, and water conveyed by compressed air to a spray gun. For structural uses, shotcrete is usually sprayed over a framework of reinforcing bars and steel mesh. wear pads. "Equipment is becoming homogenous homogenous - homogeneous all over the world. Ore cars used here in Sudbury are the same as the ore cars used in Nevada and Mexico ... once you build parts for them, you can ship them anywhere," he noted. Fuller Industrial also has plans to find uses for rubber-lined pipes and products in underground gold and PGM PGM Program PGM Pragmatic General Multicast PGM Phosphoglucomutase PgM Program Manager PGM Platinum Group Metal PGM Pagemaker (software) PGM Portable Gray Map PGM Precision Guided Munition mining camps, and for forestry and municipal applications. Another Sudbury company, Novenco Consultants Ltd., remains in the running to build polymer concrete tanks for a demonstration pilot processing plant in Newfoundland. Construction of the facility is expected to begin in November, with the equipment scheduled to be installed by the fall of 2005. The plant will experiment with the viability of a hydrometallurgical hy·dro·met·al·lur·gy n. The treatment of metal or the separation of metal from ores and ore concentrates by liquid processes, such as leaching, extraction, and precipitation. processing system. www.vpnc.com www.novenco.com [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] By IAN ROSS Northern Ontario Business Northern Ontario Business is a Canadian magazine, which publishes monthly in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. The magazine covers business news and issues in Northern Ontario. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion