Sofremines - Mining Engineering and Project Management

Created in 1955, SOFREMINES - The Société Française d'Etudes Minières is specialised in mining engineering, operating from France and Nigeria with a branch office in Jordan and a subsidiary in Tunisia. SOFREMINES is specialised in the mining industries whatever type of ore is concerned inlcuding: coal, lignite, iron ore, lead, zinc, gold, copper, nickel, uranium, phosphate rock, potash, salt, etc.

Our services cover all mining fields:

• Evaluation of deposits
• Underground and opencast mining
• Ores preparation and beneficiation
• Handling
• Storage and transport of ores and bulky materials underground and on the surface
• Industrial infrastructures
• Utilities
• Workshops
• Stores
• Social infrastructures and mining townships
• Mining and minerals economics
• Technical assistance
• Vocational training and transfer of technologies
• Technical and economic audits

The company has successfully supplied its services in over 80 countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia, Oceania, Latin America and North America.

MINING ENGINEERING - BANKABLE FEASIBILITY STUDIES

• Market studies
• Impact studies
• Human resources
• Process pre-selection
• Site selection
• Due process
• Initial estimate of capital outlay and operating costs
• Financial and economic studies

SCOPING STUDIES - PRELIMINARY MINING PROJECTS

• Final process selection
• Conceptual studies
• Layout and logistic studies
• General sizing of plant and buildings
• Budget and schedule
• Organisation charts
• Financing plans
• Technical and economic audits

MINING PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION

Realisation - SOFREMINES can either provide turnkey beneficiation units or supervise their erection on behalf of its clients.

Management - a management team is set up for each project, centralising all the necessary project management skills. Each team reports to a project manager who is the client's key contact.

Basic design and detailed engineering - basic and detailed engineering are carried out within the relevant disciplines (process, handling-lifting-transport, civil, structural, mechanical, piping, utilities, power distribution, automation and instrumentation, buildings), starting out from the preliminary project data: sizing of equipment, detailed layout study, technical specifications, take off and bills of materials, quality assurance and checking of suppliers' drawings.

Procurement, budget and schedule - project schedule and budget preparation and control, estimate of cash flows and manpower requirements, purchasing (call for bids, bid appraisal, negotiation), placing orders, expediting suppliers, inspection (quality control of fabrication) and management of shipments.

Construction and commissioning - site organisation and management, assistance to start-up, on-site co-ordination of contractors, on-site cost control and schedule, quality control of plant erection, testing, provisional and final acceptance, project final documentation and as built drawings.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FOR MINING OPERATIONS

Maintenance - creation and organisation of a maintenance departments: methods, workshops, spare parts inventories.

Management and organisation - information retrieval and management systems for industrial plants: inventory control, purchasing, procurement, in-plant and external transport, accounting, production management. Monitoring of mines and beneficiation plants.

Personnel training and planning projects - the department has been studying personnel requirements for mining complexes world-wide for over a quarter of a century, defining and implementing personnel recruitment, training and forward planning schemes.

Our role is to fit qualified personnel to a job function according to a pre-set schedule.

Our scope of services covers the three main phases of a personnel planning project:

• Personnel planning study,
• Setting up recruitment and training structure,
• Recruitment and training

More than 10,000 persons have been recruited and trained under these programs. A special attention is dedicated to the training of foremen / supervisors which are the key personnel for a successful industrial project.