Johannesburg — INTERNATIONAL mining services company Amec is poised to expand strongly in Africa after its acquisition of Minproc, an Australian-based company with operations in SA.

Tony Cruddas, Amec's president responsible for growth regions, said yesterday the R710m takeover, completed last November, would give Amec "a foothold into the rest of Africa".

Cruddas saw particular potential for expansion in west Africa, although AMEC was also interested in "new discoveries in places like Uganda".

Although it has a presence in more than 40 countries, London Stock Exchange-listed Amec has so far had mining operations only in the Americas. Its arrival in SA was "earlier than planned", said Cruddas.

"But in Minproc we saw an opportunity to go into Australia and SA at the same time."

The new entity, to be known as Amec Minproc, was positioned to expand into providing services to the coal and iron-ore mining industries in Africa, said MD Colin Kubank.

"With a larger company like Amec available to us, we will have a greater depth of resources available for big projects. So far Minproc has been mainly a mineral processing and technology company, but we now have access to environmental scientists, geologists and so forth. We can now offer services across the full value chain of mining development."

Amec Minproc was likely to benefit from rising commodity prices. "A lot of our work is for junior mining companies; that side is still struggling, but the situation is improving, and there's a view that stability is returning to the market. We're seeing more enquiries coming through for feasability study work."