Abrasives company moves to East London to avoid Gauteng road leg

Leonard Neill
THE ENTIRE abrasives section of the 3M plant at Elandsfontein in Gauteng has moved to a new site on East London’s West Bank to meet the demands of the motor industry which absorbs the bulk of the products manufactured.
3M has awarded the sole manufacturing and distribution rights to a black-empowerment group, Ikhwezi Abrasives, who are now operating the R35million East London facility. Ikhwezi will manufacture and distribute the range of 3M abrasive materials and the household Scotchbrite brands from the plant.
The move enables the new company to import raw materials directly from the US to East London without the need to have these transported by road or rail to 3M’s inland manufacturing plant. Finished products are then taken up by the auto industry, with DaimlerChrysler and BMW the major customers.
Ikhwezi took over a disused factory and warehouse on the West Bank which had belonged to Baldwins Steel. In a move which took four months, starting in July, they transported the entire abrasives production equipment unit from Elandsfontein on low bed trucks to the new site, which had been bought by Bitflow Investments, a company established by industrialists Willie Gauss and Geoff Shone. Gauss is an Ikhwezi shareholder.
“The establishment of the East London plant in four months from outset is little short of a miracle,” says Ikhwezi Abrasives managing director Pieter Bosch. “The first finished products have already been exported.”