Container World finds lucrative export market in Africa

ALAN PEAT
DESPITE A wildly fluctuating supply market in the last two years, Container World has continued its market growth – with both domestic and export, supply and conversion sales growing. There are two main driving forces behind this on-going success, according to GM Barron Charsley. “The first,” he told FTW, “is the quality of our product, tied in with the sheer cost-efficiency of a standard or converted container unit compared to the now high cost of a permanent structure – and adding the mobility factor of containers as another plus.” The second is from Container World’s more than 20-year history – during which time it has conceived, designed and constructed thousands of specialised conversions. These have varied from basic storage, office, accom­modation and ablution units through fully-fitted libraries, clinics, kitchens, shops, work­shops and test rooms to the more complex industrial machine control rooms, high-security car-carrying railway wagons for Spoornet, and water filtration units. “We also have a long-term speciality in reefer (refrigerated) container supply and conversion,” said Charsley. “In this, we offer standard cold rooms for perishable storage and sales units – with a particular emphasis on the retail and wholesale, agricultural and fishing industries. “But we also supply blast freezers for the high-speed refrigeration of goods.” Exports have also been an area of singular focus for Container World, with the entire African continent as its market. Here it has supplied single units from its unlimited range of conversion types, to complete worker townships. “There have been three recent examples of these multi­ple unit orders,” Charsley said. One was for the worker team following the construction of an oil pipeline running 1 150-kilometres across Cameroon and a second was a large base camp for the construction and operation of Sasol’s natural gas pipeline running from the production site in southern Mozambique to the SA distribution at Sasol in Secunda.