The MegChem way: long-term support well beyond project scope.
African Fusion visits MegChem/SecMet in Centurion, Pretoria and talks to Andrew Seebregts, the company’s principal welding engineer, and Ronald Koenis, business unit manager for metallurgical engineering.
MegChem and SecMet have been supporting clients in various business environments ranging from petrochemical, Oil & Gas, Energy to mining, processing and other heavy industries.
“In the mid 90s, Sasol initiated a management buy-out process which resulted in the start up of MegChem and SecMet as independent service providers to the petrochemical industry,” Seebregts says. Then, in 1997, MegChem bought SecMet and, although the SecMet name was retained for trading purposes, it was run as a division of MegChem.
“Until July 2016 when we approached MegChem management to reintroduce SecMet as an independently run entity,” continues Koenis. “Now, although we are still fully owned by MegChem Holdings, we have been operational since July 2017 as an independent company. This gives us the distinct advantage of being able to focus more widely on metallurgical quality and forensic work, with MegChem focusing on the mechanical and project engineering side of the business,” he informs African Fusion.
MegChem’s offering and successes
MegChem’s primary expertise is mechanical, process engineering and project management. “Our in-house mechanical and piping drafting offices can produce detailed fabrication drawings, isometric drawings and process flow sheets for both refurbishment and new-build projects,” says Seebregts.
“MegChem has the ability to execute EPC and EPCm projects, from a brief provided by our clients and all the way up to commissioning: conceptual engineering, feasibility studies, basic engineering, detail engineering, specifications and procurement and construction.“
“We have approximately 300 employees on board, of whom 80 are qualified engineers with more than 1100 man-years of engineering experience between them,” he notes.
Due to its roots, MegChem’s Process Engineering and Design services for the petrochemical and chemical industries is particularly strong. “As well as front-end process design and integration across engineering disciplines, we can offer problem identification and resolution by applying advanced techniques – finite element analysis (FEA); fatigue analysis and much more.” Seebregts continues.
“We have significant experience in process plant and equipment design and we offer one-stop, phased-approach project execution, which includes commissioning assistance,” he adds.
Facilities for developing and draughting engineering flow sheets and process diagrams – process flow (PFDs), mechanical flow (MFDs) or piping and instrumentation (P&IDs) diagrams – are all available and, with respect to business support, MegChem’s process teams can assist clients through conceptual process engineering studies to the development of new processes and products or the upgrading and optimization of existing plant with respect to efficiency and throughput.
“Our plant support activities include rendering process engineering services to the mechanical engineering, maintenance and production functions …
The article can be found on the African Fusion website..