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Afrilog provides comprehensive supply management and inventory management services to not only meet but also anticipate the demands of the group’s highly specialised clientele, which includes mining and industrial companies.

70 YEARS AS A TOP 10 TRANSPORT COMPANY
Afrilog belongs to the CSTT-AO group of companies, which has been involved in logistics in West Africa for almost 70 years and ranks among the top 10 transport firms in the region, under the leadership of chairman and CEO, Lamine Gueye.

The CSTT-AO group of companies shares a common goal to be the leading independent African service provider, specialising in supply chain management and integrated logistics solutions, operating globally.

A COMPLETE END-TO-END SOLUTION FOR THE CONTINENT
It is through this shared vision, as well as the extensive experience of the Afrilog team on the African content, that they are able to provide a complete solution that focuses on:

• Providing an international, integrated procurement and logistics solution for the inland, ocean and air transportation of containerised, break-bulk, hazardous and dimensional heavy-lift project cargo around the world
• Offering end-to-end management of the supply chain, including warehouse management
• Ensuring the seamless movement of cargo across the continent, made possible through sound relationships with reputable agents and extensive worldwide operational experience on the best practices to employ in receiving and routing consignments to project sites.

The company adds value to clients operating in unfamiliar territory by:

• Accessing remote areas of Africa
• Navigating the lay of the land
• Getting the right equipment or cargo, to the right place, in a timely and cost-effective manner.

CORE SERVICE OFFERING
Procurement
Afrilog’s world-class strategic procurement infrastructure delivers cost-effective and efficient business processes.

The company partners with reputable local suppliers to help businesses prosper and gain a competitive advantage in an uncertain landscape. In the absence of the required local skills, Afrilog also procures appropriate international talent and assists clients to establish a presence in Africa.

Logistics solutions and services
Afrilog ensures the safe and efficient movement of goods.

Groupage services
Afrilog offers international groupage consolidation services by air, sea and road, which ensures cost-effective and secure solutions to both small and large shipments.

Their other groupage services include freight forwarding, freight negotiations and charter sourcing.

Consulting and support services
Afrilog integrates their systems with their clients’ existing infrastructures, allowing concurrent real-time access to the tracking and tracing of goods.

Underpinning all of their offerings is comprehensive project management as well as world-class customer service. The company is driven to meet and exceed their clients’ expectations.

EXTENSIVE LOCAL EXPERIENCE FOR SEAMLESS SOLUTIONS
Afrilog has a wealth of local experience that enables a seamless supply-chain management solution, moving cargo from global suppliers to the project site. Their global footprint allows them to offer the widest possible supply chain solutions for their clients.

Their head office is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, where client relations are managed on a global scale. Several offices have also been established throughout Africa, France and Belgium.

A PREMIUM STORAGE AND DISTRIBUTION CENTRE FOR WEST AFRICA
A sound understanding of the African continent and the challenges faced by many of their clients’ operations in West Africa led to Afrilog creating what is known today as the African Logistics Platform.

The platform is every supplier’s answer to having an in-country presence in West Africa – bringing suppliers and their products closer to their clients and thereby, reinforcing the capacity of the supply chain.

Situated on the border of Senegal and Mali, the African Logistics Platform is a premium storage and distribution facility for suppliers and manufacturers within the mining and heavy industries and affiliates.

With a 5 000 m² consumables warehouse and a 2 000 m² open storage facility built to international standards, the African Logistics Platform provides suppliers with an in-country presence to supply and move stock speedily.

LET AFRILOG TAKE CARE OF YOUR NEEDS
Contact Afrilog to streamline your business, reduce costs and expedite your success. For more information on how Afrilog can do so through cost-effective business solutions, visit www.afrilog.com today, where you will also be able to read more on their successful client case studies and referrals.

Testament to Afrilog’s excellent service is the following comment from Ken Green, group supply manager of Randgold Resources: ‘An appreciation for and identification of our needs, together with a passion to achieve excellence, sets Afrilog in a league of their own as a service provider, and serves to cement a relationship that has lasted for many years, and will continue to do so.’

Tel: +27 (0)11 021 5230
[email protected]
www.afrilog.com

There is a need for more lawyers that are able to represent the growing energy sector, be that in environmental practice or regulatory compliance and downstream project agreements, says Barrisford Petersen, BBP Law founder and MD. ‘This is a landscape that is going to be in constant flux, given the constant development of new technologies in the energy sector, which makes this aspect of the law very compelling.’

As devoted as he may have been over the past few years, in presenting a strong argument for oil and gas to have its own legislation and, therefore, be removed from the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) of South Africa, – Petersen has decided to diversify the BBP Law practice and include the whole energy sector in the provision of legal services.

‘The writing was on the wall even as far back as 20 years ago,’ he says. ‘The oil and gas industry has been through innumerable difficulties, and as long as it remains regulated in its current manner under the MPRDA, we will not be considered by multinationals as a viable investment destination for exploration, let alone production.

‘With proposals and amendments on the table for the past four years, we are no further from the starting point.’

Such frustration has provided new opportunities for BBP Law, and Petersen is excited by the addition of energy to its portfolio of specialised legal services. With energy matters reflected more today, given worldwide calls for reductions in carbon emissions and growing power demands, South Africa’s environmental acts appear to be more concise and appropriate, providing the legal profession with improved clarification and clearer interpretation than the MPRDA.

Following recent appointments to the legal panels of the Department of Public Enterprises, Saldanha Bay Municipality, PetroSA, Engen, SA Forestries Company Limited and the Independent Electoral Commission, there is now a need for BBP Law – with its team of bright, young lawyers and the support of more seasoned attorneys – to focus its presence and activities on the instructions of these panel appointments, so that they can grow in experience.

With diversification into energy, the practice has employed a number of newly qualified lawyers who, together with Petersen’s son, Brent (who was recently admitted as an attorney), are well set to service this sector and BBP Law’s expanded legal services.

‘Our senior attorneys are mentoring and developing the juniors, and I see them advancing our diversified portfolio of legal services.’

While oil and gas remain his passion, right now Petersen is content to focus on ensuring a good, diversified legal practice, ‘one that works in resources’ and has a reputation for advancing the views of his clients within the parameters of regulation.

If this means he needs to pick up his sword and challenge the country’s energy policies as he does with oil and gas, he will do so, ‘as often as it takes to ensure we have legal frameworks that our investors and clients – both local and international, can work within’, he says.

Petersen adds that there is lots to be excited about in terms of how power could be generated in South Africa in the future, even currently. ‘There are very stimulating opportunities, not least of which is the importation of liquefied natural gas [LNG].’

LNG projects have the capacity to underpin exploration and production of indigenous gas, which could alleviate South Africa’s dependence on coal. The proposed LNG-to-power programmes will have at least two industrial ports producing some 3 000 MW that would be sold to the national grid supplier Eskom, which will alleviate, if not solve extensively, the energy demand-versus-supply failures that it has been experiencing over the past decade.

‘LNG development has been offered to independent power producers and, should trajectories prove true, by 2040 LNG-to-power expansion will lead us into shale gas and deepwater offshore field creation,’ according to Petersen.

Shale gas, however, comes with its own set of problems. ‘While there have been uncertain legislative delays in the commitment to shale gas exploration, we need to keep pushing this. Largely the challenges relate to environmental impacts, and highlight the concerns of action groups – like the Karoo Action Group – that oppose shale-gas mining through fracking, in particular the consequences of which are cited as harmful public health issues.’

Petersen says that, fundamentally, the base building blocks to solving these problems lie in legislation and how to mitigate environmental risks at grass-roots level.

‘If there was lots more investment in shale gas right now, the landscape would be very different because legislators would be under pressure to push for amendments,’ he says, adding that it’s similar to the oil and gas predicament. ‘If regulations are enabling, investment would be flooding in. In some ways, shale gas is like the icing and the cherry on a cake, but without the cake itself.’

Further compounding the dilemma is that the cheapest form of energy delivery in the country currently is coal, but as Petersen points out, the majority of countries that advocate for the non-use of the commodity are those that have environmental challenges, and ironically may have already over-utilised the resource.

‘I believe that given we already use coal effectively to generate energy, and should we begin to manage it more effectively, we can continue to use this abundant resource, and realise cost-effectiveness. But the country is a signatory on mitigating carbon emissions, and rightly so. Therefore I’m not sure how we can solve this problem.’

Which brings us right back to gas. ‘The best form of domestic energy in terms of environmental impact is gas. It is obviously always better to source your commodity locally than to bring it in, but this takes us into the regulatory framework debacle, which I have been fighting for decades and will continue to do. It’s a catch-22 – we just keep going around and around.’

Petersen believes the solution lies with having independent oil producers partnering with the state through a hybrid of production- sharing contracts. The incentives, he says, will allow more royalty income and tax relief. He provides a simple formula, and one that he has presented to the relevant authorities many times.

‘Exploration can be encouraged by permitting a greater and/or accelerated cost recovery, and the oil barrel split can be negotiated between the oil company and the government. What is then being given away is a proportional share of the barrel and not a national heritage. The state will always own its resources.’

This formula mimics that of many African countries that have separated oil and gas from their mining legislation, so it’s not that South Africa doesn’t have case studies it can refer to. It’s a fact too, according to Petersen, that many multinationals seem to prefer operating in other African states where there is a good fit in the fiscal regime for their exploration activities.

‘South Africa is really losing out. Not only have we gone too far down the oil and gas rabbit hole in terms of legislation, but we have also been impacted as a consequence of the global oil price.’

Subsidies would help. As it is, the government has been indirectly subsidising the production of renewable energy, such as wind and solar farms but, while this has been successful, Petersen points out that on a cost per KW, it is still cheaper to focus on gas, particularly domestic gas.

BEE and beneficiation will also be advanced through an enabling legislative environment, let alone employment opportunities and skills development. This is an aspect BBP Law is devoted to, given its Level 1 BEE status.

Tel: +27 (0)21 913 1384
Fax: +27 (0)86 691 4998
[email protected]
www.bbplaw.co.za

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The majority of JSE-listed companies are multimillion-rand entities with significant geographic footprints and multiple suppliers and clients, which results in a diverse set of risks all along the value chain. These risks need to be quantified and transferred to an insurer for a monthly or annual premium. As part of ensuring the overall health and continuity of a public company, risk management is a requirement, especially in light of economic volatility, as well as the increasing frequency and severity of climate change and ongoing cyberthreats. To follow are essential insights and risk-specific insurance options.

‘Like a change in the weather, business disruption is inevitable,’ says Quinten Matthew, executive head for specialist business at Santam. ‘Protecting fixed, moveable and people assets is critical. We’ve seen dramatic increases in natural catastrophes recently and from our experience, businesses that use insurance to mitigate climate change risks are more likely to survive disruption.’

Santam’s interim results for the six months to June 2017 showed an 8% growth in gross written premiums for specialist business. In the period under review, the underwriting performance of the commercial and corporate property classes came under pressure after an increase in large corporate property claims – tough economic times often filter through to claims as maintenance and safety standards are compromised. ‘For the rest of the year, we will be expanding capacity in the areas of risk management and surveying, with our under-writing and risk management actions focused on the commercial and corporate property classes of business,’ according to Matthew.

In addition to business interruption insurance, cyber insurance is also becoming a necessity for just about any business. The ubiquitous nature of technology has catalysed a correlating rise in exposure to online threats. During 2017, numerous organisations – from governments to NGOs to giant multinationals – have been targeted (and infiltrated) by hackers.

In September, Equifax (a credit rating agency based in the US) was the target of a cyberattack that resulted in the credit records and personal information of almost half of America’s population being exposed – an indictment of the company’s online security controls.

Regardless of the industry, it seems that all companies now face cyber risks. Cisco’s mid-year Cyber Security Report, which included a survey of nearly 3 000 security leaders across 13 countries, revealed that even in the most responsive industries (such as finance and healthcare), businesses are mitigating less than 50% of cyberattacks they know are legitimate.

Of the cyberthreats investigated within the public sector, 32% were identified as legitimate, but only 47% of these were eventually remediated. Among the retailers interviewed, 32% said they lost revenue due to attacks in the past year, with about a quarter losing customers or business opportunities.

With a multitude of specialist insurance options available, Matthew says it’s about determining which offering strategically aligns with a business’ working risk model. He advises all JSE-listed entities to obtain property and casualty cover as protection against the cost of physical loss or damage to buildings. Additionally, he suggests third-party liability cover and the advance loss of profit coverage to dispel the effect of business interruptions. Being adequately protected is vital for companies looking to expand across Africa, as each country presents a different set of risks.

Santam has an expansive footprint throughout the continent and engages with companies and projects across all sectors. Following the acquisition of RMB Structured Insurance (now called Santam Structured Insurance), and coupled with its vast footprint and tailored skills, the company has incorporated specialist regulation-compliant expertise to cater for an extensive range of risk mitigation and transfer capabilities.

The pricing of specialist insurance to cover JSE-listed entities is subject to the comprehensiveness of the risk analysis conducted, which can require political and social risk-mapping assessments depending on a company’s scope and scale, as well as its risk culture and appetite.

‘Business resiliency starts with effective risk management, and specialist insurance is the key to long-term survival,’ says Matthew. According to the 2017 PwC Risk in Review survey – a global study of corporate officers across 30 industries and spanning more than 80 countries – aligning risk management with strategy at the point of decision-making is critical in enabling organisations to react faster to risks and disruptions. Decision-makers are advised to embed risk management into both strategic planning and tactical execution.

Building 2, 11 Alice Lane,
Sandton, 2196
Tel: +27 (0)11 912 8000
www.santam.co.za

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On any given day, more than 8 billion mobile devices are powering up and connecting people around the world. No matter where or who you are, your mobile phone is a lifeline – keeping you in touch with work, family, information and entertainment on the go.

However, all that talking, texting, searching and posting takes power. It’s also not always easy to find a wall plug to charge up. And in excess of 3 billion people in the world either cannot afford electricity or simply can’t access it via the traditional grid.

Even if you are lucky enough to have abundant access to the grid, chances are high that you have had at least one instance where your phone battery died when you needed it most. Indeed, without a source of dependable power, the mobile revolution will fizzle out rather quickly.

Enter US-headquartered SunStream Energy, a fledgling newcomer determined to provide everyone under the sun with the highest-quality solar charging solution for mobile phones, batteries and other devices.

BORN IN AFRICA. MADE IN THE US
Company founder John Anderson made it his life’s work to develop a reliable solar solution after a pivotal trip to Uganda in 2011. While there, he witnessed energy poverty first-hand and realised the potential of mobile connectivity to create upward mobility.

With a background in solar module manufacturing, Anderson was asked to help people in Uganda with a solar-powered cooking device. He successfully developed a current strong enough to boil water using solar PV instead of solar heat, yet he was surprised by the response of the villagers when they asked him if the cooking system would be able to charge their mobile phones. They explained that having a connected phone was of the utmost importance as it enabled people to communicate with family, call for help if needed and conduct business. Initially, Anderson was sceptical – weren’t there products on the market already that fulfilled this need? The villagers assured him there wasn’t anything available that was reliable or durable enough to work consistently. So Anderson went back to his two-car garage in Colorado and focused on making a small, portable solar panel that would work for the larger market.

Anderson says that it was a wild ride in the beginning, but they kept building and learned from every failure.

Eventually, they were ticking boxes on functionality. As fast as a wall plug? Check. Works underwater? Check. Fits in a pocket? Check.

On 6 March 2013, Anderson charged a smartphone with a SunStream panel. Fast-forward to today, where the products – made in the US – are on shelves across Africa.

BUILT TO LAST
SunStream arguably makes the most durable and reliable solar chargers on the market. Their products are inspired by an enabling mission – to offer people a way to stay safe and connected everywhere, every day.

The result is revolutionary solar technology that streams electricity directly into devices, even in the harshest outdoor conditions. SunStream panels are portable, drop-proof, waterproof, and they’re able to charge many devices as fast as a wall plug.

A NEW KIND OF SOLAR
Other solar products require internal electronics, such as a chipset, circuit board, inverter or other charge controller to create energy. This results in an automatic loss of usable energy. SunStream panels are different.

With chipset-free charging, SunStream’s technology converts sunlight into electricity instantaneously at a 99% throughput rate, making it the most efficient and reliable portable solar panel on the market.

It’s also the first technology in the world to combine two extremely difficult international compliance standards into one unit. The technology is both USB 2.0 DCP-compliant and has a UL 1703 PV module certification.

The company was granted a US Patent and Trademark Office utility patent for the core power methodology innovation in July 2015, and has been given 47 design patents throughout the world.

Block B, Agri-Hub, 4,
77 Witherite Road, Pretoria,
0184, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0)12 007 1500
[email protected]
www.sunstreamenergy.com

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