About Us

A South African chrome producer built for global supply.

Founded by operators who know that chrome is won as much in the haul cycle as at the wash plant — we control the chain end to end.

Vel Mining is a proud member of the Vel Holdings Group. We are primarily a wash plant operation — washing crushed chrome material from 24% Cr₂O₃ upwards into a 40–42% Cr₂O₃ concentrate suitable for international foundry and ferrochrome customers. Alongside our primary crushed feed, we recover crusher sweepings — fine material from crushing and screening operations that most operators write off — and wash it into saleable product.

We went straight into a 102 tons per hour wash plant, with a scale-up to 120 tons per hour inside 3 months and a second 120 tph plant scheduled within 12 months — taking group capacity to 240 tph, alongside a complete FOB option with in-house packaging out of City Deep.

We also specialise in tailings treatment from 12% Cr₂O₃ upwards, offered either as a 50/50 split on recovered product or a flat treatment fee depending on the quality of the tailings supplied.

We are intentionally vertically integrated. A sister logistics company operates a side-tipper fleet purpose-built for chrome haulage — meaning the same team that mines and beneficiates your concentrate is the team that delivers it to the rail siding or port. The result is a tighter, more accountable supply chain for buyers.

Vel Mining crew on site at the Mooinooi wash plant at dusk

On the Ground

Operators, not spectators.

Our leadership is on site — alongside the contractors, fabricators, and plant crew building Mooinooi seam by seam. Every decision is made within earshot of the spirals.

Leadership

Jared Govender

Founder & Managing Director

Jared Govender is an engineer, industrial strategist, and the vision behind Vel Mining. Armed with a foundational background in engineering, Jared approaches the commodities and extractive sectors through a lens of strict technical efficiency, first-principles logic, and aggressive operational optimization.

As Founder and Managing Director, he leads Vel Mining’s strategic expansion across sub-Saharan Africa — spearheading high-yield gold ventures in West Africa alongside heavy industrial chrome processing and bulk commodity logistics operations within South Africa. Jared specializes in taking complex, capital-intensive infrastructure projects from raw concept to high-efficiency execution, ensuring every vertical under the Vel umbrella operates at peak technical and financial standard.

Driven by a commitment to operational excellence and technological integration, Jared is focused on building a resilient, vertically integrated industrial legacy that moves African resources with world-class efficiency.

Karthikayan Domodaran

Co-Owner & Strategic Director

Karthikayan Domodaran is a veteran business master with more than three decades of commercial leadership. As Co-Owner and Strategic Director, he shapes Vel Mining’s long-term commercial architecture — how the group earns, where it invests, and which markets it commits tonnage to.

His core mandate is building Vel Mining’s international value chain: connecting South African chrome production directly to smelters, foundries, and trading houses across India, China, and the wider Asian market, and structuring the offtake, financing, and logistics arrangements that make those relationships durable rather than transactional.

Thirty years of negotiating across cultures and cycles gives Karthikayan a rare instinct for timing, counterparty risk, and margin — ensuring every ton Vel produces is placed where it creates the most value for the group and its partners.

Management Team

The people running the plant, the pit, and the book.

John Meyer

Operations Controller

John brings over 22 years across the mining, engineering and petrochemical sectors, with deep specialisation in chrome processing. He has personally owned and operated three chrome wash plants, and designed, built, commissioned and optimised more than eight across South Africa. At Vel he controls operations day to day — plant availability, throughput, yield recovery and production performance — closing the gap between what the circuit delivers and what the plan promised.

Jean Pierre

Strategic Operations Manager

Jean Pierre translates Vel Mining's growth plan into daily execution. He owns the operating rhythm across the wash plant, tailings circuit, and haulage schedule — sequencing feed, plant availability, and dispatch so that tonnage commitments are met without stockpile surprises. His focus is throughput discipline: measuring where hours and units are lost, and closing those gaps shift by shift as the plant ramps from 102 tph toward 120 tph and beyond.

Chandan Meyer

Production Manager

Chandan is the plant master. He runs the beneficiation circuit hands-on — feed ratios, water balance, spiral splits, and screen performance — and is accountable for grade, yield, and recovery on every shift. Having grown up on chrome plants, he reads a circuit by sound and sight before the numbers confirm it, and he leads the production crew that keeps the 102 tph plant and the tailings re-treatment line running at spec.

Dean le Roux

Business Development Manager

Dean is Vel Mining's sales specialist, responsible for acquiring new customers and retaining existing offtakers, traders, and tailings clients. He manages the commercial pipeline from first enquiry through to repeat tonnage, and doubles as site administrator and data capturer — owning production records, dispatch documentation, and the reporting that gives buyers and management a clean, verifiable view of every load.

Camden Xavier

Site Manager & Qualified Fitter

Camden runs the site and keeps the iron turning. A qualified fitter by trade, he leads maintenance, mechanical installation, and breakdown response across pumps, spirals, conveyors, and screens — with a preventative maintenance regime built to protect plant availability. He also carries site discipline: contractor coordination, safety compliance, and housekeeping standards across the Mooinooi operation.