The Companies provide a single source of expertise and services in all aspects of alluvial mining.  OCIE has its roots in Osborne & Chappel (O&C).  O&C was started by British engineers in Malaysia in the 1890’s and was in the forefront in the development of the alluvial mining industry in Malaysia. The Company was responsible for the management of more than ten public listed tin mining and dredging companies. The total earth movement of these companies was in excess of 20 million cu m per annum.

In 1976, the Company, in its effort to widen and provide its range of services to meet the needs of the mining industry in all parts of the world, exported its technical expertise on an international scale. In 1977 the Company was awarded a major overseas contract from the World Bank for the design, management and construction of a tin-tungsten expansion project in Myanmar, which included the supply of a bucketline dredge.

Osborne & Chappel became the managing partner of the OCP Group in 1978, following a corporate amalgamation of the Company’s overseas business with F W Payne & Son of the United Kingdom. F W Payne & Son (incorporated around 1900) is a major design engineering company, specializing in the design of bucketline dredges. Most of the modern bucketline dredges operating in Malaysia and Indonesia were designed by F W Payne & Son. The formation of the OCP Group was an integration of complimentary expertise under a single management to provide a comprehensive range of services for the alluvial mining industry worldwide.

Through a management restructure in 1987, the OCP Group now operates as OCI Engineering (OCIE) and Osborne & Chappel Mining and Dredging (OCMD).  Over the years OCIE has supplied many dredges, mining and treatment plants and services, some in very remote areas, for the mining and extraction of alluvial tin, gold, diamonds and heavy minerals. Each dredge or plant is specially designed to suit the deposit and owner’s requirement. The Company’s motivated workforce, mostly trained in the mining and dredging companies under OCI’s management, is very experienced and totally committed to working in developing and underdeveloped countries.