Mining IT: 2011 rebooted
Richard Roberts, 15 December 2011
THE past 12 months have seen two significant trends in the mining IT space that could be mirrored in 2012.
Mergers and acquisitions continued to shrink the number of key players in the sector – paradoxically enlarging the main suppliers left in the field. Meanwhile, the geographical footprint of those aspiring to be leaders in the business grew in step with customer advances into new exploration territories and mine development frontiers.
The year saw engineering giant ABB acquire Australia’s biggest mining enterprise software firm Mincom from US private equity interests, while Canada’s simulation training technology leader CAE completed its integration of Datamine to create CAE Mining. Later in the year, after Australian Securities Exchange-listed QMASTOR had completed a string of acquisitions to boost its international exposure and product range, it was swallowed up by US-based Triple Point Technology.
While it didn’t directly relate to the mining IT space, Caterpillar’s $US8 billion purchase of fellow American equipment major Bucyrus created the industry’s most extensive mine product portfolio and gave the enlarged Caterpillar mining business, including its many international dealers, an enormous global footprint. Caterpillar has invested tens of millions of dollars in technology in the past decade.
“While its effects are still being determined, we expect that the Caterpillar takeover of Bucyrus will have significant consequences for the mining industry. We expect to see a subsequent, significant push towards greater capability within Cat in the mining IT space,” said one mining software company CEO when asked about the most significant mining IT development of 2011.
“As a number of major global mining companies push towards supplier consolidation, we also anticipate an increase in merger and acquisition activity,” said MineWare CEO Andrew Jessett.
“This will be accelerated as mining companies take a longer-term approach to supplier engagement and relationships. This trend will provide more opportunity for a small number of companies, which will invariably lead to consolidation.”
ABB Mincom, CAE Mining and Triple Point Technology/QMASTOR also now wield significant financial, geographical and technological leverage capability in the sector, but then so do private-equity-owned Gemcom of Canada, and Komatsu-controlled Modular Mining Systems.
“The acquisition of Mincom by ABB signalled a significant structural shift in mining IT development, namely the convergence of information technology with operational technology,” said ABB Mincom VP global mining solutions, John Jessop.
“The mining industry is looking for step-change improvements in productivity. The critical means to achieving this change is visibility and control across the entire process – which requires a highly integrated technology platform comprising sensors, communications, control systems, management systems and planning systems. As the integration of IT and OT brings more and more information from real-time systems into IT software, these are among the key opportunities to enhance efficiency, responsiveness and profitability across the mining value chain. With the [ABB] acquisition of Mincom, miners now have a single port of call for the majority of such an integrated operating platform.”
Trent Bagnall, who now leads Triple Point’s coal and mineral supply chain solutions business, said the acquisition of QMASTOR was part of Triple Point’s strategic product plan to provide end-to-end solutions for all elements of the commodity value chain.
“Triple Point has been providing advanced software solutions to commodity and natural resource organisations for 18 years,” Bagnall said. “The company has over 600 employees and 250 clients across the globe and has been recognised by industry analysts as a leader in providing solutions for the trading, procuring, processing, moving, accounting, and risk management of commodities.”
QMASTOR had already completed several $A1 million-plus software deals in 2011 and seen its staff numbers grow from 71 to 113 during the year. Business expanded by 75% year-on-year on the back of large sales in Australia, North America and southern Africa.
Elsewhere, companies have enjoyed high rates of organic growth that underscores the increasing role of IT in helping address mining productivity, efficiency and capital utilisation issues.
MICROMINE, celebrating its 25th anniversary, opened offices in Khabarovsk and St Petersburg in Russia, and Denver, Colorado. Gemcom moved into Kolkata, India; Almaty, Kazakhstan; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Thirty-something-year-old Modular Mining Systems “expanded our global presence well beyond 500 employees” at its offices in Indonesia, India, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Australia, Russia, Africa, and global HQ, Tucson, Arizona.
South Africa’s MineRP, formerly GijimaAst Mining, put its new shingle up in Santiago, Chile and Istanbul, Turkey, complementing existing offices in South Africa, Canada and Australia. Further offices are planned in Asia, West Africa and North America during 2012.
Snowden’s 45-member technology team now has a presence in Calgary, Canada. The company has moved its UK operations to a new office in Oxford, while along with Australian offices in Perth, Brisbane and Maitland, numbers have been expanded in Johannesburg, Vancouver and Belo Horizonte.
New Zealand-based ARANZ Geo, which sells Leapfrog 3D geological modelling software, now has a presence in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Australasia after a year in which it signed corporate agreements with four of the world’s top 10 mining companies.
In a year in which it landed a $A1 million-plus mine-vehicle collision avoidance technology sale to a “major global mining client” and saw its workforce grow by 30%, Australia’s iVolve appointed new agents in South Africa, Canada and Indonesia.
CAE Mining took its regional offices to 11 when it opened an office in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, during 2011, while Mintec’s Tucson, Arizona, headquarters was bursting at the seams before the company doubled the size of the facility. It also opened a new office in London during the year and moved to bigger premises in South Africa and Western Australia.
“Europe and North Africa was the last ‘hole’ in Mintec’s map and that’s now been filled,” Mintec president John Davies said. Overall staff levels went up from 150 to 180 in 2011. “We are opening a new office in Mexico shortly to handle our large Mexican client base. Beyond that, we have an eye on a couple of other market areas that may warrant offices in the next year or two.
“Our year-on-year revenue growth for the past five years has averaged 35%, which includes a slower year in 2009 – as did everyone,” Davies said.
“That pace does not seem to be abating.
Mintec president John Davies ... hard to recall a busier year.
MICROMINE started the year with 187 employees and now has 235 employees. Chief operating officer Kevin Fitzpatrick says this could grow to 280 by the middle of next year.
“We are expecting the unprecedented growth we have experienced to continue,” he said.
“The past year has been our best for acquiring new contracts.
“MICROMINE’s UK office experienced a phenomenal increase [in revenue] of 265% in FY10-11. For this same period, Indonesia experienced a growth of 204%, South Africa 123%, Russia 103%, Kazakhstan 83% and Australia 50%.”
Major Pitram mine control and management reporting solution deployments with Gold Fields in Ghana and Freeport Grasberg in Indonesia were highlights of 2011, along with being inducted into the Industry and Export Awards Hall of Fame in its home state of Western Australia.
Gemcom president and CEO Rick Moignard said the company achieved 35% growth in revenue yoy for FY11, while its permanent employee headcount rose 15% to 350 during calendar 2011.
“The most exciting IT development for Gemcom in 2011 was the release of our Gemcom Hub data management solution that centralises, synchronises, and enables the sharing of mining data from drillholes to mine planning output,” Moignard said.
“Customer momentum” with Gemcom InSite (production and plant data capture) adoption and a deal with Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation to standardise globally on Gemcom’s software were other highlights of the year.
Modular Mining Systems VP sales and marketing Mike Lewis said 2011 was a record year for the company in terms of overall revenue and growth.
“We remain very optimistic about the future,” he said.
“Modular’s growth is coming equally from new mines implementing our systems, and expansion of our solution ranges at existing customers. Our position within the Komatsu and Rio Tinto autonomous agreement is also a major reason for optimism towards future growth.
“Modular has had numerous significant new sales that involved our entire IntelliMine integrated asset management suite, including fleet management, mine maintenance, machine guidance, proximity detection, and fatigue management. It would be difficult to single out one individual transaction, though several come to mind, for example a new oil sands customer in Canada, a large coal producer in Indonesia, and a multi-mine installation in Peru. Sales to our existing customer base have steadily increased as a result of mine expansions and the adoption of productivity and safety solutions.”
In South Africa the former GijimaAST Mining, now MineRP, expanded to 210 people and recorded 25% revenue growth in the first half of FY12. After specialising for years in precious metal underground mining with its Mine2-4D, EPS and MineCAD solutions, VP marketing Empie Strydom said MineRP had won significant contracts in the opencut and base metals sectors during 2011.
“Our outlook for 2012 is very optimistic,” he said.
“MineRP signed two $US3-4 million projects during 2011, both representing first phases of consolidation and spatial integration of mining technical solutions using the latest evolution of [MineRP’s] SpatialDB.
“The mining industry’s … mobility drive does not only involve serving reports over the web, but requires the ability to view, manipulate and even create mining data in real time and in three dimensions. MineRP’s SpatialDB and SpatialDash solutions play unswervingly in this market.”
Another smaller firm growing rapidly, Western Australian-based acQuire, went from 102 employees to more than 120 during the year and anticipates revenue growth of about 25% for 2011, “bringing our growth to over 300% in the last five years”, according to CEO Warren Cook.
“Considering our business development opportunity pipeline, I can’t but expect the outlook for 2012 to be optimistic,” he said. “Even with this expectation, we are cautious considering the financial uncertainty in the US and Eurozone. We have strategies in place to weather another GFC storm if it does eventuate.”
In terms of new product development acQuire introduced acQuire Neo in September 2011, the first acQuire product released under its project Mica banner. acQuire Neo is an application designed to enable rapid discovery of data stored in an acQuire Geoscientific Information Management System (GIMS).
“Project Mica is the codename for the next generation of acQuire products that leverage off modern programming interfaces such as the Microsoft.Net framework,” Cook said.
Reflecting its international expansion, acquire held three international GIMS conferences in Calgary, Johannesburg and Perth in 2011 and plans to hold the events in Accra, Brisbane and Santiago next year.
Over in Denver, Colorado, Maptek CEO Barry Henderson said the 30-year-old Australian company had marked its latest anniversary with a record year “in all Maptek lines of business”.
“Our revenue growth rate globally will come in at over 50% for the calendar year,” he said. “The outlook for 2012 and beyond looks optimistic.”
Maptek started 2011 with 287 employees and now has 327, including 163 in Australia, 78 in South America, 68 in North America and 18 covering the Europe/Africa market.
A key growth area for the company is its I-Site scanner mine survey equipment.
“This year, two large coal entities in North America and Australia each ordered seven systems for use across their sites,” Henderson said. “Within the survey category, I-Site 8800 technology stands out by combining high precision survey with 3D digital photography and the most powerful point cloud processing and modelling software.”
Maptek opened new offices in Delhi, India in May and Calgary, Canada in November. In March 2011, PT Globecon began offering Vulcan sales and services as Maptek agent from offices in Jakarta and Kalimantan.
Also in the December 15 - 21, 2011 edition
- AFRICA
- Eritrea risk narrows Zara field
- ASIA DESK
- Not all good as gold in China
- AUSTMINE
- MST buys Nixon Communications
- BREAKING NEWS
- Abenab progress for Avonlea
- Alara advances
- Alcoa declares divi
- Alcyone search boost
- Better news for St Barb
- Black Fire complies
- Bu Dun Hua copper
- Chief sees higher rating for Endeavour
- Cockatoo extension
- Impala sacks drillers
- Industrea win
- Kingston shines
- Maiden Rosie resource
- More Bass trouble
- More concerns on uranium supply
- Nany option exercised
- Newcrest output up
- Palito reassessment
- Pegasus finds copper
- PGM output up
- Radar on track
- Redhill expands holding
- Rio in control
- River attraction for Silver Lake
- Southern Cross ready to move forward
- Stonehenge sets sights high
- Straits gain
- Strategic permit
- Tanoyan update for Reliance
- Trafford's exploration boost
- Two Rivers death
- Ventnor copper hits
- WA uranium policy
- West Rand mines to merge
- Windfall at lake
- Winmar attracts investor
- Yellowhead on track
- CENTRAL ASIA
- Can miners really side-step a war?
- COAL
- Mardon's new year wish
- CONSULTING
- Consultants see room to grow in 2012
- Lory leads SKM mining into new growth phase
- CONTRACTING
- Contracting briefs: Redpath, Thiess, Decmil
- FINANCE
- A golden path to Dubbo development
- Copper deficit a fixture for the future
- Kagara opts for safety first
- Money’s almost too tight to mention
- Terramin view expected to become clearer
- FORUM
- How the JORC and Valmin codes work
- More must buy into JORC discussion
- FROM THE CAPITAL
- Capital management will be key 2012 theme
- GOLD
- Loyal to the cause
- Upside seen despite Teranga downslide
- HEAVY METAL
- Atlas Copco expands mining range
- ISSUES
- State-run miners: best of a bad bunch
- MINING
- Independence gloom unwarranted
- MINING INTELLIGENCE
- 'tis the season (still) to be wary
- MINING IT
- Auto-money changes everything
- Innovation is the new black
- IT notebook: ARANZ Geo, Immersive Technologies
- IT notebook: Devex receives certification
- IT optimists
- Mining IT: product releases to fill 2012 calendar
- XPAC to lead dynamic software revival
- PEOPLE
- People on the move: Gindalbie Metals, Abcourt Mines, Carbon Energy
- SOUTH AMERICA
- Chili backers like its prospects
- VIEW FROM THE WEST END
- Bitten on the bum by a Black Swan
