New Austmine board members Stuart Ratcliffe, Elizabeth Lewis-Gray Steve Hall. and Andrew Gray are upbeat about the year ahead for the organisation and its members, and are determined to help confront issues facing a sector that has become a multi-billion-dollar economic powerhouse.Recent attendance at South Africa’s premier annual mining investment conference, Indaba, and the vast North American diggers-and-dealers show that is PDAC, have boosted confidence in the outlook for Australian mining technology and service companies.
“A significant proportion of the companies at an event like PDAC are developing projects and mines in countries where Austmine wants to sell its services and products,” said AMEC Minproc business development manager and Austmine board member in Western Australia, Stuart Ratcliffe.
Ratcliffe came to Australia from the UK coal industry in the 1980s and after spending time in eastern Australia working in the coal sector moved to WA and was in a group that started Signet Engineering. Signet was acquired by Fluor Corporation in mid-1996 and Ratcliffe stayed with the larger company until transferring to Sinclair Knight Merz in 2005.
Since then the process engineer has worked for Ausenco and then GRD Minproc prior to its acquisition by AMEC Group.
“The indication I got from attending PDAC, in particular, is that exploration is accelerating again and that ultimately this will translate into projects,” Ratcliffe said. “A large number of potential new and existing projects are in central and South America, and those are regions in which Austmine has a strong network.
“Of course the outlook is also positive for many parts of Africa and there is a high number of Australian exploration and mining companies driving investment in mining on the continent. The scope of that investment, in terms of the number of countries within Africa in which Australian companies have a presence, is quite staggering.
“So we have tremendous opportunities through Austmine to promote Australia’s mining technology and service sector to all points on the compass.” Opportunity was a key theme, too, for Lewis-Gray.The managing director of Gekko Systems since the company was formed by her and husband Sandy Gray in 1996. She is passionate about clarifying and conveying a more powerful message about the importance of the sector to both the mining industry and to government.
“It’s really important that the sector is recognised for the role it plays in the Australian economy, and in Australian mining and world mining. Australian mining suppliers are world class,” she said. Lewis-Gray has also been a member of the Innovation Australia Board for the past three years. “I think Austmine has a role to promote the MTS sector, not only a role but an opportunity to promote it, and so I’m quite keen to work on a strategy to do that as effectively as possible. “The sector needs a voice and I think companies, whether they are Austmine members or not, will appreciate that Austmine has a voice.”
Lewis-Gray worked in banking and stockbroking before establishing Gekko, one of the world’s leading suppliers of innovative mineral processing equipment. It is her belief that more interactive relationships between mining companies and suppliers would also benefit the sector.
“The Australian mining suppliers are world leaders in innovation and quality and we need to continue this strong brand internationally,” she said.
The multi-lingual Hall, who is business development manager with Duratray International based in Perth, WA, said Austmine was a unique body that had broken considerable ground for Australian exporters in the Americas and parts of Asia. Expansion of that focus was now very much on the organisation’s agenda. A mining engineer who has worked for more than 30 years in mining and the Australian mining research and equipment supply sectors, Hall said taxation and other issues facing the country’s $A170 billion-a-year mineral and coal export industry had clear implications for the world-leading manufacturing, services and technology sector that had grown around the mining industry over the past four decades.
“Anything that impacts mining industry profitability, exploration expenditure, and/or investment in new project development is going to have an effect on the domestic market for hundreds of supply and service companies employing thousands of local people, many in high-skill areas,” Hall said.
“There are currently Federal and State Government tax reviews threatening exactly that. “We need to make a strong case for consideration of the Australian mining services and technology sector – now estimated conservatively to be worth $A30-40 billion a year – in any long-term policy moves and the strategic thinking of government, and the mining industry itself too.”