News Revenue up, rental fleet record as IMDEX shrugs off COVID-19

Leading global mining-tech company IMDEX has reported a new rental fleet record and month-on-month increases in revenue since May as it shrugs off a COVID-19 related downturn earlier in the year.

With the strength of the gold price and other key commodities, and exploration activity surging, IMDEX’s tool rental fleet is 19 per cent up on the same time last year and exceeds the previous record set in 2012.

IMDEX Chief Executive Paul House told the company’s Annual General Meeting yesterday that the recommencement of activity globally since May had continued in most regions, albeit at different speeds.

“We achieved revenue of $61.4m in 1Q21, which was up 26% on 4Q20. This result is only slightly behind the previous corresponding year at $67.6m, or 4.9% on a constant currency basis,” Mr House said.

“We are seeing multi-commodity demand, clients are well funded and are focused on resuming sustained activity as soon as possible, and the underlying industry fundamentals support a return to the robust position we enjoyed pre-COVID.”

When it released its full year results, IMDEX reported EBITDA of $54.4 million with full-year revenue of $237.7 million, which included its best nine-month revenue to March 2020. Net profit after tax was $21.8 million.

The pressures of COVID-19, which forced various governments to impose border and travel restrictions, created strong demand for IMDEX technologies linked to its cloud-based IMDEX HUB-IQ™.

“We have made great progress both because of and in spite of COVID-19,” Mr House said.

“The global pandemic has increased demand for our connected technologies that support remote operations. Conversely, it has hindered client trials due to limited access to site for non-essential personnel.

“On balance, the momentum for disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation, and the industry internet of things, is gaining cadence.

“The outlook for mining-tech is brighter than it has ever been.”

He revealed a joint development agreement had been signed with a tier-one mining company to fast-track development of the IMDEX MAGHAMMER™ for commercial use and said that client trials of the award-winning IMDEX BLASTDOG^TM had resumed.

The MAGHAMMER™ utilises a new hybrid drilling technique, which combines rotary diamond drilling with fluid driven percussive drilling to achieve higher penetration rates compared to conventional coring. The technology enables an entire drill hole to be completed with a coring rig where RC and diamond drilling is required.

IMDEX BLASTDOG™ is a semi-autonomously deployed system for logging material properties and blast hole characteristics at high spatial density across the bench and mine and is commodity agnostic.