Metals & Minerals Conference Exhibitors Buoyant About Their Prospects

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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Last week's annual conference held by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) (Englewood, Colorado) drew more than 6,100 attendees and about 585 exhibitors. In contrast to prior SME conferences, which had a downbeat tone due to the ongoing closure of coal mines in the U.S., the dozen or so exhibitors Industrial Info interviewed at last week's event in Denver had a pretty bright outlook about their business and their industry.

Hefty government spending in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law by President Joe Biden last August, likely had a role in lifting the outlook for exhibitors that provide equipment and services to the Metals & Minerals industry. That act seeks to decarbonize the U.S. economy over the next few decades, and exhibitors and speakers at the SME conference zeroed in on its potential benefits. Many exhibitors say they are agnostic about what type of mine--copper, aluminum, iron ore, lithium or cobalt--would be using their equipment. Similarly, whether it was greenfield development or tailings remediation, exhibitors saw a bright future.

For more on the issues discussed at the SME conference, and the co-located annual meeting of the Colorado Mining Association (CMA) (Denver, Colorado), see March 1, 2023, article - ESG Issues Discussed Prominently at Mining Conference, March 2, 2023, article - Copper Market Oversupplied Now, but a New Surge in Demand is Coming, and March 3, 2023, article - Developer Building Solar Generation on Old Coal Mines, Brownfields.

The SME conference was one of the first trade shows where Industrial Info was an exhibitor in the last three years. Patrick Del Freo, Industrial Info's Vice President of Sales for the Ohio Valley, said, "We were really happy with the quality and quantity of conversations we had at the booth. People seemed to be excited about interacting face to face. There was good energy. Equipment and service suppliers we spoke with were seeing the financial opportunities created by the energy transition. It really sounded as if people were ready to do some business."

"Greenfield sites are more profitable, but we're getting both" greenfield and brownfield sites, said a representative of Barr Engineering Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota). "After a few years of extreme weather, customers seem to have a greater appreciation for resiliency."

An employee of AECOM (NYSE:ACM) (Dallas, Texas) said the firm has a very busy 2022 and looked forward to an equally busy 2023. Business was particularly brisk for tailings remediation given an upcoming yearend 2023 compliance deadline for members of the International Council for Mining and Minerals (ICMM) (London, England) to meet the standards of the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM).

The AECOM booth representative also noted that the outlook was positive for mining of critical elements like copper and cobalt as well as minerals such as lithium.

"Industry experts expect U.S. demand for copper to triple to achieve decarbonization," she told Industrial Info. "Electrification of everything will drive a surge in demand for minerals."

A representative of Komatsu Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) said he expected "healthy year-over-year growth," driven equally from sales of new equipment and technology. "Customers are investing to lower greenhouse gas emissions. We're seeing generalized strength across the metals and minerals industry. In North America, no sector is dead for us."

Several exhibitors said they were seeing especially high interest in civil projects, including water and wastewater-treatment construction and services. "Stormwater treatment and wastewater treatment are really hot across the U.S. right now," said a representative from a firm called Mining Equipment Company. "Almost every major city has something going on."

Anther exhibitor, JHL Constructors Incorporated (Englewood, Colorado) said "this is a better environment that a couple of years ago. We had supply-chain issues with equipment, and we couldn't hire enough staff. It was hard to get people to come work for us in 2021 and 2022, but things are looking up." In the metals and minerals segment, he said the outlook has "improved slightly." The firm builds bridges and roads, but also is active in metals and minerals, with projects in mines for lithium and copper.

Like other exhibitors at the SME event, which ran from February 26 through March 1, the JHL representative said there were too many regulatory barriers to getting projects green-lighted.

That sentiment was shared by an employee from Foth (De Pere, Wisconsin), a full-service science, engineering and technology company that operates mainly in the Midwest. The firm is particularly active in mining critical elements, such as copper, nickel and cobalt.

"Minnesota is a lot more friendly than the People's Republic of China if you want to mine critical minerals," the Foth representative said. Unfortunately, a federal agency stopped an environmental impact statement and pulled the lease for a project that a client was developing. "We just need more regulatory certainty," he commented.

EVOQUA Water Technologies (Warrendale, Pennsylvania), a water-services firm, sent several representatives to Denver to exhibit at the SME event.

"We're really busy with greenfield projects and tailings remediation projects," said one EVOQUA representative. Nearly all of the company's business is in the Rocky Mountain region, both in the U.S. and Canada. The firm is actively pursuing several lithium mining projects. It also is actively pursuing hiring new employees with technical skills in water and mining. The EVOQUA booth was located only steps away from a booth staffed by the Colorado School of Mines (Golden, Colorado), one of the country's leading mining universities. The EVOQUA representative said he had made several recruiting visits to that booth during the event.

EVOQUA "had a huge 2022, so management reset my sales target for 2023," the representative said. "That's a good problem to have, I guess."

At the ABB (Oerlikon, Switzerland) booth, a representative said they were actively working to digitize clients' mining operations. "We have the ability to put sensors on a variety of equipment--pumps, motors, drives, compressors, you name it--to help with condition-based monitoring." The sensors detect variations in heat and vibration, which could be an early signal that the equipment will need to be repaired. "Clients are no longer 'running equipment to failure' because they have seen the costs and disruptions of downtime."

ABB is helping clients take advantage of Big Data and digitization. "Last year was a good one for ABB because supply chains were getting unkinked. ABB is either reshoring some manufacturing, or it never left the U.S. "Making equipment in the U.S. gives a big competitive advantage," he said. ABB as a whole has experiences sales growth in recent years.

Another exhibitor, one of many IIR longtime clients at the SME event, said, "Denver is always a better show than the other places that SME holds its events. Last year in Minneapolis we had snow, it was awful. Minneapolis in February? Really? Another year, in Salt Lake City, no one came. They should just keep the event in Denver."

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).