Mining and Environmental Services
Your expert partner for mineral assessments, permitting and mine planning
Professional Services
Strategic Planning
Greenfield Exploration
Greenfield Exploration
For many mining investment scenarios the commodity priice or incentives to develop drive initial decision making. Determining the end goal of the mining company and how best to achieve such goal is often forgotten during this quest. Often a third-party perspective is needed to ensure that the best options and alternatives are assessed and implemented cost-effectively. SMX personnel have helped both large international companies achieve success as well as helping smaller companies find their niche in the marketplace.
Greenfield Exploration
Greenfield Exploration
Greenfield Exploration
For many companies the prospect of finding a major ore deposit perhaps to sell to an operator is their preferred venue. However, less than 10% of new discoveries ever go to development due to permitting challenges; access constraints; financiing; and lead time to production. Often the latter is critical to capture a share of a good market for the commodity. SMX has experience in overcomining these challenging hurdles and has direct experience is District size discoveries that have gone to production.
Brownfield Assessments
Greenfield Exploration
Brownfield Assessments
While a old mining District with a track record of production can attract investment capital, often reopening an operation can have unexpected and costly conditions that makes for redevelopment seem non-viable. Such properties require an evaluation of real conditions to best optimize development alternatives and some properties simply cannot be rehabilitated economically. SMX has dealt with such challenges as hydrological control; acid generating wasterock; and geotechnical instability with success.
Property Valuations
Brownfield Assessments
Property valuations are important to a mining company for various reasons including making informed decisions for acquisitions; financing and reporting to investors and shareholders. Often such valuations are for formal releases to stock exchanges if a public company but even privately held companies require a level of credibility that only a non-equity holding professional has compared to company employees or those holding an equity interest. SMX personnel have third-party experience reporting to the NYSE; the TSX; the ASX; and the London and Hong Kong exchanges.
SMX's valuations are not limited to quantifying a resource or reserve but evaluates the sensitivities to mineral deposits to changes in operating expense (OPEX) and cut-off-grades of the deposit. Having both surface and underground expertise, SMX is experienced in properties moving from one method of mining to the next.
Acquisition or Divestiture Decisions
Acquisitions in a "hot" marketplace, means big dollars and a high level of scruntiny relative to the claims of the divesting company. Due diligence may require time consumptive testing that otherwise might expose the acquiring company ot investor group to high risk; uncertainty; and even fraud. SMX personnel have experience in evaluating potential acquisitions; JV's and/or mergers on 5 continents for the largest of the producing mining companies.
When the market is hot as it is right now, few think of divestiture other than the exploration companies but understanding when and how to divest of a property is often when its too late to optimize a property's value.
Geopolitical and Environmental Challenges
Working in foreign countries might seem easier with lax environmental and labor laws but even the most stable governements have been know to suddenly get greedy. MGL has experience in dealing with third-world situations where Nationalization of minerals has occurred and where insurrections have developed. Further, MGL has expertise in successfully dealing with environmentally sensitive areas or regulatory regimes for mine development. This includes expertise with indigenous cultures. There is noting more frustrating to a mining company and its shareholders is owning a potentially profitable mineral deposit that is locked up due to geopolitical or environmental uncertainty. SMX has the expertise to unlock such difficult development scenarios.