Sweden’s Epiroc has agreed to buy another Australian mining technology company.
It expects to complete the acquisition of Perth-based Geoscan by the end of 2022, adding to deals this year involving circa-US$100 million-a-year Australian mine and infrastructure communications company, Radlink, and JTMEC, a mining electrical firm with offices around Australia.
The Australian acquisitions have been among a clutch of new global deals for Epiroc, which promised at the start of 2022 it would continue to look for M&A opportunities after buying eight companies in 2021.
Geoscan, a provider of digital geological imaging products and services, is made up of the Corescan and Coreshed businesses. Epiroc said the combination employed about 50 people and turned over A$9 million last year.
Corescan, established in 2000, is described by Epiroc as a leader in hyperspectral scanning, core photography and 3D laser profiling of drill core, rock chips and other geological samples with the associated processing and interpretation.
“Coreshed complements this by providing an advanced digital core storage, visualisation, management and data integration solution for drill core and other geological samples,” Epiroc said.
Coreshed, formed in 2011, has cloud-based servers that are said to manage more than 20 million metres of core imagery contained in over 750,000 image products.
As well as Australia, the group is represented in the Americas, Europe and Africa.
Perth-based tech advisory firm Atrico worked with Geoscan on the sale.
Epiroc CEO Helena Hedblom said mining companies were striving for greater orebody knowledge to strengthen productivity and consistency in their operations, “and Geoscan’s solutions play a vital role in achieving that”.
