Australian mill relining machine and technology company RME sees further strong growth prospects in Latin America, where it has now been operating for 20 years.
“The region’s growing significance in the global mining industry, coupled with its rich mineral resources, makes it a strategic focus for RME,” says founder and executive chair, Dr John Russell.
One of Australia’s most successful mining equipment manufacturers, Toowoomba-based RME has been operating for nearly four decades and has more than 440 mine sites in 64 countries using its equipment, which speeds critical grinding mill relining activity and makes it much safer than other methods.
Nearly one-fifth of the sites are in South America, where RME has periodically derived up to 35% of its annual revenues and where it has its biggest specialised technical support group outside Australia.
RME has more than 100 employees in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama and Peru.
RME’s first RUSSELL Mill Relining Machines (MRMs) were deployed in the region in 1996 to the Alumbrera copper mine in Argentina. In 1998, the first RUSSELL MRM went to work at the Escondida copper concentrator in Chile. Around this same time RME developed its THUNDERBOLT Recoilless Hammer.
Russell said the combination of the RUSSELL 7-axis MRM and the THUNDERBOLTs, working in unison, led to a “significant leap in industry safety and mill maintenance productivity, securing the future of the RME Mill Relining System and accelerating its adoption in South America and globally”.
“Consequently, Escondida went on to order the world’s first, even larger THUNDERBOLT 1500 Recoilless Hammer in 1999, as well the world’s first RUSSELL TWIN 7 Mill Relining Machine in 2007, both of which led to further significant reductions in mill downtime and improved safety.
“Encouraged by its customers RME established a physical servicing presence in South America in 2004. Ultimately strong site engagement, a progressive customer in Escondida, continuous investment in product innovation from RME and the subsequent mining boom were key factors in RME’s growth in South America.”
Russell said he saw sustained market opportunities coming from greenfield and brownfield sites in the region.
“As a major producer of copper the South American resources sector is poised for significant growth as copper demand is expected to rise significantly with the net-zero transition,” he said.
“Greenfield sites show strong interest in our automation technologies, which eliminate fatal risk and enable a return to production faster after maintenance operations.
“Mill operators, reline crews and EPCMs globally continue to prefer the RME Mill Relining System because of our reliability for this critical maintenance task.
“Brownfield site growth comes from through-life asset support services, system expansion and mill relining optimisation. We take a scientific approach to these services, conducting relining performance and safety studies that are highly revealing about the ways mine sites can leverage additional systems and methodologies to eliminate risks to crews, reduce mill downtime and improve mill availability and ultimately throughput.
“The return on investment in mill relining optimisation, through improved mill availability and reduced safety risk, is usually quite fast, presenting a compelling value proposition for mine sites.”
RME recently turned its attention to smaller mills and vertical-axis stirred grinding mills, which are gaining attention due to their energy efficiency.
Russell said the company’s active machine fleet in Latin America had grown by more than 45% in the past five years.
“Our 40 years as an OEM to the global mineral processing industry and successful navigation of mining economic cycles position us well for continued growth in the region,” he said.
