No, this is not private investigations. It is mining journalism 101.

Every day another release comes across the desk. Such and such a company has won a big contract with “a significantly large player in the iron ore industry”. Or maybe with a major coal producer.

The release then goes on to all but say which company and what particular project the supplier’s product or service will be used on.

It is the oft unmentioned rule in the industry. Thou shalt not speaketh the name of thine client lest a plague of recrimination and lost contracts rain down.

Why can the company not say that it has won a contract with BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto?

There were a couple of examples in the oil and gas industry just last week.

Take logistics provider Ezion. It was keen to tell the world that it had won a $71 million contract with a major oil and gas project.

However, it dare not speak its true name. Instead we were left to speculate that the project probably was Asia Pacific LNG.

Why the secrecy? One explanation I’ve heard is that the big players do not want unscrupulous companies making claims that they are using their products when they are not.

It seems only a small thing, this ability to name their client. However, it can be a big deal when the company in question – which could be a small start up with a world beating idea – is trying to get some publicity for its product.

Publications such as this one, Australia’s Mining Monthly and in the oil and gas space Energy News Bulletin and Energy News Premium often look past this. But that is our business.

If the company wants coverage in a mainstream daily the name of that client can be all important.

This is just the tip of the iceberg though.

The stories of the resource majors using their market power are legion.

Remember the online trading portal Quadrem that was set up to help the big miners use the internet to streamline their purchasing.

As expected by many suppliers, this quickly turned into a race to the bottom in terms of prices.

It gets worse.

There have been cases where companies have come up with innovative solutions. They go to the big miners and get told that they will buy it … on the proviso that they have it exclusively for 10 years or so. Not a great way to grow a market for what could be a world beating idea.

Of course from the miner’s side if it is a truly world beating idea, why let it loose on the market so its competitors also can gain the advantage?

In some cases the resource majors turn to suppliers and ask them to come up with a fix for a particular problem they may have.

The supplier goes off and puts together this solution – often at great cost in terms of both money and staff time – only to have the miner say “oh we changed our mind on that”

That is a fact of corporate life but of little comfort to a small supplier.

The good news is that some of the big players are starting to realise that they need to work better with their suppliers.

Rio Tinto innovation head John McGagh pointed to this very point of the changed mind syndrome, saying that Rio was working to get around that.

In a recent address to the Australian Gas Technology conference Woodside chief science and technology manager Neil Kavanagh said the oil and gas player was finding real benefits from working more closely with its suppliers.

This article first appeared in ILN's sister publication MiningNews.net.