Lumbering, bureaucratic and overly complex organisations are difficult to justify in the daily changing environment of an operating minesite.

Mine owners, meanwhile, have maintained a tendency to underestimate the timeframes for approvals and contract tendering, while continuing to demand nimble mobilisation amid squeezed schedules.

These are all symptoms of economic constrictions in the broader mining industry today and have fuelled something of a trend towards owner-miner business models in an attempt to rein in costs.

But as top-notch projects become increasingly scarce, the more unpredictable deposits that remain often require a contractor’s touch for on-the-ground problem solving and adaptability.

To bring these issues into focus, MiningNewsPremium spoke with Pybar Mining Services group business development director Brendan Rouse and business development manager David Noort.

Rouse said being privately owned with all Australian shareholders offered Pybar a flexibility and focus that bigger public contractors struggled to match.

“If we need to make a decision at the board level, it’s a conversation between people who work in the same building,” he said.

“We’re not looking to gain approval from overseas shareholders or from other private equity shareholders, so it gives us flexibility to purchase new capital or make contractual type decisions very quickly.

“Within a month, we can have an additional crew onsite, doubling our development capacity, keep it there for three months or six months and then take it away again.”

Rouse expanded on this with examples including Pybar’s work at the Northparkes copper mine in New South Wales, where the contractor’s team bounced between 250 and six people several times over the last 14 years.

Another anecdote traced the company’s evolving presence at the CSA copper mine near Cobar, where an initial three-man service team broadened into a rehabilitation crew and eventually a jumbo development contract.

“Then they said, ‘can you bring another jumbo’,” Rouse said.

“So we purchased a new one and these were for short-term contracts, ultimately month-by-month contracts.

“Bigger, public companies wouldn’t be able to approve capital for those types of contracts.”

Streamlined decision making also adds flexibility to financial deals and broader strategic initiatives.

Private contractors may be able to move more quickly on schemes to take equity in a project or company, in turn reducing a client’s costs until commissioning and the start-up of income.

“Getting on to 18 months now, there’s been a bit of a downturn in the industry, so we’ve had quite a few clients come to us and say they need to save money because their operating costs are too high,” Rouse said.

“So we’ve been able to work with those clients to ultimately reduce their bill.

“The same work needs to get done eventually but we’ve agreed – generally with no penalty – to reduce our resourcing onsite sometimes up to half, just to continue to make an operation viable.

“I suppose some contractors focus on delivering just what’s in the contract, while we’re looking more holistically, establishing ourselves as a partner with the company.”

Noort added that this aim to be a long-term player over the ups and downs of an operation had its own cost benefits to mine owners.

“Sometimes the contracting industry can get very focused on obtaining additional revenue, basically at a direct cost to the client,” he said.

“Ultimately, that affects the viability of operations and that probably amounts to the type of logic of cutting your nose off to spite your face.

“You can think about it pretty quickly and say the contractors make a margin, therefore, I’ll just take over the operation and save myself that margin.

“But you tend to get this cost creep coming back into it, normally through erosion of the key to sustaining a contractor’s profit margin – improved productivities.

“After a while, a lot of the operations that have gone owner-miner quite often turn back the other way.

“One of the advantages of contract mining is you set the rates up from the start so the cost creep is avoided.”

Over 21 years, Pybar has branched out from its Central West NSW roots to amass a workforce of 1000 people and 300 pieces of equipment.

Recent success stories have notably included work at the Hera gold and base metal project outside of Cobar, where Pybar took shares in owner YTC Resources to reduce operating costs while catching up on a delayed timeline to put development ahead of schedule.

Rouse flagged the site as a standout example of a work culture that pushed for performance targets without the incentive of production bonuses.

“When you see the whole management out there, from the project manager to the safety and training guy to the foreman, they all chip in and do whatever’s needed at the time,” he said.

“They all help out to drive the agitator to cart shotcrete underground – it’s a really good small team example of what you can achieve.”