The Remsafe system has already received market support from Western Australia’s three largest iron ore miners: Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group.

Remsafe has developed a high voltage electrical isolation system that Orbital believes has the potential to grow into a global business, with the WA iron ore space alone being a potential $350 million opportunity.

The remote isolation system is designed to increase productivity by reducing the time taken to isolate and de-isolate critical plant.

Remsafe says the isolation process can be reduced from an average of 40-90 minutes to just three minutes and removes the need for an electrician to be located and called upon to manually operate isolators in high voltage switch-rooms that can be located significant distances apart at either end of a conveyor system.

If an 8000 tonne per hour conveyor is down for an hour four times per month the cost of loss production can quickly add up

Remsafe says under that scenario it could add 345,600tpa of extra production, valued at $24 million per annum – assuming a $US70/t iron ore price.

Remsafe also aims to improve safety by removing operators from high voltage danger zones. Instead a trained operator can take the place of an electrician, and they can isolate the plant remotely, without the need enter the high voltage switch-rooms.

The system quickly and safely de-energises and isolates bulk handling plant and equipment from motive energy sources ensuring that equipment cannot be moved or restarted while a worker is in the process of repairing or maintaining the equipment.

The product is primarily marketed to heavy industry high voltage users, with applications including conveyors, car dumpers, crushers, mills, reclaimers, shiploaders and railway switches.

Orbital says it wants to aggressively build the existing $10 million order book for Remsafe products within the local iron ore industry, as well as leverage the global potential the technology has for all forms of bulk commodity handling.

It has already had discussions with coal major Anglo American, and believes with time Remsafe will move to chase gold, nickel and oil and gas opportunities, and even agriculture.

“The Remsafe business has enormous potential and is a perfect fit within Orbital’s existing and growing revenue streams,” CEO Terry Stinson explained.

“We have aggressive plans to grow the business and we welcome Remsafe founder and fellow shareholder Michael Lane and his team on board with confidence that our combined skills and experience will enable rapid growth of this very innovative unique new product.”

He said that Orbital’s engineering and commercial strength, and international market presence, provides a springboard for Remsafe to grow in the Australian and International markets.

Funding for the acquisition was raised via a $7 million convertible note issue organised with Azure Capital. The funds will also meet Remsafe’s working capital needs.

Orbital had sought up to $10 million.