Overall resources industry maintenance spending is expected to hit $13.2 billion in 2023-24 and $13.3 billion in 2024-25, according to Oxford Economics Australia's latest Maintenance in Australia report.

Study author and the Oxford Economics Australia head of global construction forecasting head Dr Nicholas Fearnley said the previous decade had enjoyed the mining investment boom, which was followed by a mining production boom and a mining maintenance boom.

"We think this boom is now approaching its peak and we are seeing signs that asset owners are looking to manage their maintenance costs," he said.

"As a result we expect slower growth in mining maintenance expenditure over coming years."

It should be noted that Oxford Economics Australia has mixed oil and gas maintenance with mining maintenance.

Maintaining mining 

On the mining front, the coal maintenance spend for FY24 is expected to hit $3.4 billion and be $3.6 billion in FY25.

Oxford Economics Australia's long-term view of the coal sector remains bleak, although it believes the near-term prospects are a little better, with relatively high commodity prices supporting coal production.

Its outlook is brighter for hard rock.

Maintenance work at iron ore mines is expected to grow from $1.1 billion in FY24 to $1.2 billion in FY25. That is supported by Oxford Economics Australia's expectation that Chinese construction work will rebound from 2025, which will support global iron ore demand.

Copper maintenance activity accounts for more than 25% of maintenance spending on metal ore mining. Spending on copper maintenance is expected to reach $865 million in FY24 and grow to $890 million in FY25.

The Oxford Economics Australia outlook for copper mining, and therefore maintenance spending,  remains positive because copper is used extensively in both building and infrastructure construction, electric vehicles and consumer electric products.

Fearnley said the most noticeable trend he had observed in the resources space was that asset owners were looking to insource more maintenance work and manage costs.

"More generally there is a lot more focus across the entire maintenance market towards better understanding predictive maintenance," he said.

"Focusing on maintenance spending in the resource extraction sector, 'handling and benefaction' maintenance spending, which includes crushers, mills, conveyors and separation, is about 20-25% of total maintenance spending and closer to 27% for the oil and gas sector.

"Earthmoving and extraction, which includes trucks, dozers, graders, scrapers, excavators and drills, is the largest share of spending of the coal and metal ore mining, accounting for 65% of coal maintenance spending and 59% of metal ore maintenance spending."

Oil and gas

Fearnley said growth in work supporting the LNG sector had been the dominant theme in the Australian maintenance market for a number of years.

Spending on LNG maintenance is expected to hit $5.5 billion in FY24 and $5.6 billion in FY25.

He expects that to stagnate as owners look to manage costs.

One such example is the increasing use of drones to do inspection work.

Fearnley said while most oil and gas maintenance was outsourced, there were significant barriers to entry for companies trying to break in and win "mega-contracts".