Van Dyk told Australia’s Mining Monthly that the company’s pipeline of work looked strong – there is about $2 billion of tenders out.

“Some of that is looking very positive for us,” he said.

The embattled mining contractor took some big hits in the past financial year, not least of those being the loss of its Fortescue Metals Group mining contract.

FMG decided to go with Downer EDI for its contract mining.

Van Dyk said that decision was driven by a couple of factors – one of them being the fact Downer had plant on site that was harder to move and that Macmahon had a shorter termination period than Downer did.

“It was more commercial advantageous for them [FMG] to get rid of us,” he said.

“Downer has done a great job. They’ve won some good jobs on the east coast. Some we had our hand up for but others we didn’t.

“I believe we are as capable of winning work as they are.”

Of course there is somewhat of a size difference between Downer and Macmahon but that can be a benefit.

“It’s a simplistic model,” Van Dyk said, “people and equipment.”

“Our current competitive advantage is that we have a strong balance sheet. We have strong net cash. That’s a good position to be in.

“We’ve taken the kick we needed to take.”

Macmahon has brought its asset volumes down.

“From that perspective I believe that clears our decks,” Van Dyk said.

“That lets us move forward rather than having to continually manage problems from the past into the future.”

Also gone is the push that started to move Macmahon into more of the construction and engineering space.

Yes, the company will take on civil construction projects such as roads if it makes sense to do so but there is no drive to go broader than that.

“We are a dedicated contract miner,” Van Dyk said.

“We are small and that makes us probably a bit hungrier and a bit more flexible when it comes to engaging with new clients.”

Van Dyk admitted there had been quite a change to the dynamic around mining contracting.

These days a lot of the mining companies are looking to do the mining themselves – a marked change from a couple of years ago.

The company is also making an even bigger push into the underground mining arena.

It, like a number of the underground mining contractors such as Pybar and Barminco, has moved into the raiseboring arena.

“We do have the world’s largest raisebore drill,” van Dyke said.

He called the Herrenknecht raisebore a “very productive machine”.

Van Dyk said the company also had some experience in civil construction but was not in the complicated construction market.

“We’re not doing bridges or tunnels or marine supply bases,” he said.

“It takes a lot of engineering prowess to do that type or work.

“We are in basic construction and that is what we’ll be doing.”

That said, Van Dyk believes there are definitely opportunities.

“There’s still life,” he said.

“It’s not as if it’s completely dead, there is still work there.

“Life will go on, just not at the hectic pace it has been. It will be more normalised.

“We are all making the adaptation to a more ‘normalised’ growth environment.”

One of the opportunities could lie in some sort of consolidation within what some would argue is a fairly crowded mining contracting space.

Given Macmahon’s balance sheet and cash position, could it be in the market for a deal?

“If it makes compelling sense to us, we would certainly be interested in that,” Van Dyk said.

“We would obviously have to weigh up capital management and what we use for growth.

“But [acquisition] is definitely on my radar.”

Van Dyk also brings to the business an understanding of the machinery side of the business from his years in different roles at WesTrac.

However, it is the managerial experience he picked up at the Western Australian and New South Wales dealership that he values more.