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Northern companies establish Saskatchewan mining presence

It was during a trip to Toronto about a year ago that Wayne Ablitt and Don Croteau realized they were both thinking of expanding into Western Canada with their respective companies, Jannatec Technologies and Schauenburg Industries Ltd.
D3-Mining_Cropped
Wayne Ablitt, president of Jannatec Technologies (left); Brenda Hagerty, general manager of Porcupine Canvas; and Don Croteau, managing director of Schauenburg Industries, are working together on a new partnership to break into the Saskatchewan potash-mining market.

It was during a trip to Toronto about a year ago that Wayne Ablitt and Don Croteau realized they were both thinking of expanding into Western Canada with their respective companies, Jannatec Technologies and Schauenburg Industries Ltd. But with expansion comes considerable expense, not to mention the challenges of breaking into a new market.

“We stopped and looked at each other and said, ‘Why not do something together rather than duplicate things?’” recalled Croteau, managing director of Schauenburg’s North Bay office.

So Croteau and Ablitt devised a plan to bring the two companies together, sharing costs and resources, and a year later, D3 Mining Solutions is ready to debut from its Saskatoon office.

Joining the partnership are suppliers Porcupine Canvas out of Timmins and Maslack Supply out of Sudbury, along with a Winnipeg-based dome manufacturer. The companies will retain their individual identities and home locations, but will operate in Saskatchewan together under the umbrella company D3 Mining Solutions.

Each company brings something unique to the consortium: Sudbury’s Jannatec specializes in two-way radio technology, while Schauenburg manufactures ventilation ducting. Porcupine Canvas makes bags and cases for mining equipment, and Maslack provides replacement parts for industrial and mining equipment.

The idea is to present Saskatchewan companies with solutions to their mining conundrums through a range of diversified but complementary product lines.

“One of the things we realize is that we need to look outside of the Ontario market,” Croteau said. “The mines here, right now especially, are in a little bit of slow downturn, but there’s a lot more outside of Ontario in the mining industry in other markets, and out west is potash.”

Used primarily in fertilizer for food crops, potash is booming in Saskatchewan. According to the Saskatchewan Mining Association, the province is the world’s second largest potash provider.

Potash mining has slowed down as well, noted Croteau, but it’s still a big market that has, until now, remained untapped by any of the Northern Ontario partners.

“Probably one of the most wonderful things in all this is, with this expansion into this new company, we’re bringing a bunch of companies together from the local market of northeastern Ontario out to the Saskatchewan market, and hopefully we can replicate the successes that we’ve had in our current market,” said Ablitt, Jannatec’s president.

Through its distributors, Porcupine Canvas has secured business in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba, said general manager Brenda Hagerty; going into Saskatchewan was the next logical step. Porcupine had dabbled in the Western Canadian market, but this new partnership will help the company attain new customers and continue its planned expansion.

“Expansion’s a good thing,” Hagerty said. “Though it’s slow in the mining industry, Porcupine Canvas has doubled its business in four years, because we’ve expanded it to different marketplaces, so the more marketplaces, the more potential growth there is for all the companies.”

Turnaround time for new Porcupine products is between four and six weeks from conception to commercialization, but the company already has a few hundred existing products that invite repeat business.

D3 will use sales of those products to leverage additional business for Jannatec and Schauenburg, whose products take longer to get to market.

“We’re trying to get a complete product line that’s going to help us along and penetrate into the market faster,” Ablitt said.

In a global marketplace where business has telecommunications technology at its fingertips, why not just operate remotely?

Ablitt argues it’s still essential to have boots-on-the-ground representation to make contacts, develop a client base, and provide the best customer service. In that, Western Canada and Northern Ontario share a similar approach to business.

“We tried to service the Western Canadian market from here and it can’t be done,” Ablitt said. “The people in Saskatoon, out west, are just the same as the people in Sudbury: they want local representation. They want to be able to pick up the phone and they want to be able to talk to somebody.”

Without that connection, it makes it almost impossible to compete, he added.

D3 has already hired someone local with experience in mining for the salesperson position, and the office will officially open its doors in Saskatoon on Oct. 1. Initially staff will be limited to a secretary and a salesperson, but if things ramp up, D3 could add a technician.

Schauenburg and Jannatec would like to double their employees over the next few years (each company employs about 25), and if business really ramps up, they aren’t ruling out doing some manufacturing in Saskatchewan.

None of the partners really knows what to expect. Potash mining varies from the hard-rock nickel and gold mining of Northern Ontario, but the partners see it as a chance to smooth the way for other Northern Ontario businesses to get a piece of the potash pie.

“With D3 going out west in Canada, it’s going to support and help local Northern Ontario businesses,” Croteau said. “Us taking this stuff out west, yes, it’s going to benefit us individually, but it’s going to support local Northern Ontario businesses to grow from there.”

www.schauenburg.ca

www.jannatec.com

www.porcupinecanvas.com

motivemarketing.ca/maslack