The crash in financial markets and base metals prices hasn't deterred an international mining supplier that calls Sturgeon Falls its Canadian base.
Until last fall's plunge, Ranger Survey Systems was on course with Canadian sales of its drill hole survey equipment, watching it increase 10 per cent annually for the last three years.
However this past winter's small order book is pretty much reflective of the world economic climate, said the company's managing director Peter Middleton.
Though exploration activity has been largely stagnant, the Brisbane, Australia native doesn't suspect the industry will be down for too long.
Some miners have upcoming programs staged for later this year and he suspects activity will pick up in the next three to four months. "We're seeing (economic forecast) reports from some of the banks in Australia and they're looking positively at the future.'
With the downturn in China, the central government there has taken similar economic stimulus measures like the US, said Middleton, and eventually construction materials like steel will be in great demand again.
"Mining has got to come back again to produce all the goods used in those things. Not just consumables but machinery used in construction and mining."
Middleton, a 33-year veteran of the drilling industry in Australia with Boart Longyear and Universal Drill Rigs, joined Ranger Surveys in 1996. He bought the company away from a competitor and has been operating it ever since.
The Sturgeon Falls plant serves as a distribution and service hub.
The Railway Street facility, which opened in 2006, houses a full machine shop and a metal-free lab (with fibreglass re-bar in the floor) for calibrating instruments.
The location was chosen because of its proximity to the Sudbury nickel belt and other mining camps in northeastern Ontario.
"We found the labour to be responsibly priced and so are the houses," said Middleton who just bought a home in town.
All the company's engineering and R & D work is done in Australia, though Middleton wouldn't rule out eventually doing some testing in Canada.
Though the plant has only three employees, the 5,000 square foot shop has room for expansion if business gets bigger.
Their client list of more than 20 includes Vale Inco, Morris Drilling, Summit Drilling Services and International Directional Services.
The technology has come a long way before electronics ever entered the picture. Old time surveying involved an acid tube method of using a soda-lime glass tube partially filled with solution of hydrofluoric acid to determine the direction of their bore holes.
Today, all competing electronic drill survey systems use basically the same technology, said Middleton, bills their system as a user-friendly approach to drill hole surveying.
"It's the way you package it that makes the difference."
Ranger Survey's hand-held wireless device connects to the running gear system like a TV remote, communicating through an infra-red data link.
The device displays the hole number, depth, time, date, azimuth, inclination, temperature, roll angle, and all the magnetic details. The data can be downloaded and displayed on a laptop.
All the electronic circuitry is inside a baton-sized protective housing which is lowered into the drill hole. Their specially-developed running gear was designed to protect the instrument while moving within the drill hole or drill rods.
The system comes in single and multi-shot surveying versions.
Though their drill hole survey systems are used mainly in the mining, the company is making connections in the Alberta oil patch having based a sales rep in Calgary. Their Eastern Canada sales rep is based in Sturgeon Falls and they have agents in the U.S. and Chile.
Sturgeon Falls branch manager Stephane Giroux said the device also has construction applications. "If you have to blast a line under a river, you can use this tool to survey a path."
At the upcoming Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada in Toronto in March, the company was scheduled to unveil two updated versions of their product, the Ranger Explorer and the Ranger Explorer Junior, the latter made for small diameter core drilling often done in Canada.
www.rangersurveys.com
