A leading French-owned drilling contractor is turning its North Bay shop into an international logistics hub.
Foraco International is a high-quality, specialty driller that designs and builds drill rigs for specific clients on specific jobs. Headquartered in Marseilles, France, the company began by drilling water wells in Africa before expanding into the mineral sector in the 1970s.
Since setting up a 40-person shop in North Bay in 2006, the world’s third-largest driller has added a new dimension to an already robust stable of mining service companies.
Tim Bremner, Foraco’s senior vice-president and general manager in North Bay, said the company is busier than ever, running at 75-per-cent capacity.
“We’ve come through the recession quite fine.”
From Northern Ontario, Foraco regularly sends rigs and people to Mexico and South America where they work with major miners like BHP Billiton, Antofagasta Minerals and Anglo American.
“We’re fabricating our own rigs here and sending them overseas. There’s a lot of business that’s come out of here with all the tractors and in-hole tools and other supplies. We’ve shipped 107 shipments so far this year overseas.”
The company can also build custom rigs. Four of their intermediate diamond-drills were shipped specifically for Rio Tinto’s Simandou iron ore exploration project in West Africa. In Australia, a Foraco-designed track-mounted drill is working another iron deposit for BHP.
Bremner, a North Bay native and 28-year drilling industry veteran, came over to Foraco from the senior management ranks at Boart Longyear four years ago. He splits his time between North Bay and Toronto.
The company has not been shy about solidifying its foothold in some of the world’s biggest mining camps.
Foraco firmed up its South American presence with this year’s acquisition of Adviser Drilling, a leading Chilean contractor, which added 51 rigs operating in Chile, Argentina and Mexico to the fold.
Bremner said it made sense from a geographical and cultural standpoint to have a presence in those countries.
“Rather than do organic growth, we felt this was a good strategic move to give us more exposure to more markets.”
Events in South America took an unexpected turn this past summer when Foraco personnel and equipment took part in the combined international effort to save trapped miners at the San Jose mine in Chile.
One of their rigs was turning at BHP’s Escondida copper mine when the disaster happened.
“The Chilean government commandeered whatever rigs they could and one of them was ours,” said Bremner.
Though based in northeastern Ontario location, Foraco isn’t out to make a big splash in this region.
Bremner finds the Canadian market is very price-sensitive and Foraco is definitely not the lowest-priced contractor out there.
“We have a certain core set of values where we work safely and do the work properly and there’s acertain cost to being able to do that,” he said. “Our strategy is to provide a very high quality of service. We’re consistent and we’re technically superior to some and we have a stable workforce. Our guys don’t leave.”
However, they do have a solid Canadian client base working for Xstrata Nickel in Sudbury, De Beers Canada in Attawapiskat, and a select group of juniors including Wallbridge Mining in Sudbury, Ginguro Exploration’s gold project in River Valley (west of North Bay) and Avalon Ventures’ Thor Lake rare metal project in Yellowknife.
Foraco has not yet landed any work in the Ring of Fire but has opened some doors with the Attawapiskat First Nation and approached Cliffs Natural Resources about opportunities in the remote James Bay lowlands.
“Once you’re established in that area as a drilling contractor and have all your equipment on site, you’ve got a significant advantage over everyone else. The barriers to entry up there are mobilization. We’re not up there at the moment.”
Bremner said Foraco’s focus always leans toward wherever the major miners are operating in the world.
Last winter, they made inroads into Russia by acquiring a 50-per-cent interest in Eastern Drilling and their six rigs to tap into the hotbed of gold and uranium activity in Far East Russia, Siberia and Kazakhstan.
“We’re not going to be investing in many rigs here when we can make a better return globally. We’re a business that is very bottom-line focused and we’re careful where we invest,” said Bremner.
