How did RungePincockMinarco perform in Brazil last year, and what are your expectations for this year?

Brazil is a significant market in Latin America and is growing at an incredible pace, which explains why RungePincockMinarco has an office in Belo Horizonte. Our company has been very successful in Brazil recently, serving a large number of big projects for clients such as Vale, MMX, and Anglo American. We have worked in all our main areas, including reserve declaration, mining processes, and mine design. In the last five months, we have also seen rising interest in our technology products. We have had to bring in experts from other offices to meet the high demand for our services. RungePincockMinarco has been working hard to integrate all these products with each other and larger ERPs, like SAP. For big users of Caterpillar equipment like Vale, it will be highly beneficial to link our systems with theirs.

Brazil is an excellent market for us. We have roughly doubled our staff in the 18 months that I have been here. In the next year, we are hoping for this office to grow between 20% and 25%. We went through a low point last August when iron dropped below $100, but it is now back up above $150. The world’s largest concentration of iron falls within 100Km of this city, so it dominates everything we do. Recently we had eight or 10 iron projects on the go simultaneously, working across a broad range of disciplines. We often leverage the expertise that RungePincockMinarco has globally by pulling in experts from our other offices to work on projects in Brazil, for example, full-fledged metallurgists to work on these iron projects.

Brazil’s mining industry is undergoing a number of changes, and in this context, what are the specific needs of your clients in the country today?

Brazil’s huge agricultural market has a big shortage of fertilizers. Most are imported today, but people are correctly arguing that the country can develop its own production. Iron dominates the mining industry, followed by copper and then gold, but we have seen a rise in the number of projects looking at potash and phosphate. The need is particularly great because in subtropical terrain, the leaching of nutrients happens much faster than in temperate climates. Brazil’s fertilizer deposits are also connected with intrusive rocks enriched in rare earth oxides, which can be valuable by-products. Investment in these projects is coming particularly out of Canada; Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, the world’s largest miner of potash, is interested in projects all around the world, as it realizes there are limitations on shipping the product out of central Canada.

Brazil is implementing a new body of mining regulations. What impact do you expect them to have on the sector?

Brazil is a huge, remote country, and it has environmental issues. No one wants to see the mass of green trees cut down, but the country is maintaining a good balance. It is pro-mining – and its laws prevent greedy people tying up the land, in recognition that the country’s resources belong to its people. The effect of Brazil’s new body of regulations will be to lessen the frontier nature of the country. I have worked in similar Wild West environments in Australia and Africa and seen how, while there needs to be the promise of rewards for initial developments, governments are eventually required to bring in regulation to stop them happening without consideration for people and the environment. Brazil makes some interesting political concessions to small-scale miners, allowing them special permits.