New Zealand contract mining has been well established for close to 50
years. The opencast industry has grown from mining quantities of less than 1
million bcm per year in the 1950s to around 20 million bcm in the late 1990s.
Trends here are following those in other countries with mining companies looking
to contract out more of the so called traditional mining work. The key driver
behind this trend is not unique to the mining industry, but is simply a matter
of concentrating on doing a few things well. In the case of the mining company
this has come to mean owning and developing orebodies and where appropriate,
marketing mining products, and leaving owning and operating of mining fleets to
the contractor. This has the effect of reducing risk to the mining company as
well as lowering costs. Both can be achieved without losing control of the key
elements of the operation. Optimising performance is simply a matter of
identifying the key drivers behind performance, having the right plant and the
right people at the right place and providing these people with the information
they need to manage the operation.