Can you update us on Thiess' activities and operations?

In 2015, we entered the Chilean market where we first started operations with Antofagasta Minerals at Centinela. We have continued to work with Centinela as a trusted partner ever since, in addition to providing services to other clients in the region over the past eight years.

Thiess can carry out both drill and blast design planning, the execution of the drilling, and each step of operations leading up to mine closure and land rehabilitation. We also carry out long-term and operational life planning as part of our standard scope.

As part of project execution in Chile, our client is responsible for the engineering, and load and shoot, while our scope includes drilling of the holes, as well as short-term planning. The client carries out long-term planning — we take those plans and deliver operational, short-term planning in conjunction with their team, serving as a truly integrated partner. We also carry out material movement, load and haul, and asset management maintenance of our equipment.

How was 2022 for Thiess?

2022 was an excellent year for us. We continued to grow our business optimization efforts, having made significant improvements in recent years, heavily focused on safety. We are leaders in safety at the Centinela operation and received an award this year as the company with the highest safety performance. We also recently opened a facility in Antofagasta — our Innovation, Training, and Technology Center (ITTC), where we maintain and rebuild our assets. This year, we will bring in third parties and build the capability to provide maintenance services and rebuilds on our clients' fleets. The center is also used as a training center in collaboration with community institutions in Northern Chile. How do you manage industry-wide workforce recruitment and retention challenges?

Our approach is to invest in the communities where we operate to provide the training necessary for new industry entrants to thrive and grow within Thiess. In Northern Chile, we run a maintenance apprenticeship program in collaboration with local institutes, enabling onsite training. This program focuses on empowering diverse candidates, and we’re proud that half of this year’s maintenance cohort is female.

What tendencies in demand for your service do you observe in Chile?

In Chile, we primarily find opportunities in drilling, load and haul operations, maintenance services, asset hire and short-term mine planning. Our clients here tend to carry out the long and medium-term planning, focusing on their asset and ensuring that they are in control of how the commodity is extracted in order to meet downstream process requirements. We have the ability to meet those specific demands. Moving forward, with communities and stakeholders’ growing expectations of the mining industry to deliver good ESG performance, we foresee increased environmental requirements in rehabilitation.

How does Thiess utilize data?

We have a reliability team in Chile, with support from Brisbane as needed, which pulls digital data from our assets daily. This team then analyzes each asset in operation and utilizes the information gained to guide how we operate our assets to best facilitate asset protection. This process also alerts us to maintenance requirements and other critical tasks. What is Thiess' approach to automation?

As mines become increasingly technologically advanced, automation is critical to the mining sector in Chile and will likely only become more so. At Thiess, our autonomous journey began over 10 years ago in Australia, where we are now commissioning the first service-provider-led, mostly autonomous mine in the world, which will utilize an autonomous truck fleet in addition to autonomous drills. We are the first service provider in the world to ever operate a mostly autonomous mine, and the knowledge gleaned from that operation will be transferred to Chile as soon as is commercially and technologically viable.

What are the main goals for Thiess for the rest of 2023?

Our primary goal is always to fulfill current contracts, meet and exceed our clients’ expectations, and then leverage that success and position ourselves for future opportunities. Another target is to continue extending our accident-free hours, which we consider a tremendous achievement. We are also working to progress the opportunity to introduce autonomous assets to the country in the drilling space. Another key focus area is sustainability and emissions reduction, which shape every decision we make in our business plan.