CORALIS is well known across Europe and Africa. What were the reasons for establishing a North American base in Québec?

GD: CORALIS’s head office is in France and has been in operation for 30 years. Operations began in Europe and later moved to other French speaking countries, particularly in Africa. In the last 10 years, we have seen increased demand from other continents, including Asia, Australia and the Americas. With numerous Canadian companies operating in Africa, we decided that reaching these companies would be more easily accomplished by having an office in North America. We intend to grow our mining business in North America more effectively with a base in Montréal, which is a natural fit due to language, geography and tradition.

Of the scope of services and range of products that CORALIS offers, which of these offerings will relate best to the mining industry in Québec and North America?

MFP: CORALIS’ production planning and monitoring software are our key differentiators. We have software that answers the needs of a wide scope of mining functions, such as geological modeling, block modeling and pit design. However, what sets us apart is our abilities to assist companies in planning production operations daily, to interface with other software and equipment and to customize the software to suit the needs of the customer’s specific mining process. There are not many products on the market that can do this, whereas CORALIS’ software is user-friendly and used by both mine workers and office personnel who do not need to be engineers or geologists to use our software.

Is CORALIS’ technology suited for open pit as well as underground mining?

MFP: Yes; although most of our customers run open pit mining operations due to the nature of the regions and metals and minerals we have focused on, we do also help underground mines even though they tend to have different processes. Cement and nickel mines, for example, require production planning that is more complex and involves many variables.

Can you provide an example of how CORALIS technology has helped mining clients?

GD: In New Caledonia and in Canada, CORALIS helped a nickel mine and a cement company to supply a more consistent grade product to their respective plants. Previously, the nickel mine was having trouble balancing the blend of acid and basic rocks into the furnace, and the cement plant’s supply of mineral was too alkaline. CORALIS was able to help resolve both these issues with the implementation of its production planning and monitoring software.

Why should companies choose CORALIS’s solutions over other options on the market?

GD: CORALIS has a vast experience in assisting mining companies in reaching their efficiency, productivity and environmental objectives. Additionally, we can be flexible when customizing products as per customer requirements, and we provide a reliable, easy-to-use product that can be fine-tuned to fit specific needs, especially around production planning and monitoring.

MFP: We believe in sustainable development, and not only does our production planning software provide tools for a more sustainable mineral extraction, but our environmental management software assists management in running the cleanest operations possible. Also, we help cut operating times and costs by, for example, using tablets on-site for topographic and geological data gathering. We also assist in avoiding the cost of stockpiles by using the production planning software.

What’s in store for CORALIS for the next 12 months, in North America and worldwide?

MFP: We will continue to develop the North American market, with a focus on Québec and Ontario because these provinces are the two most important when it comes to mining activity in Canada. This is also where we can find a vast number of mining corporations’ offices, which will help us reach other regions throughout the Americas and Africa. Finally, we are presently working on educational partnerships with colleges and universities that offer mining studies programs, like we have in France, so students can use CORALIS software to help them to acquire the necessary mine planning skills.

GD: To achieve our market development goals, we are counting on our new CORALIS Cloud solution. This technology offers our customers better access to our software and their data, as well as an even more efficient technical and customer service. To those who are worried about their data’s safety, we say that our hosting partner is classified Tier III+, and we offer dedicated servers to each company to guaranty confidentiality and data safety. With its monthly payments, the miner’s cash flow is improved as an added advantage.