How was the year 2023 for Seequent operations in Latin America?

Seequent recently acquired Flow State Solutions—a company specializing in flow modeling and simulation solutions for the geothermal sector—underscoring our commitment to a diversified, cross-disciplinary approach. How do you see the current scenario for junior exploration?

Unfortunately, inflation and interest rates are still high. Add to that the slowdown of some economies, most notoriously China and the oversupply of commodities like Ni, Fe and Li. Companies are having to adapt to higher costs, and raising capital for drilling is improving slowly. It is time to build resilience through this complex moment, trusting the outlook for mining will improve.

How can the junior exploration sector attract investment at this moment?

In 2023, there was a global reduction in the number of meters drilled. The rebound began in January; the financing and the number of meters drilled has already started to improve, especially for gold and critical minerals used for electrical components. Despite the local economic and political challenges in Latin America, it is a region of countries with strong mining regulations and attractive geological potential. As technology providers we offer solutions that are fundamental to reduce and control drilling and prospection costs and impact. It is fundamental for junior exploration companies wanting to enter Latin America to be disruptive and use techniques such as drones for faster/cheaper geophysical surveys, horizontal drilling, optimization of drilling and targeting core logging and geochemical survey solutions, continuous modelling. Those are options that will speed up the process of advancing an exploration portfolio pipeline.

What are the recent advancements at Seequent?

While our focus remains on Leapfrog, our commitment to innovation continues. In 2023, we introduced Slope3D, a software designed for 3D geotechnical analysis, particularly suited for hard rock environments. We are currently releasing limited availability versions of select cloud applications intended for geological and resource modelling.

We are expanding into the data management space, transitioning towards becoming an ecosystem-centric technology provider. This evolution encompasses the provision of cloud-based applications and a single source to all geoscience data. Our goal is to assist companies to remove silos by eliminating data redundancy and enhancing efficiency for all data from subsurface.

What is the evolution of Seequent Evo (Evo)?

Evo emerged from our initiative to enhance Leapfrog by extending its capabilities to the cloud when desktop processing and storage limits were reached by increasingly larger models. This spurred the development of cloud-connected applications bringing new efficiencies like collaborative modelling, automatic notifications, better cyber security, and safe data storage.

Our current ambition is to fully transition to the cloud, ensuring all functionalities available on the desktop are cloud-based, offering a secure, controlled, and optimized environment. An example is Visible Geology, a free educational application designed for geology instruction, operating entirely in the cloud without desktop dependencies. Our goal is to develop cloud-native applications that are interoperable with those of our partners.

How did traditional subsurface data management lead to inefficiencies?

Traditionally, subsurface data was stored in different file formats, like excel spreadsheets or PDFs, or in separate systems or departments within a company, and these silos often do not communicate with each other effectively. As a result, information can become trapped in one area of the business, making it difficult for other parts of the organization to access or use it. This can lead to inefficiencies, as people may have to navigate through multiple disconnected systems to gather the comprehensive information they need for decision-making. This is the biggest impediment to automation in subsurface modelling for the mining industry. It is especially damaging in a time when mining companies need efficiency. The solution is to create a common platform for data to be gathered, visualized, and shared.

What are Seequent’s goals for 2024?

We want to achieve our commercial goals in a sustainable way, meaning happy customers and happy workers. One of our strategic pillars in Latin America for 2024 is to keep diversifying to segments such as Civil, Environmental and Energy. In mining our aspiration to be the number one technology provider for all data and modelling of the subsurface. And better understanding of the subsurface means better business and a better world.