Platinum Blasting Services
Platinum Blasting Services (trading as Platinum Blasting) provides industry-leading, safe, cost-efficient and innovative blasting solutions to the Australian mining sector.
Need
Platinum Blasting won a contract with Jellinbah Mining to provide blasting services to its open pit coal mine. It required a bond to support the planning and executing of its blasting operations.
Solution
Our $2m Export Line of Credit facility equipped Platinum Blasting with working capital to purchase raw materials and detonators, while our $0.5m Bond facility helped the business to fulfil the contract.
Platinum Blasting Services provides drill and blast services to Australian mining companies, such as BHP, BMA,Glencore, QMetco, Whitehaven and Jellinbah . Based in Brisbane with operations throughout Queensland and NSW, the business is a key contributor to the export of coking and thermal coal to markets like Japan and South Korea.
Blasting services and explosives supply is a working capital-intensive industry. To establish a relationship and explore opportunities for funding its growth, Platinum Blasting Services initiated contact with Export Finance Australia. At this time, the business won the large Jellinbah Mine project.
“Export Finance Australia put in the time to understand what our needs were and then tailor the support necessary”, explained Cliff Gale, Managing Director.
“They were an enabler for us to expand. Over the last 18 months, the business basically doubled in size. And without Export Finance Australia’s support for the working capital, that just wouldn't have been possible.” “I think we may have had to curtail the level of growth or gone to more fringe financing markets to secure that money on less favourable terms.”
So, if you're in that export-orientated space, Export Finance Australia is a genuine avenue. It's not utilised as much as it could and should be. I don't think a lot of people are actually aware of the valuable option they provide.
Cliff Gale
Managing Director, Platinum Blasting Services
Increased confidence in project tendering
Platinum Blasting Services’ strong ongoing relationship with Export Finance Australia means the business will have greater security to access the funding it needs, allowing it to tender on project opportunities with a much higher degree of confidence. This is helping to fuel Platinum Blasting Services’ growth plans for the next 12 to 18 months.
In addition to existing contracts, there are plans to expand into other regions, such as Western Australia, as well as supporting more minerals such as iron ore, gold, and rare earths. Platinum Blasting Services also plans to diversify its services beyond open cut mining, to include drilling and underground operations with further development of its logistics capabilities.
Cliff encourages other mining services firms having trouble accessing finance to investigate Export Finance Australia.
“A lot of the growth over recent years has come from foreign investments ... and that’s at the detriment to local start-ups. I think it's a shame because that's where the profits go.”