RUC Mining
RUC Cementation Mining is a diversified underground mining services contractor.
Need
After winning a $400 million overseas mining construction project, RUC Cementation Mining needed finance at a competitive rate to buy specialised mine shaft equipment.
Solution
We provided a loan to help RUC Cementation Mining purchase the equipment it needed for the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia, allowing them to redeploy the assets back to Australia after completion and use them for future projects.
When RUC Mining needed finance at a competitive rate for key equipment purchases, they turned to Export Finance Australia.
Australian company RUC Mining started out in 1991 as a 50/50 joint venture. Its sole focus was raisebore drilling in Australian copper and gold mining projects – creating a hole between two underground mine shafts at different levels for ventilation or access.
Then in 2004, one of the owners, Byrnecut sold their share to Murray & Roberts, and the company changed name and strategy. John Walters, RUC’s Finance Director explained:
“We decided to become a more diverse mining company and to eventually expand overseas. In 2010, the company obtained its first three overseas contracts.”
The first was a three-year project that marked a significant change in direction for the company – putting in shafts for sewage works on Hong Kong island.
“Working in a built-up city like Hong Kong is very different to a remote mine site, so it was a big learning curve,” said John. “But it was successful, and it helped us show our capability when tendering for other works.”
Export Finance Australia went through the application details carefully, going out of their way to help us pull their financial plan together. Without Export Finance Australia funding it would have been extremely difficult to have a commercial solution to purchase the winders.
John Walters
Finance Director, RUC Mining
Rapid growth
RUC Mining’s philosophy was to follow their customers to wherever their work was. So having worked with Rio Tinto in Australia, they followed them to the world’s largest copper-gold mine in PT Freeport, in Papua, Indonesia (formerly Irian Jaya). RUC now has six separate contracts in different parts of the mine, employing over 1,300 people.
“In 2004, our total workforce was about 120 people – all based in Australia,” said John. “Today, we have over 2,000 employees, and we’re a $300 million revenue company.”
Then in 2018, the company set up a joint venture holding 30% ownership, with 30% owned by sister company, engineering-firm Clough, and 40% by Gobi Infrastructure Partners (GIP). The new company, GCR Mongolia LLC, was formed to take on a large number of tenders from Mongolian copper and gold mine, Oyu Tolgoi.
The company successfully tendered a $30 million construction project contract. They were then successful in winning a 30-month contract worth about $400 million to build two shafts at Oyu Tolgoi. To complete the work, they needed special hoists, or winders, used to raise and lower conveyances within the mine shaft.