Mining consultancy Core Consultants launched its fully customised subscription reports service at the Investing in African Mining Indaba, which was held in Cape Town earlier this month.

Core Consultants MD Lara Smith tells Mining Weekly that while the company has always had research reports available on a subscription basis, such as ‘Monthly Trends in the Rare Earth Industry’ and ‘Quarterly Trends in the Ferrochrome, Stainless Steel and Chrome Markets’, the fully customised subscription reports service can be tailored to a specific company’s needs.

“Our current subscription reports are what is referred to in the industry as ‘off-the-shelf’ reports as they provide general market trends rather than company-specific information,” she explains.

Smith adds that the reports are, therefore, useful to understand the overall business and operational environment, but that clients still have to assess what information and data are relevant to their specific firm.

The customised reports are usually bought by companies that have a specific one-off need for a market study. This need could arise from an impending initial public offering (IPO), capital raising or a decision on whether to expand existing operations or acquire an operation in a different sector.

Core Consultants’ fully customised subscription service provides companies with the option to receive a report that is fully tailored to a company’s needs and is regularly available, as opposed to being available on a one-off basis.

This service assists companies in preparing their quarterly budgets and in helping them to stay abreast of the current pricing environment and the latest forecast trends; it also enables them to benchmark themselves against their competitors, notes Smith.

“Core Consultants’ extensive database, which comprises purchased proprietary data and data which the company has developed over the last few years, has enabled it to offer its clients this service.”

Before starting to compile a customised subscription report for a client, Core Consultants liaises with the client regarding the information and/or data that would be important and relevant.

The consultancy understands that, in buying research, a client is effectively buying an intangible service whose quality and usefulness can be determined only after reading and reviewing the research.

Therefore, Smith says it is imperative that Core Consultants works with its clients to ensure that the research that they buy is suited to their business and will add value to their operations.

Some clients will, for example, use the reports in negotiations, price setting and planning, while others will request the reports to stay abreast of market trends and the commodities that are relevant to them.

Customers have also requested that Core Consultants provide them with market analysis on a quarterly basis for the reports to their boards before budget announcements.

In addition to the subscription reports service, Core Consultants, through an agreement made in October with Railly & Hill Metal Recovery, an international company with extensive research facilities in Austria, can now offer metallurgical testwork, metallurgical engineering reviews and process development services to its clients.

The metallurgical services include full-scale project development of metal-containing tailings and dumps, testwork and reviews, pilot-plant scale testing, processing and optimisation.

“To effectively complete a market or economic study, one cannot get away from the consideration of technical information,” says Smith. It is, therefore, important to consider a project holistically and acknowledge that the geology, metallurgy and costs associated with mining must come together to bring about an economically viable project and the best returns for investment.

Core Consultants, together with Railly & Hill Metal Recovery, analyse the technical and economic merits of a project and provide feedback for a client.

The Austria-based lab used for the testwork includes 1:10 pilot-scale testing facilities for mineral processing, material preparation, pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy.

Additionally, there is also a large variety of lab-scale (1:1000) and technical-scale (1:100) testing facilities for applications in mining and metallurgy.

Smith says that Core Consultants is focusing on supporting these two new services. “However, if the future is anything like our past, we know from experience that markets change and there are always opportunities to become involved in new and exciting ventures, which makes planning almost futile.”

The bulk of Core Consultants’ work is completed outside South Africa, mainly because of declining investment in the local mining sector.

The company’s clients in South Africa are from the ferrochrome/ferroalloy sector and engineering firms.

Other clients include mining engineers working with clients, or on projects, outside South Africa.

Internationally, Core Consultants undertakes work for engineers, mining companies and traders and partners with engineers on prefeasibility and feasibility projects, as well as market entry studies for IPOs and listings.

The company has also fulfilled the role of expert witness for law firms in cases of mine expropriations or legal disputes and on mine valuations.