HIGH PROFILE
hand experience, there is no greater joy than working with good people in a developing nation that go from being unskilled to being able to carry out challenging tasks in mining tyre management safely and at the same time seeing the standard of living for their families and local communities being lifted, often significantly. These trained people also have long term employment prospects should Kal Tire leave the area for whatever reason.
Q: You provide a comprehensive tyre management and services solution – but before you get involved these mines if already operating will have still been managing their tyres – how do they typically do this themselves?
At the greenfield operations of course the intent is that we are there from day one. As you allude to, other operations will have some kind of solution already in place – it could be that they have been doing it in house; or they may be using a local service provider. And sometimes, it could be that the local service options were not successful in meeting the customer’ s safety expectations so they looked for another strategy to better ensure the safety of their people and to also more efficiently manage and maintain their tyres. This is often a major trigger to us getting involved – the operation thinking what can we do differently and on that basis they seek us out and talk to us. I think overall, though, the industry is getting more proactive when it comes to tyre management – leading with our services and approach rather than us being brought in as a lagging intervention.
Q: When we talk about the very latest smarts like thermal imaging for tyre damage assessment versus reliance on visual checks – the new tech comes with a cost – do some new customers want initially a more basic package without the most advanced options then maybe you give them an option to upgrade to more premium services later on?
Sure, I can think of instances where the new customer’ s initial desire has been to keep things as simple as possible. Not every customer is going to say bring everything you have at the outset, though as discussed earlier for global miners this is usually what they want. For other customers that may seek a more stepping stone approach, from our side we have to ensure that the fleet is in a safe running condition and look at the resources we need to do that. We will never move into a situation where we have known risks that we don’ t have an acceptable level of control or mitigation over. That is not what we do and it isn’ t why people engage us in the first place.
Q: The training involved to ensure safety also comes at a cost – some new customers in new territories may be added cost averse – is there sometimes a difficult conversation around this?
IM Editorial Director Paul Moore and Kal Tire Mining Tire Group Managing Director and Vice President, Australia, Miles Rigney
Our AIM # 2 outlines our responsibility for our team members to be provided with quality leadership and training, our customers would understand our need to deliver on this. That being said, the cost of the training would not be seen as separate – they would see that our tyre service cost is all inclusive, so including whatever training is needed as part of the systems that we have. We have an operations process manager and a committee representing all of our regions, that are continually improving and enhancing our systems – if we have had a close call in a particular location or situation – the learnings will all get incorporated into our training program for all future rollouts. It is non negotiable if you want Kal Tire services at your mine. We also have a safety management system that extends even beyond our mining tyre group throughout all of Kal Tire. Every hazard ID, every close call, every incident is all in there. It is how we make sure we can best support not only our own team members in our business but also the broader industry through knowledge sharing at conferences, seminars and other events.
Q: In established markets, you sometimes carry out tyre repairs at the customer site but also have regional hub locations in places like Fort McMurray or Antofagasta where you bring tyres for Kal Tire Ultra Repair for tyres that would otherwise be discarded, including often replacing steel cord and retreading – in emerging markets how would you decide if extra investment in these types of facilities is warranted?
For these hubs, such as the locations you mention, it reflects critical mass of demand for these services across several major customers. But actually Ultra Repairs can also be done on a campaign basis as well, where the quantity of these tyres is not enough to be carrying out these repairs on a regular basis by being taken off site, so they will be stockpiled and we will agree a time with the mine when it is suitable for us to come in with the right people and consumables to execute these quality advanced repairs on their site. Overall, we do not discriminate between our customers based on their size or proximity to one of our hub locations, on whether they have access to Ultra Repairs or not. It’ s more about the availability and training level of the team member that we are going to send and the availability of the repair consumables that we need to use.
Q: Finally, some of these emerging market countries may not have the same situation as your established markets in areas like female equality, religious freedoms or LGBT rights for example. How do you assess if you can uphold your AIMS and still operate in these locations?
The due diligence processes we have when looking at one of these countries requires board approval, and I can assure you that they have a laser focus on exactly these types of issues. That means we have to have answers on scenarios and attitudes related to these things and if the result is we cannot make sure that we can uphold our Kal Tire principles and AIMS, then it is a red line for us. However, our partner and customer plays a key role as well, because they are in a similar situation to us. And the types of customers that value the type and level of service that we offer tend to have principles that align very closely with ours. So if they are going into a new territory and setting up all of their key infrastructure there, then in most cases they will have already gone through and addressed this to their satisfaction before they invite us to provide our services. This brings us back to the questions about where we would go and why – for Kal Tire it is not about chasing the dollar, it is about growing our business in a sustainable way and in a way that allows us to maintain our core standards.
The full whitepaper can be viewed at https:// www. kaltiremining. com / en / servicing-minings-newest-frontiers
24 International Mining | NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2025