ASX-listed mining technology company K2fly has turned in its first $1 million invoicing month and maiden $2 million quarter as industry demand for vital environmental, social and governance decision-making information continues to climb. A new sales deal with a US-based geospatial data specialist is expected to add to the Australian company’s prospects in a key growth market.
K2fly says its reseller agreement with New Mexico-based Descartes Labs allows it to combine Descartes’ software-as-a-service-based land management systems with its tailings facility and rehabilitation software. The two companies intend to look at other integrated product offerings.
Perth-based K2fly says the partnership strengthens its position in relation to mining industry adoption of and compliance with new international tailings management standards that requires better information management and reporting tools. The combined product offering “will further accelerate and complete the full end-to-end K2fly Tailings solution such that mining companies can better manage their tailings facilities in support of their GISTM (Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management) commitments”.
Descartes Labs Head of Mining and Metals, James Orsulak says the company’s Global Deformation System, or “GDS” is a unique “automated, low-cost subsidence and deformation system that can be deployed anywhere in the world at any scale”.
Risks to mining companies from surface deformation and movement are magnified in remote areas where operators don’t have reliable access to survey crews. Assets with aging infrastructure, including unstable pit walls and insecure tailings dams, are also exposed to increased risks.
Mr Orsulak says: “We believe this will be the beginning of a long and successful partnership with Descartes Labs that will enable K2Fly to deliver world class remote sensing products and analytics workflows to the mining industry with seamless integration into dam management programs.”
K2fly’s Chief Commercial Officer, Nic Pollock says the Descartes Labs offering ticked a number of boxes, including on pricing.
He says: “It’s fast, and customers get measurements within hours of analysis and it’s fully transparent so the data can be made easily available for customer interpretation.”
“We see Tailings as just the first of many joint solutions, in K2F’s suite of solutions, we can offer to the market.”
Mr Pollock says K2fly’s market research indicates mining companies are either awash with expensive data they can’t adequately turn into “intelligence” or have very little data at all.
He says: “All of them need to turn the multiple sources of data into useable and actionable intelligence, which is what the K2fly solution provides as well as supporting their path towards GISTM compliance.”
Rising waste and land data management needs in mining are typical of increasing demands for so-called ‘actionable intelligence’ across different parts of the industry.
K2fly, with its portfolio of enterprise-level technical assurance and reporting software, is riding that wave and seeing increasing engagement with a strong line-up of top-tier miners. It also sells to the oil and gas, utilities and agricultural markets.
The company had produced its “first ever $2 million-plus quarter in Q3 FY2021 in sales invoices and anticipates that the Q4 total will comfortably exceed this figure”, it said this week.
K2fly CEO Brian Miller says: “The growing client base for K2F solutions has allowed us to generate more invoices across the full range of solutions. In the last few months we have won deals for all of our solutions, including Land Management and Heritage (with) Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals Group, The Keeping Place and Griffith University, Reserves Reporting (with) Alcoa and Coeur Mining, Decipher (with) South African Energy Coal and a BHP pilot and SATEVA (with) Roy Hill.”
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By Matt Birney
