The acquisition, which was announced early 2022, will allow FLSmidth to increase its geographical footprint and competencies to serve its customers across multiple technologies.
It will also allow for a more robust customer approach in service and aftermarket, as well as an increase of resources and investment in R&D, digital and innovation.
The acquisition supports FLSmidth’s central ambition to bring sustainable technology to the mining market that will increase customer productivity and profitability while reducing its environmental footprint.
FLSmidth identified the thyssenkrupp mining offering as an ideal fit with its MissionZero sustainability ambition and its digitalisation agenda and can now combine the two company’s competencies, offerings and expertise.
Overall, FLSmidth sees the mining industry as heading into a growth phase, and this acquisition will place the company in an even better position to meet customer needs.
thyssenkrupp’s mining equipment offering consisted of open-pit mining equipment and systems, mineral processing solutions and material handling solutions. It was primarily involved in crushing, conveying, grinding and processing, areas that are broadly complementary to FLSmidth’s offering.
The two companies have some overlap of technologies, but overall, FLSmidth sees a clear complementary offering – especially in the areas of sustainability and digitalisation.
For example, tk Mining had a strong in-pit crushing set up which will now complement FLSmidth’s existing offering. In grinding, it had a strong position with HPGRs, while FLSmidth are a leading provider in other grinding solutions, such as SAG mills.
FLSmidth is now in a position to bring the very best solutions, equipment and expertise from across the flowsheet to our customers under the FLSmidth name.
This acquisition has created one of the world’s largest and strongest suppliers to the mining industry and a global, leading technology provider.
The complementary customer base and improved geographical coverage offers an even stronger value proposition to all FLSmidth customers. The company sees a significant aftermarket opportunity in growing and strengthening the services business to better serve the industry.
The acquisition has also allowed FLSmidth to improve its capabilities. This means, for instance, that it can drive innovation and digitalisation even faster and deliver solutions that enable the mining industry to increase productivity, while minimising its environmental footprint and securing license to operate.
The move also supports FLSmidth’s MissionZero ambition to enable a move towards zero water waste, zero emissions and zero energy waste in mining operations by 2030.
The addition of digital solutions in areas such as service, control systems and in the digitalisation of products to FLSmidth’s already robust digital portfolio will deliver an expanded and exciting range of benefits to customers.
Improved capabilities will be seen across automation, productivity optimisation, remote operations and predictive maintenance.
Furthermore, with a wider range of flowsheet coverage, customers will be able to benefit from integrated optimisation from pit-to-plant. Optimisation, and related productivity increases, are the biggest opportunities that FLSmidth sees for its customers – utilising the right data and combining it with human expertise can lead to significant gains on reliability, productivity and sustainability.
There will be benefits for customers in the combination of data from the entire mining flowsheet – this will unlock massive potential in optimisation, process efficiency and resource use (such as water and energy), which will help cut costs and reduce the environmental footprint of operations.
The mining industry can now rely on a global leading technology provider from pit to plant.
