IMDEX’s Dr Michelle Carey and Gervais Perron say the mining technology company’s focus on providing companies with the tools to make real-time decisions in the field can offer improvements across the entire mining value chain.

The company is leveraging developments in communications, data storage and cloud technology to provide the mining industry with applications that can fundamentally improve their operations, it says.

Dr Carey, IMDEX General Manager, Product Development, and Perron, Principal Geoscientist – North America, used a workshop at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention, in Toronto, in March, to focus on real-time decision making in exploration.

“Our technologies are based on increasing rock knowledge by providing trusted data in real time, to allow clients to make the right decisions at the lowest cost possible,” Dr Carey said.

“That is achieved by enabling clients to drill faster and smarter, receiving accurate subsurface data, having our tools linked to the cloud, and by using the power of the Internet of Geosensors.

“IMDEX is working across the mining value chain in order to change the equation.

“What if your team test more targets and/or decrease the time it takes to define a resource? “Would that be a game changer?”

IMDEXHUB-IQ is at the centre of the company’s solutions – from navigation to driller operable geophysics – and enables the efficient transfer of data from the field to the office, according to the company. It provides secure access to validated data, seamlessly transmitted from a range of sub-surface instrumentation, analytical instruments and mobile form data inputs, IMDEX says.

IMDEX recently said miners were starting to see the benefits of this cloud connectivity, with, at the end of December, 58 of IMDEX’s top 100 clients “HUB-enabled”, up from 49 clients as at June 30, 2019.

Perron said: “Drilling data is the primary source of information used to inform the major investment decisions made by a resource company.

“In our opinion, this needs to be done right from the beginning. Not doing so, can lead to misunderstandings that can have major repercussions down the road.

“The technology is available. Real-time data enables better, faster and more confident decisions to be made.

“At IMDEX, our vision is that all our geoscience sensors we put out there are connected to the cloud for easy and fast access, anywhere, anytime.”