According to a recent survey of 100 European mine managers, the majority expect expenditure on mining equipment and services to be stable throughout 2015.

Timetric asked respondents if they expected their expenditure to increase, stay the same, or decrease. Most respondents are expecting stability within their expenditure. The majority of respondents anticipate spending to be flat: 63% for ‘explosives, blasting materials and chemicals’; 60% for ‘maintenance services’; 58% for ‘equipment parts and components’; and 56% for ‘plant and heavy equipment’. Most of the stability is from regions producing particularly depressed commodities, such as the Polish coal industry. Other regions such as Western Europe will also record stable or declining expenditure, due to their mining industries having matured with few low-cost deposits available.

When the results are split by commodity type, clear differences can be observed. Those commodities which have seen downward trends in pricing over the last two years have more pessimistic respondents than those where commodity prices are more stable or robust. For instance global thermal coal prices – Europe’s production of coal consists primarily of thermal coal – have declined since the highs of 2011. With a steady downward trend in prices, coal mines are likely to record the least investment in expenditure, as prices are below an investment-inducing level.

In contrast, prices for metals such as copper, lead and gold, whilst having fallen, have been more stable over the last two years. Results from the survey showed respondents from precious and base metal mines were much more likely to expect an increase in expenditure over 2015 compared with those from coal mines.