Mining technology specialist Orexplore (ASX:OXT) nearly tripled its full-year revenue over 2023 as it continued advancing its ore analytics product and secured several ‘major’ contracts.
Over the 12 months to the end of December 2023, Orexplore tabled $3.3 million in revenue — a 173% increase from the year before.
The company says its contract wins over the year helped drive the revenue growth, alongside several commercial agreements across the Asia-Pacific and Americas regions.
Orexplore’s improved income helped soften its net loss for the year, which fell 22% to $8.2 million compared to the company’s $10.5 million loss in 2022.
The company’s most lucrative contract for 2023 was a $1.55 million agreement with BHP (ASX:BHP) for core scanning at the Carrapateena mine in South Australia. Under this deal, Orexplore scanned 15,000m of drill core.
Orexplore also won a $430,000 contract from Gold Fields (JSE:GFI) for the Salares Norte operation in Chile, as well as several commercial solution development contracts with gold and base metals miners and lab-based contracts for core digitisation for clients in the critical minerals industry.
The company says it digitised 36,500m of commercial ore over 2023 compared to 4,800m in 2022.
Further to the commercial contracts, Orexplore also landed 6 non-commercial trials with miners in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions, and these have the potential to translate to commercial contracts down the track.
With the help of a $4.1 million capital raise completed in 2023, Orexplore says it ended the year with $3.06 million in cash and no debt.
Managing Director Brett Giroud says the 173% revenue increase over the year is a testament to the company’s customers witnessing the ‘power’ of its tech platform.
“We are unlocking new orebody knowledge to drive exploration outcomes, increase deposit value, and improve our customers’ operations through a direct deposit sensing technology platform that is moving the needle of the sustainability of the mining sector.
Over FY23, Orexplore successfully scaled up its operations and entered new markets by winning contracts with new and existing customers, while achieving record levels of core digitisation in the field.
Orexplore’s technology was also further validated through our entry into the critical minerals sector, including rare earths, lithium, and cobalt which are instrumental in the green energy transition.”
Giroud says looking ahead, the company is ‘encouraged’ by the growing global interest in its suite of geoscience products, powered by its GeoCore X10 core digitising field units.
He says the company’s tech is helping challenge the status quo of ‘slow, expensive’ and limited’ traditional industry approaches to lab testwork, while also offering potential avenues for miners to improve the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and sustainability practices.
Orexplore’s tech is designed to provide ‘rich’ on-site 3D imagery for drill core, detecting elements, structures, and other important geological information at the ‘touch of a button’.
Effectively, the company says the tech can ‘dramatically’ reduce the time needed to analyse core samples, with up to 4 one-metre samples able to be scanned in just one hour.
The tech evolved from medical imaging technology.
Images: Orexplore
