Focusing on the Mining Transition

Q: How are you integrating your branded solutions to offer a more comprehensive portfolio to the industry?
A: IMDEX delivers a range of end-to-end solutions to the global mining and non-mining industries, such as civil and construction of water wells. We are not just in exploration, we have the technology to help the whole industry evolve, which nobody else is doing. By integrating our AMC and REFLEX brands, our solutions for drilling optimization, downhole navigation and structural geology allow clients to drill in a better way and at full-speed. These are also easy to use. Regardless if you are a geologist or a geoscience engineer, you can push a button and have all the data at your disposal; we do the job of processing it for you.
We always want to be one step ahead of our clients to make things simpler, more efficient and cost-effective for them. We need to educate the industry to exit the false economy in which it currently finds itself. For example, you may have two fluids competing, one more expensive than the other. The false economy is to have them only compete on price without analyzing their active components and how these make a difference. Our focus is on cost per project. We tell our clients what they need and for what reasons. We build the entire picture instead of just comparing product per product. REFLEX may have competitors, AMC may have competitors, but IMDEX stands alone.
Q: What is the story behind IMDEX’s recent rebranding strategy and how will it add value for your clients?
A: It is general knowledge worldwide that the IMDEX Group owns REFLEX and AMC but somehow these three were not connected in Mexico. For example, REFLEX was acquired 11 years ago but it was never branded as IMDEX in Mexico because we had different distributors. In 2016, we started the rebranding of IMDEX and today, instead of having three logos, we present the company as a whole. The purpose of the rebranding is to really accomplish our mission, which is to offer drilling optimization solutions to our clients. To do so, we need the REFLEX technology, the AMC fluid solutions and the IMDEX equipment and software to connect the whole solution.
Ultimately, our goal is to connect all our solutions to IMDEXHUB-IQ, a digital platform that can secure, audit and control all data to have it available for exploration, resource and drilling companies. For example, a company may need to verify something that was drilled six years ago and to prove that it yielded real and precise data. Before, it had no way to do it, but IMDEXHUB-IQ ensures it has all information in real time. We are about to show Mexico what real time means. Once we generate the first Mexican data with it, word of mouth will spread it all around.
We are experiencing a transition to get everybody on board with our connectivity view. We started by explaining each of our tools to the market and how they can benefit from these. As most miners in Mexico are doing things the old way, we have designed a two-year business plan to make this transition easier and we are advancing fast. This has and will continue to be a big disruption to the way things were being done.
For example, drilling was being done with grease, water and Foca soap. We came up with a range of products that are environmentally responsible and efficient and after some time educating and generating the culture for the correct use of AMC drilling fluids, the perception of the industry changed for the good.
Another example is our REFLEX TN14 GYROCOMPASS technology that aligns the rig in 25 minutes and with perfect precision, compared to the three hours this would take manually. We can also align multiple rigs in just one day, which implies an enormous saving for mining companies in terms of time and money. We are giving time back to our clients so they can invest it back into having a better performance.