Multotec Australia vice president of sales and service Grahame Hopkins chats to Quarry.
Multotec has been a well-recognised name in mining for more than 50 years, but a new era is set to begin as the global business expands into the Australian quarrying industry.
The company is bringing its expertise in metallurgy and process engineering while leveraging its recognisable European brands to shake up the Australian sector.
Quarry sat down with Grahame Hopkins, vice president of sales and service at Multotec Australia, to discuss the company’s plans, diversification in quarrying and what benefits its community engagement program is having after its inaugural year.
What was the most important lesson of 2024?
For us, we have had to diversify.
We’ve typically concentrated supplying screen media and cyclones to the mining industry, whether copper, gold, iron ore, coal, rare earth minerals, or lithium. However, we are committed to growing organically and want to stick to our core products which are also used extensively in quarrying and aggregates.
Organic growth is vitally important to us. In 2024, we saw the need to expand our coverage of the quarry and aggregates markets.
We have really committed to that. We have been attending industry events, including the Institute of Quarrying Australia’s national conference, and supporting our customers. Typically, we went through distributors, but now we deal directly with the customer.
We leverage the capabilities of group companies, Isenmann, Tema Isenmann and Hein Lehmann GmbH businesses, which are traditionally working in aggregates in Europe. We are using their knowledge in Australia and South-East Asia as well.
Quarrying and aggregates will be a huge part of our business moving forward.
We have noticed the urban sprawl around Australia and the need for raw materials and construction materials, and we are positioning ourselves to help customers in this space.
What is one of the big issues facing the quarrying industry, and how are you helping solve it?
One of the big issues is community perception. While there can be a negative perception of quarrying and mining, people do not realise that all these technologies, including solar and wind farms and mobile phones, need materials from mining and quarrying.
Given that all these materials are acquired from mining and quarrying, we need to help people understand how we can work together in the community.
We have been running local community engagement programs to help this.
Recently, we had school kids tour our site in Logan, and we coloured one of our vehicles with their artwork.
The important thing is showing these kids what we do and why we do it. This is why we have been working very closely with Marsden State High School, the largest state school in the Southern Hemisphere, near our workplace. We are working with the kids to show them that mining and quarrying are not bad. This is essential to changing the market perception.
This is our first year conducting these initiatives, and they have been a huge investment for the business. They have been a success, and I have signed contracts with these local organisations for the next three years. We are looking to extend that and invest further in them.
What is one of your innovations that you are excited about for 2025?
Everyone is worried about noise pollution, and our group has technology available that clients can access to reduce their site’s noise. This will allow them to continue operating under stricter compliances.
If you travel to Germany or around Europe, you may see a quarrying site near a hospital or a shopping centre. However, these sites cannot operate if there is dust or noise. Therefore, we decided as a group to invest our research and development in this area to help our customers.
If we can reduce that noise, which we can, it will be much easier for the quarry owners to operate their businesses. The benefits are not singular; they can be extensive.
What do you have planned for 2025?
We have an aggressive growth plan in place, which includes moving into South-East Asia, where we need to establish our footprint.
New Zealand is another area we are looking to grow in, and we need to develop that into a larger team. As we grow in these regions and here in Australia, job availability in Berrinba will also increase.
We are also doubling our building in Logan to 10,000m2, which will help double our production and introduction of new advanced manufacturing technologies. It will also support the local community with 50 jobs to come from the project.
We want to grow substantially in revenue, grow significantly in people, and every bit of profit we make, we invest it back into the business for the future. •
For more information, visit multotec.com
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