Delta Rent general manager Phil Agius spoke to Quarry about the changes the industry faced in 2024, how Delta Rent successfully navigated them, and his outlook for 2025.
Few things remain constant within the quarrying industry, and demand is forever changing.
One of the hallmarks of a great business is adapting to the changing demand and leveraging it for their business or, in the case of dealers, helping their customers.
Delta Rent has a unique insight into this as one of Australia’s largest providers of rental machinery to the quarrying sector.
What was the company’s main lesson from 2024?
The main lesson was that we needed to move north up the east coast and get into Brisbane and north of Brisbane.
We had to ship a lot of gear north which is just due to the demand. The four sectors have become stronger predominantly in Queensland, from construction to infrastructure to quarrying to mining.
In the past three months till now, in November, we’ve probably shipped 20 bits of plant from Victoria and New South Wales up north.
We’ve been in Queensland for a while now, but it has just gotten stronger in the last eight months.
What has been a major trend you identified in 2024 and what drove it?
One of the major trends we noticed is that civil infrastructure and quarrying have slowed in Victoria. Around 30 per cent of our work was coming from those sectors; now it is closer to 10 per cent.
That is mainly due to the projects not being there at this stage. Without the projects coming through the funnel, we had to look elsewhere and see where the demand was.
What is the biggest issue facing the quarrying industry now and going into next year?
The biggest concern is within the infrastructure projects or the lack of them at the moment.
Housing is getting going again now and they’re selling and we’re seeing some of the big land developers going well this year. But the slow down is happening across all sectors, including housing, quarrying, and infrastructure, as projects like the Suburban Rail Loop are just starting to get going now.
Next year, I think it will be a bit stronger, but I don’t have a crystal ball to tell you when it is going to happen.
What role does an experienced team play in helping a business manage these times?
I think it does help because you’ve seen the peaks and troughs before and can see what is coming.
We predicted there would be a drop-off in Victoria about 12 months ago, and we started building up our stock on the east coast in October 2023 to be ready to move into Brisbane. We were already purchasing into Brisbane and looking for machines built in Brisbane.
You need to be able to see the sectors that are dropping and the sectors that are growing and through the Delta brand, which is national, we were able to see those opportunities.
What sector do you think will be one to watch in the coming years?
I think renewables will be the major growth area in terms of projects.
The wind farms, the solar farms and those battery farms are only going to become more in demand and that’s where companies will have to shift.
That is where our main contracting business in Delta Group has shifted towards. We’ve been looking at that sort of work even though we’ve never played in that sort of space before.
How is the business preparing for 2025?
We’re looking to shift into the mining space more next year. We’ve already done some work in that space this year which was relatively new for us.
We have found, in terms of our business, that is where the longer-term rental contract is, to be honest. It probably isn’t anything new, a lot of people in our space are trying to do that and are targeting the likes of BHP, Rio Tinto and Glencore.
But that is the challenge for us as a business is to make our mark there. •
For more information, visit deltarent.com.au
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