Sector guide · Mining services & supply
The gate pass is the business
Ask what a mining services business owns and many owners point at the workshop and the gear. Ask what a buyer is actually paying for and the answer.
Nothing on this page is legal, financial or taxation advice. Free confidential appraisal, no cost and no obligation. Last updated 15 September 2026.
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Ask what a mining services business owns and many owners point at the workshop and the gear. Ask what a buyer is actually paying for and the answer is usually something you cannot photograph: the right to be on site at all.
Approved vendor status with mining companies and their head contractors takes months or years to earn. The prequalification audits, the safety systems, the insurances, the commercial vetting and the track record behind a working site relationship form a gate that a would be competitor rarely gets through. For a buyer wanting into the resources sector, or an existing contractor wanting onto a new site or into a new commodity, acquiring a business that already holds the gate pass is often the entire logic of the deal. That is a moat, and it deserves to be sold as one.
The same logic runs through everything else that makes this sector different: crews that are inducted, ticketed and known on site, safety records that keep the vendor status alive, shutdown schedules that put revenue on the calendar a year ahead, and specialised equipment that does a job other gear cannot. This guide covers how buyers weigh each of those, the deal killers that discount them, and how to spend the next one to two years turning what you have built into a price that reflects it.
Two Acts, two inspectorates: where your business actually sits
| Coal mines | Mineral mines and quarries |
|---|---|
| Statute. Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 (Qld), with the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017 (Qld). | Statute. Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Act 1999 (Qld), with the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation 2017 (Qld). The Act applies to mines, other than coal mines, and to operations. |
| Enforcement. The Coal Inspectorate. | Enforcement. The Mineral Mines and Quarries Inspectorate. |
| Site senior executive obligation. Section 42. Ensure the risk to persons from coal mining operations is at an acceptable level, develop and implement a safety and health management system, assess competencies, and provide supervision and monitoring. | Site senior executive obligation. Section 39, Obligations of site senior executive for mine. |
| Contractor obligation. Section 43. Ensure, to the extent that they relate to the work undertaken by the contractor, that provisions of the Act and any applicable safety and health management system are complied with. | Contractor obligation. Section 40. Comply with the Act, comply with the mine’s safety and health management system, provide a safety and health management plan to the site senior executive, and ensure induction and training before work begins. |
| Safety and health management system. Defined at section 62 as a system incorporating risk management elements and practices that ensure safety and health of persons who may be affected by coal mining operations. | Safety and health management system. An operator has an obligation not to operate a mine without a safety and health management system. |
| Worker competencies. Prescribed. RSHQ cites section 82 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017, operative from 1 January 2002, and lists RIIWHS201E, RIIERR205D, RIIGOV201E, RIIRIS201E, RIICOM201E and RIIERR302E for surface, with RIIERR203E replacing RIIERR302E underground. | Worker competencies. The equivalent section number in the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation 2017 could not be confirmed in the research behind this page, because the RSHQ mineral mines and quarries competencies page returned an error. Confirm it directly with RSHQ. |
| Standards. Recognised standards RS1 to RS23, issued under sections 71 and 72 of the Act. A recognised standard is not a regulation. It is admissible in evidence in a proceeding relating to a contravention of a safety and health obligation. | Standards. Guidelines QGL01 to QGL04. |
| Health scheme. The Coal Mine Workers’ Health Scheme is established by the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017. Assessments are required before starting work, when changing employers, and at least once every 5 years. The employer arranges and pays. | Health scheme. No equivalent scheme established by the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation 2017 was identified in the research behind this page. |
| Direct employment of statutory positions. Required since 25 November 2022 under the Coal Mining Safety and Health and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2022, covering seven statutory positions. An exception applies where an entity employs or otherwise engages at least 80 per cent of the total workforce at the mine. | Direct employment of statutory positions. The 2022 amendment amended the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999. No equivalent requirement under the mineral mines and quarries legislation was identified in the research behind this page. |
| Long service leave. The black coal scheme applies where a worker’s role and primary duties bring them into coverage. The levy is 2.7 per cent of eligible wages, returned monthly within 28 days of the end of the month. | Long service leave. Coverage under the black coal scheme is decided by role and primary duties in black coal mining, so quarry and metalliferous work falls outside it. Confirm any mixed workforce position directly with Coal LSL. |
Why this table decides who can buy you. A buyer’s existing accreditation, competencies, inductions and site approvals in one regime do not carry into the other. A coal-heavy contractor and a quarry-heavy contractor are not interchangeable assets, even when the plant and the crews look identical. When a buyer says it is already prequalified, the question to ask is which regime, which inspectorate and which sites. If your revenue crosses both regimes, that widens your buyer pool, but only if you can evidence it site by site with current safety and health management plans, site senior executive approvals and competency records. Both Acts are administered by Resources Safety and Health Queensland, established as a statutory body by the Resources Safety and Health Queensland Act 2020. The Resources Safety and Health Legislation Amendment Act 2024 is a further amending Act, and the Explosives Act 1999 (Qld) and Radiation Safety Act 1999 (Qld) also bite on common mining services scopes. Current as at August 2026. Confirm current section numbers with your solicitor before relying on them in a contract.
Shares in a private company are a financial product under the Corporations Act 2001. Tony Pope does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence and does not give financial product advice. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to buy or sell shares.
Where a sale is structured as a share sale, the share transfer itself is handled by your solicitor and your accountant. This page explains why the structure matters to your licence, your accreditation or your registration. It does not tell you which structure to choose.
This explains how the rules generally work on a business sale. It is not advice about your situation, and nothing here should be acted on without your accountant running your actual numbers.
Tony Pope is not a registered tax agent and does not give tax advice. Deal structure changes what you keep, sometimes by more than the negotiation does, so get that advice before you sign anything.
Tony Pope is a licensed business broker, not a solicitor. This explains how these rules and clauses usually work so you can have a better conversation with your lawyer.
Your contract should be drafted and reviewed by a solicitor. Where anything on this page differs from an official source or from your own legal advice, that source and that advice are right.
Ask what it is worth
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