Sector guide · Mining services & supply
What buyers pull apart first in a mining services sale
Buyers for mining services businesses are trade buyers expanding capability or geography, contractors buying their way onto sites and into commodities, and investors backing an operator into a strong cycle.
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Buyers for mining services businesses are trade buyers expanding capability or geography, contractors buying their way onto sites and into commodities, and investors backing an operator into a strong cycle. The questions differ. The short list of numbers behind them does not. Know these numbers cold before they ask.
The due diligence dashboard
| What a buyer asks for | What it has to show |
|---|---|
| Revenue by client, site and commodity across three years | Concentration is the first risk priced in this sector, and it runs three ways at once: one client, one site, one commodity. Buyers want to see all three cuts, not a single total. |
| Recurring versus callout revenue | Term contracts, scheduled shutdown and maintenance work, standing purchase orders and embedded personnel are revenue on the calendar. Breakdown callouts are revenue on hope. The split drives the multiple. |
| The vendor register | Which mining companies and head contractors the business is prequalified with, when each registration renews, and what sits behind them: audits passed, insurances, systems certified. This document is the moat, so have it ready to show. |
| Safety performance, in numbers | Incident frequency rates, history, WHS systems and any certifications. In this industry safety is not a compliance page, it is the licence to operate, and a strong record is a genuine selling point buyers will verify. |
| The workforce file | Trades and tickets held, site inductions current, tenure and churn, and the split between employed crew and labour hire. Inducted people who are known and trusted on site are among the scarcest assets in the deal. |
| Margin by service line and by client | Shutdown work, ongoing maintenance, hire, fabrication and supply carry different margins and different risk. Buyers want the split, and they will find the client you service at a loss to keep the relationship. |
| The equipment register, in full | Every unit with age, hours, condition, service history, finance status and realistic market value, especially for specialised gear where book values mean little. Padded registers get found, and they poison everything else. |
| The working capital cycle | Debtor days by client, retentions where they apply, and the cash the business needs to carry between doing the work and being paid for it. Mining clients pay well but slowly, and buyers size the working capital they are stepping into. |
Prequalification, safety and contracted revenue sit at the top of this list for a reason. They are the three things a buyer cannot create quickly if they are not already there.
Standard 11, its actual legal status, and the Coal Mine Workers’ Health Scheme obligation that follows your crew
Standard 11 is the single most commonly misstated point in Queensland mining services. It is an industry name, not a legislative one. No Queensland Act or Regulation uses the term. Searches restricted to rshq.qld.gov.au, business.qld.gov.au and resources.qld.gov.au return only Recognised Standard 11, which is a different instrument doing a different job. If your information memorandum says your crews are Standard 11 compliant, a careful buyer will ask what that means, and the answer needs to be precise.
Here is the precise answer. What the industry calls Standard 11 surface is RIISS00034 Surface Coal Mine Safety Skill Set, a nationally recognised training product listed on training.gov.au. It is delivered by Registered Training Organisations, not by Resources Safety and Health Queensland or any Queensland department, and what a worker holds afterwards is a statement of attainment against RII units. It is a training product, not a licence, and it is not issued by a regulator.
What is legislated is the competency requirement itself. RSHQ states that surface coal mine workers must hold RIIWHS201E, RIIERR205D, RIIGOV201E, RIIRIS201E, RIICOM201E and RIIERR302E, or equivalents. Underground coal mine workers must hold RIIWHS201E, RIIERR205D, RIIGOV201E, RIIRIS201E, RIICOM201E and RIIERR203E, or equivalents. RSHQ cites the source as section 82 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017, operative from 1 January 2002, and notes those competencies may be amended by the advisory committee from time to time.
Sitting alongside that is Recognised Standard 11: Training in coal mines, Version 2.0, gazetted 21 July 2023. It sets the training framework and requires that the Queensland Coal Mining Induction and site induction are to be developed to ensure appropriate safety information and obligations are provided. Two things follow. First, a generic induction alone never gets a worker onto a site. Every mine also requires its own site induction. Second, Recognised Standard 11 requires that each coal mine worker at the mine is given refresher training under the mine training scheme at least once in every five years.
Recognised Standard 11 reaches your workforce directly, not just the mine’s. It defines coal mine worker to include an employee of the coal mine operator and a contractor or employee of a contractor carrying out work at a coal mine. As a contractor you are inside the definition, and so is every person you place.
The legal weight of a recognised standard is worth understanding, because it is often overstated in tender responses. A recognised standard is not a regulation. It is admissible in evidence in a proceeding if the proceeding relates to a contravention of a safety and health obligation. Sections 71 and 72 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 govern recognised standards. A person may discharge an obligation by adopting a stated way set out in a recognised standard, or by another way that achieves an equal or better level of risk. Coal recognised standards run from RS1 to RS23. The mineral mines and quarries side has guidelines QGL01 to QGL04 instead.
Now the health scheme, which is the obligation that actually changes your deal structure. The Coal Mine Workers’ Health Scheme is established by the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017 (Qld). An assessment is required before a worker starts work, when a worker changes employers, and periodically as decided by the employer’s appointed medical adviser, but at least once every 5 years. Each assessment covers medical history, a clinical examination, a chest X-ray to detect coal mine dust lung diseases, and spirometry, with further imaging or specialist referral where abnormalities are found.
The employer pays. Both Business Queensland and RSHQ state that your employer must arrange and pay for your health assessments, including any additional tests or follow-up investigations, and that includes referrals, tests and reasonable travel expenses. The obligation is also employer-specific rather than worker-specific: a worker employed by more than one coal employer requires a separate assessment for each employer. Former and retired coal mine workers can request an assessment under a dedicated programme.
That employer-specific design is why the health scheme decides deal structure. In a share sale the employing entity does not change, so the existing assessment cycle continues untouched and no worker loses a day of site readiness. In an asset sale every transferring coal mine worker moves to a new employing entity, which is a change of employer, which triggers a fresh assessment before that worker can work. On a crew of any size that is a real cost and a real delay, and it falls on the buyer. Price it into the transaction rather than letting a buyer find it in week five and reprice the whole deal around it.
One limit on this page. Business Queensland and RSHQ both confirm that the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017 is the source of the scheme, along with the five year maximum interval and the employer-pays rule. Neither cites the operative section. Only section 46B, Other matters about health assessments, was located by title in the research behind this page. Have your solicitor confirm the section before it goes into a contract or a warranty.
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