beyond pt 0 23/1

Box 13.2
Leaving mining sites for websites
Several companies have recently successfully transformed themselves from mining
companies to mining and Internet companies. The companies below were once
exclusively exploration companies:
• Min Tech 8 purchased an interest in an online messaging services Jfax, and saw
its share price rise from a 52-week low of six cents to about 13 cents.
• Mogul Mining has become a diversified wine distributor through plans to
purchase online Internet wine service Wine Planet. Mogul’s share price has
doubled over the past year.
• Ramsgate Resources will acquire Internet Solutions Australia, an electroniccommerce
company specialising in website design. Ramsgate is trading around
36 cents, triple its low for the year.
• Border Gold has bought HOTS E-Commerce, a group that offers industry-specific
electronic-commerce networks based on new developments in the software
industry. Despite its move into e-commerce technology, a recent report from
Border Gold managing director Neil Biddle says: ‘Existing Border Gold
management will continue to focus on its core gold projects.’
• Walhalla Mining now renamed Walhalla.com, in the six months from 1 January,
the company’s share price increased 400 per cent from a level of 12 cents. The
company acquired Kidz.net, a closed website through which children can access
500 000 sites suitable for children. To acquire Kidz.net, the Walhalla group
issued 30 million shares and agreed to provide $2 million in working capital to
Kidz.net. At the time of the Walhalla takeover, Kidz.net had total sales of only
$28 000 for the eight months to February 1999.
Source:
‘Sharemarket: Miners See Light in the Internet’, Business Review Weekly Friday
June 4 1999.
13.6 Potential changes to employment
Mining tasks are not likely to change significantly with the spread of
e-commerce. In future, smart machinery may be used instead of labour
for highly dangerous drilling and mining work, e.g. the mining robot,
however the expense of using such machinery will be high.
Rather than the industry taking on more IT professionals, it is probably
more accurate to predict that existing traders and other employees will
be trained to work with e-commerce in the few areas in the sector
where it is used.
13.7 External dimensions
It is not clear that e-commerce will have any significant impact on global
trade of mining products except, as mentioned, in making clearing
markets more efficient. This would actually appear as a reduction in costs
in other sectors of economic activity (e.g. finance) in the national
accounts framework.
Some suppliers of inputs to the mining process, such as training and
software, may find they can expand market access to other mining
countries using e-commerce. Naturally, this will depend on the access of
those other countries to the Internet, considering some of those countries
are not as advanced in the use of e-commerce as Australia.
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