Epiroc’s ‘comprehensive’ exploration offering meets market demand uptick
Helena Hedblom, in her review of Epiroc’s 2025 performance, gave the familiar nod to the company’s leadership in automation, electrification and digitalisation, but it was demand for exploration tools that stood out in the company’s latest financial report.
The President and CEO said: “Exploration was, yet again, one of the strongest growing business lines, driven by a combination of a stronger exploration market and a leading offering of advanced exploration drill rigs and exploration drilling tools.”
Speaking to IM shortly after the release of its December quarter results, Hedblom said: “This trend has been growing; for the last two quarters, exploration has represented our fastest growing segment.”
She added that the company is well prepared for this growth – currently tied to gold and copper exploration, in the main – with a “comprehensive offering” on surface and underground that covers both the equipment and service side. “This is also looking at both core and RC drilling,” she added.
Having invested in this side of the business in recent years through both organic developments and M&A, Epiroc is in a good position to capitalise on the exploration demand uptick.
“Over the years, we have completed a number of acquisitions,” Hedblom said. “In 2019, we acquired Fordia (a Canada-based manufacturer of diamond tools and equipment for the mineral exploration and geotechnical sectors); even further back we added Renegade Drilling (a manufacturer and distributer of exploration drilling consumables, such as drill rods, in-the-hole tools and diamond drill bits) from South Africa to the business.” The latter referenced an Atlas Copco-originated transaction.
More recently, in 2022, Epiroc added digital geological imaging solutions to this portfolio with the purchase of Australia-based Geoscan, plus, in 2023, acquired the key assets of Schramm Australia, a leading manufacturer of products for RC drilling.
“Even before these acquisitions, we had a strong position in the exploration space,” Hedblom said. “This makes us very well positioned to capture the growth we are seeing in the exploration sector, with a hardware, software and digital offering that caters to the sector’s needs.”
This commentary came amid a December quarter report in which the OEM recorded a 11% year-on-year increase in “organic” orders received (-1% year-on-year when factoring in currency fluctuations). Within equipment orders, Epiroc boosted orders by 22% year-on-year (organically), with its “large orders” amounting to SEK 670 million ($74.7 million).
In terms of “technology leadership”, Hedblom, in her Q4 results commentary, said Epiroc delivered numerous innovations that enhanced safety, productivity and sustainability for customers worldwide in 2025, all while reinforcing its leadership in automation, electrification and digitalisation. “Many of these are built on proven solutions, while others were truly groundbreaking,” she added.
Highlighted milestones included conversion of all haul trucks to fully driverless operation at the Roy Hill mine in Australia – to create the “world’s largest fully-agnostic autonomous mine” – plus Fortescue awarding Epiroc with its largest-ever order contract, valued at SEK 2.2 billion, for a fleet of autonomous and electric surface drill rigs to be deployed across several mines over five years. In India, meanwhile, Hindustan Zinc decided to implement the company’s collision avoidance system across all its mines, strengthening safety and operational resilience.
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