The head of mining products company Boart Longyear has disputed claims by BHP Billiton that commodity price falls and global economic uncertainty are causing miners to scale back.
Chief executive Craig Kipp said Boart Longyear, the world's biggest drilling company, had not noticed any changes in the number of miningprojects around the world.
"We haven't heard from a lot of majors outside of Australia that there's a change in their plans, change in budget, that there's massive realignment [of] expectations going on," he said.
His comments came a day after BHP chairman Jacques Nasser said the resources giant had canned plans to spend A$80 billion ($104 billion) on growth projects amid falling commodity prices and worries about Europe. The only mining companies doing it tough were second-tier juniors who were having trouble getting financing, Kipp said.
He said the uncertain global economic climate meant companies and their executives needed to learn how to adapt quickly.
"If you're a chief executive or a chief financial officer of a major company today then you just have to learn how to live in this variable world because it's not going to change," he said.
Kipp said the biggest issue facing Boart Longyear in Australia was finding enough professional employees to fill jobs.
"The economy here is so strong that it's a challenge to find professional people," he said.
