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 mining projects 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.
