METS export advisory for
Australian mining suppliers.
METS means mining equipment, technology and services — the companies that supply the world's mines rather than dig the ore themselves. Australia builds some of the best of it, and the demand overseas is real. Quarterdeck Labs advises Australian METS companies on exporting that equipment and technology into Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Latin America — led by someone who ran an award-winning export program, not read about one.
METS — mining equipment, technology and services — is the industry that supplies the mines. Australia's is world-class, and it's built to export.
METS stands for mining equipment, technology and services. It's the sector of companies that sell to the mining industry rather than mine themselves — the makers of pumps, drills, screens, fluids, automation, software, safety systems and specialist engineering that every mine relies on to operate. If a mine buys your product or your technical service, you're a METS company, whatever you'd normally call yourself. The industry body Austmine represents this sector, and it's a good place to see the breadth of it.
Australia's mining industry has produced one of the deepest and most respected METS ecosystems anywhere. Decades of solving hard problems in some of the world's toughest mining conditions have left Australian mining suppliers with equipment and technology that mines in other countries genuinely want. That reputation is an asset most Australian METS companies underuse — it opens doors overseas that a supplier from almost anywhere else would have to force.
The catch is that a strong product at home doesn't sell itself abroad. Mining suppliers australia-wide sit on export-ready equipment and technology and never build a serious overseas pipeline, because exporting is a different discipline from making and selling at home. That gap — between a world-class product and a working export program — is exactly what this advisory closes.
The buyers for Australian mining technology aren't at home. They're where the mining is growing.
Australia's own mining market is mature and finite. The growth for METS companies is overseas — in the mining regions actively expanding and buying the equipment, technology and services Australian suppliers make. These are the markets we focus on.
Indonesia
One of the world's largest coal and minerals producers, close to Australia, and actively buying mining equipment and technology. Government trade bodies are running METS missions into events like Mining Indonesia — for many suppliers it's the most sensible first market to export to.
Wider Southeast Asia
Beyond Indonesia, the region's mining and resources demand is growing, and Australian mining suppliers carry real reputation here. Proximity means you can actually service a customer — a genuine edge over suppliers shipping from the other side of the world.
Latin American mining
Chile, Peru and Brazil run some of the largest mining operations on earth and share a deep mining heritage with Australia. That common ground makes Australian equipment and technology a natural fit — if you can navigate the distance and the local market.
Why buyers choose Australian
Australian METS is trusted because it's been proven in hard conditions. Mines overseas buy on reliability and support as much as price, and "engineered in Australian mining" carries weight. Most suppliers undersell this — it's one of the strongest cards you hold.
Reading real demand
Picking a market on gut feel is expensive. We weigh where your specific product has demand, how buyers there purchase, and who the competition is — drawing on trade intelligence from bodies like Austrade and state agencies such as Trade & Investment Queensland.
Grants that offset the spend
Exporting costs money before it makes money. The Export Market Development Grant can reimburse a share of eligible export marketing spend for Australian METS companies — planned properly, it funds a program you were going to run anyway.
Most Australian mining suppliers don't fail at export because their product is weak. They fail because they treat it as a trip, not a program.
The most common failure mode is the one-off exhibition trip: a company books a stand at an overseas mining show, spends real money on travel and freight, collects a stack of business cards, comes home, and nothing happens. The show wasn't the problem — the absence of any plan for what came after it was. Without follow-through, every lead goes cold within weeks.
The second is having no channel strategy. A METS product usually can't be sold into a foreign market direct from Australia — it needs a distributor, agent or partner on the ground. Companies that pick the wrong partner, or hand their product to one and hope, watch it get parked while nothing sells. Getting the channel right is often the whole game.
The third is leaving money on the table: running export marketing spend without structuring it for the grants that exist, so the EMDG and state trade programs go underused. Add a wrong first market — chosen because it sounded exciting rather than because the demand was there — and you've lost a year and a lot of cash learning what advice could have told you up front.
From a paid read to a running METS export program.
Growth Audit
We start with a paid, structured read on your export readiness and the market that fits your product best — the moves worth making first, in writing. It's $1,000, refunded when you move into a retainer, so you see how we think before committing to anything larger.
Pick the market & the way in
Together we choose the first market you can realistically win — Indonesia, wider Southeast Asia, or a Latin American mining region — and the route into it: direct, distributor or channel partner. This market entry decision is the one that saves you the expensive year a wrong first move usually costs.
Build the channel & the pipeline
We help you find and structure the right distributor or partner, get the export pricing and compliance basics straight, and put you in front of mining buyers through trade missions and in-market visits — then build the follow-up that turns a show floor handshake into a real, working pipeline.
Run it as an embedded partner
Export is a program, not a project. As an embedded partner we keep the strategy moving quarter to quarter — held together by Export OS so nothing goes cold — and where you're spending on export marketing we plan it around the EMDG grant, so the government offsets spend that was always going to happen.
A METS export advisor who has actually run a mining-technology export program — and won awards doing it.
Most export advice available to Australian METS companies comes from generalists — consultants who advise across every industry and have never sold anything into a foreign market themselves. Our founder led export at an Australian mining technology company that won at the 2025 Australian Export Awards. That's operator experience, not theory: picking the markets, building the distributor networks, running the missions, and closing the deals — and knowing exactly where the process bites.
It also means we speak your buyers' language. We work with mining equipment, technology and services companies specifically, so we understand how mines purchase, how long a technical sale really takes, and how distributors in mining markets behave. A generalist advising a METS supplier the same way they'd advise a food brand is guessing. We're not — and that shows up in the markets we point you toward and the partners we help you avoid.
And we work as an embedded partner, not a one-off report. Export is a program you run for years, so we stay in it with you: market selection this quarter, distributor setup the next, a trade mission after that. If you want the broader picture of how we work with the sector, our METS companies page covers it, and our export consulting page explains the wider advisory.
METS export, answered plainly.
What does METS stand for?
METS stands for mining equipment, technology and services. It's the sector of companies that supply the mining industry rather than dig ore out of the ground themselves — the people who make the pumps, drills, fluids, screens, automation, software, safety systems and specialist engineering that mines depend on to run. If you build a product or a technical service that a mine buys, you're a METS company, whether you'd ever have used the term or not.
How big is Australia's METS sector?
It's large and globally significant — Australia's mining strength has produced one of the deepest METS ecosystems in the world, exporting to mining regions on every continent. We don't quote a single headline figure here because the credible numbers move year to year; the industry body Austmine and the government's trade agency Austrade both publish current sector data, and they're the sources worth checking for an up-to-date size. What matters for an individual company is less the total sector number and more whether there's real demand for your specific product in a market you can reach.
How do METS companies start exporting?
The honest answer is: not by booking a stand at an overseas mining expo and hoping. Exporting starts with choosing one market you can realistically win, working out how buyers there actually purchase equipment and services, and lining up the right distributor, agent or direct relationships before you spend money on travel. Then it's follow-through — a pipeline you keep working, not a trip you take once. Most METS companies that stall do so because they treated export as an event instead of a program.
Which countries buy Australian mining equipment and technology?
Mining regions everywhere, but the ones where Australian METS companies tend to have the clearest edge are Southeast Asia — Indonesia especially — and the mining economies of Latin America such as Chile, Peru and Brazil. Southeast Asia offers proximity, growing coal and minerals demand, and a strong reputation for Australian mining know-how; Latin America shares a deep mining heritage that makes Australian equipment and technology a natural fit. Which one is right for you depends on your product and where its demand actually sits.
Why is Indonesia a focus market for Australian METS companies?
Indonesia is one of the world's largest coal and minerals producers, it's close, and it's actively buying the equipment, technology and services that Australian METS companies make. Government trade bodies are running METS-focused missions into events like Mining Indonesia, which tells you where the official effort is pointing. For a lot of Australian suppliers it's the most sensible first export market — big enough to matter, near enough to service, and open to Australian mining technology.
What's the difference between METS export advisory and a general export consultant?
A general export consultant advises across every industry — food, services, manufacturing, mining — usually from research rather than having sold anything overseas themselves. METS export advisory is specialist: it understands how mining buyers purchase, how long equipment and technology deals really take, how distributors in mining markets behave, and where the sector's grants and trade programs fit. When the person advising you already knows your buyers and has run an export program in your sector, you skip the expensive education that a generalist has to get on your time.
Can METS companies get government grants for exporting?
Yes. The main one is the Export Market Development Grant (EMDG), which can reimburse a share of eligible export marketing spend for Australian companies, including METS exporters. State bodies such as Trade & Investment Queensland and Investment NSW also run trade missions and support programs. The trick is to plan the export program so the grant funds work you were always going to do, rather than treating the grant as an afterthought — that's part of what our advisory sets up. See our EMDG page for how the grant works.
Two ways in.
Both low-risk.
Whether you want a proper read on where your mining technology should sell first, or you're ready to build the whole export program — both paths start the same way.
Growth Audit
A deep assessment of your export readiness and best-fit market, in writing. You get a plan you can act on, and the fee is refunded when you start a retainer.
Book a Growth Audit →Strategy Call
Tell us what you make and where you'd like to sell it. We'll give you an honest read on whether we can help and how a METS export advisor would approach it.
Book a 30-Minute Call →Not sure if we're the right fit? Take the 3-minute export readiness quiz →