New technology is helping miners cut costs to survive the worst downturn in commodity prices in nearly two decades, which is good news for companies that might otherwise have gone to the wall, not so good for an industry drowning in overcapacity.
Commodity prices from coal to zinc are down as much as 80 per cent from record highs a few years ago.
The fall is caused in part by slowing economic growth in China - for years the world's biggest user of raw materials - which shows little sign of abating.
Global resource-based companies have adapted to the fall in revenue by adopting new technologies enabling, for example, real-time tracking of operations, which helps reduce down time, saves fuel, improves safety and boosts production.
Despite the collapse in prices, Australian mining companies have suffered only a 20 per cent fall in profits in the most recent financial year relative to 2012, according to government data.
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That means mines that would have been doomed in past downturns are proving far more resilient, prolonging oversupply and keeping downward pressure on prices.
"You're getting more output for a lower price. It's just one issue that's making production a bit stickier than you would expect," said Ric Ronge, a portfolio manager of Pengana Global Resources Fund.
At a new goldmine in northern Canada, huge fans switch on to suck dust and diesel fumes out of shafts 650 metres underground when equipment or workers approach the area, and switch off when they leave, not wasting energy spinning all day long.
"Ventilation on demand" is saving Goldcorp as much as $2.5 million a year at the Eleonore mine, and has cut energy costs more than 20 per cent at a Glencore copper mine in Canada, thanks to software tying together data from tracking tags on the workers and sensors on ore loaders.
"They're seeing it as: 'If I don't do this, I'm not going to be around, because it's helping lower my costs'," said Doug Bellin, senior manager at Cisco Systems, which helped set up systems for Goldcorp.
The trend is running against the industry's broader drive to cut capital expenditure.
"There's a growing interest towards more automation," said Petri Virrankoski, manager of load and haul in Australia for Sandvik Mining, the Swedish maker of mining equipment.
"But obviously in these times money is tight, so I wouldn't say it's easy to sell anything nowadays."
Sandvik has successfully tested automated trucks and loaders at a mine in Finland.
