1. Tell us about your transition into the role of Country Manager
Being back at Molycop in this role has been an exciting journey, as I get to see not only what happens with customers at the commercial level, but what is happening behind the scenes (procurement, logistics, plant operations, human resources activity, financial, etc.).
Moreover, the main challenge I face is to lead the Mexican business unit through these volatile times towards the goals set by the team and the Head Office, starting with safety as priority number one. One thing I can tell you for sure is that this new role has not been boring at all.
2. What are your immediate priorities and long-term goals?
My top priorities are:
- Safety, as I want everyone to get back home safe and sound to enjoy their families.
- Customer service, by delivering results and meeting customers’ expectations.
- Business optimisation, by improving our plant productivity and business profitability for our stakeholders.
In the long term, the goal is to become the most important business partner for our customers in terms of liberation and recovery solutions, from grinding media and flotation chemicals, going through process optimisation, to automation and data analytics solutions.
3. What’s your plan to position Molycop as a key player in the region?
We have put together an ambitious plan for FY27 with the main goal to become certified as a Great Place to Work, Clean Industry and Socially Responsible Company. This plan covers what we consider are the five main pillars of the Company: Legal & Compliance, Health & Safety, Culture-Pride & Engagement, Training & Development and Moral & Recognition.
These are people-based pillars, which is the main and most important asset our company has. This plan will certainly elevate our position not only with our customers but by becoming a benchmark within the industry.
I see that the main value our customers appreciate is to have a totally reliable partner. This has been our main focus with our customers during these uncertain times (i.e. COVID, global supply chain disruptions, etc.) where we have not stopped any customers’ operation due to shortage of supply.
We have achieved this due to our robust SO&P process, where we have been able to transform it into a hybrid model, using the entire Molycop Network as well as our local resources.
4. What makes Molycop’s operations in Mexico unique?
Geographically, we’re practically at the centre of the Americas continent, with access to both the Atlantic and the Pacific. This gives us a privileged position to service other Molycop regions at a reasonable price. In addition, our conversion costs and the access we have to several sources of steel – Canada, US, Mexico, China, Perú – makes us quite competitive within the Molycop Network, and in our regional market.
Furthermore, our plant set up and design gives us the flexibility to operate with one or two production lines in parallel as we have independent production circuits. Our bar furnaces + rotary hearth and tempering furnace are natural gas based, which allows for lower conversion costs than induction heating processes, and more stability during the forging and downstream processes.
5. Tell us about the recent capital investments made in Mexico
During the past few years, the El Salto Plant has been transforming and evolving to a more advanced and dynamic manufacturing centre with the intention to better serve our customers and their needs.
During 2020, we upgraded our Forged Production Line with the addition of the NG process, accounting for 3 x 100 ton hoppers, one rotary hearth furnace and one drop ball testing station. The total investment was about US$7m and gives us the technology to manufacture a tougher and long-lasting SAG ball.
Also, back in February 2024, we started a major revamping project where we completely replaced our 12-year-old AJAX upsetter with a bigger and more reliable Hill Acme upsetter. In addition, we took this opportunity to do major overhauls to all equipment downstream (i.e. bar furnace, hoppers, rotary hearth furnace, transport system, tempering furnace). The total investment was US$4.7m. The execution took 3.5 months to complete and one remarkable thing was that there were zero accidents during the entire execution of the project.
6. How will these investments benefit Molycop’s operations and customers?
On the one hand, the new Hill Acme has increased our productivity by 20%, making us more efficient and reliable as grinding media supplier. On the other hand, we have recorded that our NG SAG ball has at least 20% better performance versus our previous DQ SAG ball.
This means at least 20% less consumption for our customers and a tougher ball that won’t break regardless of the conditions of the mills (i.e. non-impactive or impactive operation).
7. How has Molycop’s expanded product and service offering benefited customers in Mexico?
In my point of view, Molycop is transitioning from a grinding media manufacturer to a liberation and recovery solutions business partner. Now, we are in position to help customers achieve their goals throughout all the solutions we can bring to the table, from a reliable long-lasting ball to a complete life cycle project with the assistance of our state-of-the-art instrumentation and data analytics algorithms, that ends with the maximisation in the recovery of the valuable mineral.
Currently we are performing four MillSlicer assessments for two of our biggest customers in the region with the aim of improving their grinding efficiency in their SAG circuits. In addition, we are also servicing our gold extraction systems, Cynoprobe, to keep them up to date.
8. How are customers in Mexico leveraging Molycop’s digital solutions?
Molycop’s digital solutions and data analytics provide better insight about customers’ operations. This gives our customers a different vision, where they can see areas of improvement, as well as guidelines as to how to optimise their process by making it more efficient. The idea is to give them the tools and data they need to navigate and react during their day-to-day operations.
9. How is Molycop Mexico currently engaging with its customers?
Commitment and results delivery are key to maintaining a strong business relationship. One key issue we focus on is understanding what our customers’ goals are, as well as the hurdles to accomplish those. Based on this, we develop a strategy that will help them reach these goals, either by setting a training program, doing some studies and optimisation exercises, to proposing more integral solutions (i.e. different grinding media type, sizes, logistics, etc.). From there, we create a bond with the customer / end user, becoming a part of the solution.
10. What training and technical support does Molycop provide its customers?
Customers’ goals are becoming more complex and challenging. They need to recover more valuable minerals with less resources (i.e. less mineral grade, less media, less energy, less water). The only way they can truly achieve this is with knowledge and training. What we bring to the table is not only training in grinding concepts, but our 100+ years of experience and benchmarks from different sites, giving our customers the best practices and recommendations we’ve seen around the world.
We tailor training seminars according to specific customer needs. By training operators and/or supervisors and managers, we can capture their operational philosophies and restrictions and squeeze every single penny from our products to achieve our customers’ goals. This creates a bond with our end users, which is very important to stay ahead of the game.
11. What advantages are offered by Molycop’s global expertise in technical services and customer support?
Molycop has given multiple recommendations and solutions to our customers on a daily basis, ranging from simple grinding optimisation models to complex grinding circuit mass balances and operational and instrumentation/automation recommendations.
Our sales and technical teams are composed of a multicultural background with different technical skills, complementing each other to give holistic solutions to our customers. In addition, our applications team is being led by one of the most technically experienced engineers in the entire organisation, who has participated in multiple complex optimisation projects.
12. How is Molycop Mexico contributing to the company’s global sustainability goals?
We’re exploring several options to reduce our carbon footprint, from small actions such as avoiding electricity peak hours and changing electricity supplier, to assessing the feasibility of having a solar farm within our premises. All these actions will also have a positive impact on the Operating Agenda set for FY25 and onwards.
We have an ambitious plan to reforest our grounds, become more like a Molycop campus and bring wellness to our people. Moreover, we are updating our water treatment plant with the addition of a UV system to improve the quality of water we discharge to the ecosystem, in accordance with Mexican regulations.
Lastly, we are developing a recycling program to recycle our industrial as well as normal waste, starting with awareness and garbage classification.
13. How is Molycop Mexico supporting the local communities in which it operates?
El Salto, Jalisco has been our home from the past 13 years. They have responded well to us and we are very grateful to the authorities and the community. In turn, we are working on several initiatives, such as:
- donations to a nourishing home for elderly people (food, clothing, etc.)
- attending local job fairs held at the City Hall to present our open positions
- sponsoring local events, such as the 5k and 10k run events held by the Industrials Association
- improving our surroundings (i.e. streetlamps, road fixing) in association with other companies from our industrial area.
14. How do you approach recruitment and building a strong local team?
We are transforming our recruitment methodology passing from a passive search, using the traditional means such as publishing our open positions online, to a more active one by participating in job fairs, creating agreements with universities and developing an internship program to detect and retain top talent.
In addition, we have been restructuring our organisation and developing a career plan for all our employees (blue and white collar). This means having training programs tailored to our employees’ needs.
15. What steps are you taking to attract and retain top talent?
We have put in practice initiatives to make Molycop an attractive place to work (we call them the intangibles). Some of these are: working flexible hours, having days working from home, having more social events where the families of our employees can participate and feel proud of their relatives, etc.
Plus, we have three pillars that we use to retain top talent: Culture-Pride & Engagement, Training & Development and Moral & Recognition.
16. What opportunities do you see for growth in the region?
The next step for us is to develop and consolidate the Chemicals and Digitalisation business line with our customers, while keeping a strong core business with grinding media. This poses a major challenge as we are seen as a grinding media supplier by our customers.
We keep working on changing this paradigm by delivering results wherever we have the chance to show our capabilities. At the end, we don’t want to be seen as a grinding media supplier, but as a company that provides solutions to the minerals processing industry.
17. What message would you like to send customers about the benefits of partnering with your team?
Molycop is a reliable business partner that can bring different solutions and ideas to improve their operations and processes. In addition, and despite all the volatility and geopolitical activity affecting the global market, Molycop has never put at risk any single operation around the world. On the contrary, we’ve been able to help our customers with product availability whenever they face shortages or changes in consumption. This makes us a company to rely on.
Overall, Molycop has a 100+ years of experience, developing new solutions, improving our operations, mastering our supply chain and advising our customers to make them more efficient and profitable. This is the Molycop experience and this what our customers get when they have us as partners.
