At PDAC, I pulled aside eight companies working the less glamorous but essential side of the exploration business. The drillers, the helicopter operators, the data visualizers, the logistics providers, and the emerging technology players who make every field program possible and I asked them all the same basic questions: how busy are you, what’s holding you back, and what does a good client look like from where you’re standing. What came back was a surprisingly candid look at a bull market from the people actually doing real work.
Across all eight interviews with the drillers, helicopter support, 3D visualization, AI prospecting, and exploration services in Kazakhstan, five themes come up repeatedly, almost word for word in some cases.
- Labor is the universal chokepoint.
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Every single service provider, without exception, cited people as their primary constraint. Not rigs. Not fuel. Not permits. People. Hy-Tech said it plainly: you can build rigs, but you can’t print trained drillers. Geotech echoed it. Evolve said it. Even Aurora in Kazakhstan flagged it, noting that international salary expectations are now hitting a market that wasn’t built for those numbers. The industry is in a full bull cycle and the human infrastructure hasn’t scaled with the asset prices. That’s a structural problem, not a cyclical blip.
– - Supply chain is tighter than most realize.
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The helicopter outfit, Expedition, changed their entire inventory model post-COVID. They’re now warehousing significantly more parts and components just to stay operational. Hy-Tech made the point that one missing item shuts everything down. This is the unglamorous underbelly of a bull market. The lubricants, the drill bits, the helicopter components nobody puts in a press release.
– - Capacity is real, and the good service providers are choosing clients.
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Multiple providers are functionally booked. Hy-Tech is full through 2026. Expedition is near capacity. Even TerraHutton, the 3D visualization shop, has a four-to-six week backlog. The balance of power has quietly shifted. Service providers are now doing reference checks on clients, not the other way around. Expedition said it outright; they vet management teams and business philosophies before bidding. That’s a seller’s market, if I ever saw one.
– - Relationships trump transactions.
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When asked what a good client looks like, every single interviewee gave essentially the same answer: someone who communicates, pays on time, and respects the relationship. Nobody said “the one who pays the most.” The recurring complaint was slow data delivery (TerraHutton), late payments even in a bull market (TerraHutton again: still hard to get paid, which should raise eyebrows for any junior’s investor), and clients who don’t give service providers the operational breathing room to do their jobs.
– - Technology and vertical integration are entering the space.
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Evolve is one of the more interesting cases. They’re building rigs, writing software, streaming 200 live data points per rig, and investing in juniors through a capital arm. They used the Southwest Airlines analogy deliberately: standardized fleet, lower downtime, predictable supply chain. Moon Trades is coming in from aerospace with an AI prospecting rover, targeting a 30% improvement in drill accuracy. Neither is mainstream yet, but both represent a real shift in how the service side is thinking about its own value proposition.
PDAC 2026 Episode 3 out of 3
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