This is the long tail of services a mine cannot run without but which nobody thinks about until they fail. Surveying covers legal boundary and mineral title survey work, which is licensed practice, and volumetric or as-built survey for stockpile reconciliation, pit progress and reserve depletion, increasingly flown by small unmanned aircraft. Assay sample logistics is the chain of custody between the drill rig and the laboratory, and the thing being bought is documented custody, tamper evidence and correct hazardous materials paperwork rather than transport speed. Site security covers access control, magazine and explosives storage compliance, high-value concentrate and dore movement, and theft investigation. Catering and camps is accommodation, food safety and potable water and waste for remote or fly-in operations. IT and automation spans site networks, industrial control systems for fixed plant and autonomous haulage, and the cyber exposure those create. Insurance and legal round it out: property, business interruption, environmental impairment, surety for reclamation bonds, workers compensation, and the permitting, title, royalty and contract work behind all of it.
2 firms working in this trade
Alphabetical. Nobody paid to be here
- Darling GeomaticsTucson, Arizona
Mine surveying, drone and LiDAR mapping, volumes and deformation monitoring
darlingltd.com - Thyssen MiningLas Vegas, Nevada
Underground contractor: shaft sinking, mine development, raise boring
thyssenmining.com
Listed because we found them, not because they asked or paid. Every entry was checked against the company’s own website; none of it is an endorsement, and we have no commercial relationship with anyone on this page. Work in Other mining services and want to be added, corrected or removed? Tell us — it is free either way.
How it is actually bought
Contract shapes and what they price
Most of these are bought as either a licensed professional engagement or a term service contract, and the split matters. Boundary and title survey is a professional service delivered under a licensed surveyor's seal at a fixed fee per parcel or per plat; volumetric survey is a recurring per-flight or per-cycle service with an agreed accuracy specification, and the specification, not the flight, is the deliverable. Assay logistics, catering, camps, security and site IT are typically multi-year term contracts with a fixed monthly standing charge plus variable per-unit rates, per sample shipped, per man-day catered, per guard hour, per seat supported, and with service levels and liquidated remedies rather than damages as the real enforcement mechanism. Insurance is placed through a broker on an annual policy year with the mine's loss history driving the price, and legal work is hourly or capped per matter. The liability picture is that every one of these vendors is an independent contractor on mine property, so their people trigger the operator's own site-specific hazard awareness training obligations and the operator must hold their MSHA contractor identification information at the mine; on top of that, insurance and surety capacity for reclamation obligations is credit-driven and can be withdrawn at renewal regardless of contract performance.
Who regulates it
And what each one requires of this trade
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) — Licenses and permits everyone who manufactures, imports, distributes, receives or stores explosive materials, which reaches blasting supply, magazine operation and the security arrangements around them.
- Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — Regulates commercial small unmanned aircraft operations under 14 CFR Part 107, which is the legal basis for every drone-flown pit survey, stockpile volume and tailings dam inspection on a US site.
- State insurance regulators — License and supervise the insurers, surety companies and producers that write mine property, liability, environmental and reclamation surety cover; there is no federal insurance regulator, so authority to write in the state is a state question.
- State engineering and surveying licensure boards — Grant and discipline the professional surveyor and professional engineer licences that boundary, title and mine survey work must be performed under; the exam body administers the FE, PE, FS and PS examinations but the licence itself comes from the state board.
The standards that apply
Ask which of these a firm works to
- ISO/IEC 17025:2017, General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories — The criteria accreditation bodies use to assess laboratories; the assay laboratory at the end of your sample chain should hold accreditation to it with your specific fire assay, digestion or instrumental methods inside the accredited scope.
- 30 CFR Part 45 (independent contractors) — Requires service contractors at a mine to obtain an MSHA identification number and provide their details to the operator, and requires the operator to hold that information in writing at the mine; it applies to caterers, IT crews, guards and couriers, not only to production contractors.
- 30 CFR 46.11 (site-specific hazard awareness training) — Requires site-specific hazard awareness training before any covered person is exposed to mine hazards, which is the rule that catches delivery drivers, vendors, surveyors and visitors and is the single most commonly missed training obligation for non-mining service providers.
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 — The free, voluntary federal framework for understanding and managing cybersecurity risk, released in February 2024; it is the common reference for scoping site network, industrial control system and autonomous equipment security work and for writing vendor security obligations.
What to demand from a firm
Credentials worth checking before you sign
- State Professional Surveyor licensure — Boundary, title and legal mine survey work must be sealed by a surveyor licensed in that state; the national exam body administers the Fundamentals of Surveying and Professional Surveyor examinations, but the licence and the disciplinary authority sit with the state board.
- ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation held by an ILAC-recognised accreditation body — What to demand of an assay laboratory: not a self-declared quality system but a current accreditation certificate and scope issued by an accreditation body that is a signatory to the ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement.
- FAA Remote Pilot Certificate under 14 CFR Part 107 — Required of anyone flying a small drone commercially for survey or inspection; the pilot must be at least 16, able to read, write, speak and understand English, physically and mentally fit to fly, and must have passed the Unmanned Aircraft General knowledge test, and the aircraft must be registered.
- A current federal explosives licence or permit of the right type — Ask which of the five ATF authorisations a vendor actually holds. A permit does not authorise engaging in the business of importing, manufacturing or distributing explosive materials, and a limited permit is far narrower than a user permit.
Where to find firms yourself
Public registers and member directories
- ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement signatory search — Searchable by economy, accreditation body and scope including ISO/IEC 17025 testing, with links through to each body's own database of accredited facilities; this is how a buyer independently confirms an assay laboratory's accreditation instead of accepting a PDF certificate.
- NCEES Member Licensing Board Directory — Contact details for the engineering and surveying licensing boards of every state, the District of Columbia and the US territories, which is how a professional surveyor or engineer licence is actually verified.
- NAIC state insurance departments directory — Directory of the insurance regulator for every US jurisdiction plus a consumer insurance search tool, used to confirm that an insurer, surety or broker is authorised to write the cover in the state where the mine sits.
- MSHA Mine Data Retrieval System — MSHA's public data tool covering mines and independent contractors, which lets a buyer check the enforcement record of a security, catering, drilling support or courier contractor before it comes on site.
Numbers worth knowing
Each one carries its source
ATF importer, manufacturer and dealer licences and the user permit are valid for 3 years; a limited permit is valid for 12 months and allows receipt of explosive materials on no more than 6 separate occasions, from in-state sources only.
sourceATF fees: importer, manufacturer and dealer licences are $200 to apply and $100 to renew; a user permit is $100 and $50; a limited permit is $25 and $12. Processing is stated as 90 days for a properly completed application, which is the real lead time to plan around.
sourceCommercial drone survey under 14 CFR Part 107: the remote pilot must be at least 16 years old and pass the Unmanned Aircraft General knowledge test, the aircraft must be a small drone of less than 55 pounds, and registration costs $5 and is valid for 3 years.
sourceThe national exam body's members are the 68 engineering and surveying licensing boards of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, which is why a surveyor's licence is a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction question.
sourceThe national association of insurance commissioners covers 56 US insurance jurisdictions, all 50 states plus territories including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; insurance authority is state, not federal, so the placement has to be authorised where the risk sits.
sourceHow this goes wrong
The specific traps, not general advice
- Buying a volumetric or drone survey when the job legally required a licensed boundary or title survey. Stockpile volumes and pit progress are technical measurements; property lines, mineral title and mine encroachment are licensed practice that must carry a professional surveyor's seal in that state.
- Accepting an assay laboratory's own quality claims instead of a current accreditation certificate with the scope attached. If the specific assay method is outside the accredited scope, the result is not defensible in a resource estimate or a shipment dispute.
- Treating sample transport as ordinary freight. What is being bought is documented chain of custody with tamper-evident seals and correct hazardous materials paperwork, and a broken custody record can invalidate an entire drill programme's results rather than just one shipment.
- Letting caterers, guards, IT technicians and couriers on site without site-specific hazard awareness training and without collecting the MSHA contractor identification information the operator has to keep in writing at the mine. The citation lands on the operator, not on the vendor.
- Confirming a vendor has an ATF authorisation without checking which one. A permit does not let someone engage in the business of distributing explosive materials, and a limited permit caps receipts at six occasions a year from in-state sources, which fails the moment a campaign runs long.
Questions to ask before you sign
- Which operations have you actually worked on, and who can vouch for it?
- What part of this do you do yourself, and what do you subcontract?
Where to next
Drilling & boring
Core, RC, rotary, sonic and geotechnical drilling
PreviousFinance, valuation & reporting
Technical reports, valuation and project finance
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