Mipac offers engineering services that enhance mineral processing operations by delivering reliable automation and improving plant stability. These services address aging infrastructure and aggressive production targets, ensuring plants operate efficiently and meet market expectations.
Mipac was founded in 1997 by a group of control system engineers working at Mount Isa Mines. What started as a small, close-knit team supporting local operations in North Queensland has since grown into a global business. Today, Mipac delivers operational technology and process control solutions to more than 100 processing plants across 55 countries, earning a reputation as a trusted leader in the mining and mineral processing industry.
Across both brownfield and greenfield operations, Mipac delivers stability to complex and often volatile production environments. In an industry where even minor disruptions can cost millions, the value of consistent throughput, precise control, and informed decision-making is immense.
Mipac has completed more than 720 projects and brings deep technical expertise, a pragmatic understanding of plant realities, and a vendor-neutral approach to every engagement. It specialises in advanced control systems, automation engineering, data analytics, and optimisation. From small upgrades to full-scale digital transformation programs, Mipac helps operators and engineers achieve sustainable improvements in safety, efficiency, and yield.
Addressing a Global Industry Challenge
Unplanned downtime costs the global mining sector $15 billion per year. The causes are ageing assets, uncalibrated instrumentation, outdated control logic, inexperienced personnel, and under-utilised data. These pressures are particularly acute as the mining workforce ages and plants struggle to attract and retain the right skills. At the same time, production targets are increasingly ambitious, and ore grades continue to decline and margins tighten.
Mipac bridges the knowledge gap between operational teams and the complex technologies they rely on. It has the systems expertise to tune and transform a plant’s performance, transfer knowledge, equip teams, and make processes more stable.
Where Mipac Works
Mipac operates across all continents, with project work in Australia, North and South America, Asia, and Africa. It has deep experience with base metals and precious metals and is expanding its footprint in iron ore and coal. Notable projects are long-term support for Ok Tedi Mining in Papua New Guinea, performance improvements at Elk Valley Resources in Canada, and greenfield commissioning work on First Quantum Mineral’s Cobre Panama, one of the world’s largest new copper mines.
Its reputation has been built on tackling technically challenging brownfield environments, where no two plants are alike, infrastructure is often decades old, and downtime windows are narrow. New plants are increasingly seeking out Mipac early in the lifecycle, during the feasibility and design phases, when it can help future-proof control systems and digital infrastructure.
Core Services and Capabilities
Mipac’s multidisciplinary team has control system engineers, process engineers, metallurgists, data analysts, instrumentation experts, and software developers. The company offers a wide range of services:
- Industrial Automation and Advanced Process Control
- Electrical and Instrumentation Engineering
- Data Visualisation and Analytics
- Functional Safety
- Process Optimisation
- Tankhouse Instrumentation
- Asset Performance Management
- Industrial Networking and Cybersecurity
- Operations Support and Remote Monitoring
- Mining 4.0 Consulting
- Custom Software Development for Mineral Processing
Mipac is technology-agnostic and works with all major control platforms, including ABB, Siemens, Honeywell, Schneider Electric, Yokogawa and Rockwell.
Vision and Future Focus
As the mining industry continues its digital transformation, Mipac is expanding its presence in North America and exploring new opportunities in battery minerals, rare earths and energy transition materials. Internally, Mipac is investing in product innovation and cloud-based tools tailored to mineral processing, giving operators faster, clearer insights into plant performance.
At its core, Mipac is driven by the belief that better technology should be accessible and effective — not just ambitious. Its legacy isn’t just the systems it builds or upgrades, but the gains clients keep long after the project is complete.
Proven Control Systems That Keep Plants Running Smoothly
Mipac’s industrial automation services form the backbone of reliable plant control. We use programmable logic controllers (PLCs), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and distributed control systems (DCS) to enable consistent, repeatable operation across critical circuits — from crushing and grinding through to flotation, leaching and thickening.
Mipac’s experience spans both brownfield and greenfield sites, each with its own operational demands and legacy systems. Automation reduces human error, removes performance variability, and gives operators control over what were previously unstable or manually driven processes.
Whether stabilising a single circuit or delivering plant-wide automation upgrades, Mipac ensures that control systems are built not just to run reliably, day after day.
Real-Time Insights That Drive Better Plant Decisions
Mining plants generate massive volumes of real-time data, but turning that data into action is a different challenge entirely. Mipac’s data analytics and visualisation services make sense of this complexity, giving operators and engineers clear visibility into what’s happening now, and what’s coming next.
Our team integrates real-time plant data into advanced dashboards and reporting systems, helping sites track key performance indicators, identify bottlenecks, and detect process deviations early. This is especially useful for flagging declining ore quality, uncalibrated instruments, or operator-induced variability — all of which contribute to downtime and underperformance.
Mipac embeds these insights directly into control strategies to make plants proactive rather than reactive. In sites with inexperienced or rotating staff, clear, visual data tools also serve as a training and support mechanism, ensuring consistency even as personnel changes.
Analytics improve automation, and automation amplifies the impact of analytics. The result is faster, smarter decisions that help keep operations on track — and out of unplanned shutdowns.
Smart, Scalable Systems Designed for Reliability
At the heart of every reliable process control system is good engineering. From front-end design to commissioning and integration, our team delivers robust, fit-for-purpose electrical, instrumentation and control systems tailored to the realities of mineral processing.
We work closely with plant teams during upgrades, expansions, or greenfield builds to ensure that systems are designed for reliability and ease of maintenance — not just technical compliance. This helps avoid the downtime that poor planning, outdated technology, and integration mismatches can cause. Our designs are scalable and modular, future-proofing plants against further changes while reducing dependency on bespoke or obsolete equipment.
Good engineering underpins successful automation. Without it, control systems are unstable and difficult to maintain. With it, operations are steady, recoveries improve, and site teams can focus on optimisation rather than firefighting.
Whether replacing ageing infrastructure or designing for new throughput targets, Mipac delivers systems that are built to last and ready to perform from day one.
Unlock More Throughput With Less Variability
The process optimisation services of Mipac fine-tune operations, reduce variability, and maximise throughputs. We work across the full flowsheet, from comminution through to refining.
Whatever the cause of the bottleneck, Mipac brings deep experience in diagnosing and resolving process inefficiencies using data, control logic, and on-the-ground know-how.
By leveraging automation systems already in place — or by upgrading those systems where needed — Mipac helps plants unlock greater yield, lower costs, and tighter control over production variables. The goal is to make plants run predictably and efficiently, even under changing ore feeds or shifting site conditions.
In high-stakes environments where production targets are tied to market performance or board-level reporting, predictable output matters. Mipac delivers a more stable plant, with fewer surprises and better results.