Global abrasive player GMA Garnet Group has recorded strong growth in revenue as it expanded its product portfolio and increased market share in key specialist industries.
Global abrasive player GMA Garnet Group has recorded strong growth in revenue as it expanded its product portfolio and increased market share in key specialist industries.
Owned by the Hong Kong-based Jebsen & Jessen Family Enterprise, GMA Garnet generated revenue of $320.9 million for the year ending December 31, up almost 35 per cent from $238.1 million in the previous corresponding period.
Net profit rose to $25.5 million from $18.8 million in the same period, while total assets grew to $489.6 million from $425.8 million.
GMA mines garnet at Port Gregory between Geraldton and Kalbarri, and in the US state of Montana. It also has an offtake agreement with ASX-listed Minerals Commodities to take garnet from its Tormin mineral sands operation in South Africa.
The business was founded in Western Australia more than 35 years ago by Torsten Ketelsen with the backing of Jebsen & Jessen. Mr Ketelsen is no longer involved in the business, having fully sold out a few years ago.
GMA is the dominant player in industrial garnet, which is used in waterjet cutting and as a blasting abrasive in the protective coating industry. It produces about 550,000 tonnes of garnet a year.
More than a miner, it also processes the garnet into specialist products and markets it to industrial users directly or through agents around the world.
GMA chief executive Grant Cox said that the company had developed new product iterations that allowed for users to substitute garnet for other abrasive products, helping to generate additional sales in the improved post-COVID environment.
Mr Cox said the company, which employs 150 people in WA out of a global workforce of more than 400, was expanding its mining and processing operations, most notably in the US, to generate additional supply to meet this new demand.
“We have developed the products already,” he said.
“We need to expand capacity in our existing sources.”
GMA has owned the Alder mine in Montana for a decade and has embarked on a plan to upgrade the plant.
Abrasive blasting is used in fields such as infrastructure, oil and gas, mining and ship maintenance. Waterjet cutting is applied in aerospace and automotive manufacturing.
