Boart Longyear expects three recent initiatives to significantly contribute to its growth in 2012 and beyond; the creation of Boart Longyear Financial Services (BLFS), global expansion of mine water drilling services, and sonic equipment to the drilling industry worldwide. Craig Kipp, CEO, states, “The mineral exploration market continues to perform extremely well despite current macroeconomic headwinds. Rig demand, product backlog and pricing in both the Drilling Services and Products businesses continue to indicate a positive outlook.
“Driven by the second year of significant organic reinvestment in the business, Boart Longyear’s revenue per rig, metres per employee and global footprint continue to expand. Rig utilisation for Drilling Services continues at approximately 75%, consistent with our strategy of driving performance, not utilisation. Finally, our eight primary new drilling products launched during this year are seeing strong demand.”
BLFS offers customers competitive financing solutions for leasing or purchasing Boart Longyear drilling equipment. All of the company’s manufactured drilling capital equipment can be financed through BLFS, including multipurpose, production, reverse circulation, rotary, sonic, and surface and underground coring rigs. The new service will enable Boart Longyear to enhance customer service while expanding drilling capital equipment sales. Currently, all BLFS transactions are financed on a nonrecourse basis through third party providers, minimising the impact on the company’s balance sheet.
The Company has recently allocated a significant amount of capital expenditure to expand its rig fleet for mine water supply and dewatering services. This investment supports both the contracted and rapidly increasing global demand for this unique and technical drilling. Boart Longyear will leverage its North American expertise to provide these services to mines in Latin America, Africa, and Asia Pacific by using in-house drilling processes developed over 30 years in the broken and unconsolidated US Rocky Mountain geology.
Boart Longyear has begun selling its sonic drilling technology, including drill rigs and other equipment, to third parties. Sonic technology produces high-quality, undisturbed core samples more quickly and with less waste than conventional methods by using high frequency vibratory “dry” drilling techniques. The company’s proprietary sonic drilling technology has been regarded as the best in the industry for many years. Boart Longyear soon will complement its sonic product offerings with operator training services and aftermarket support, providing sonic drilling solutions for its drilling customers around the world.