Russia’s leading domestic blasthole drill company, Rudgormash, recently received a delegation from Mongolia’s Erdenet copper and molybdenum mining group. The purpose of the visit was to see the modern manufacturing process at Rudgormash as well as to study new designs of drilling equipment and to co-ordinate the technical specifications of the Rudgormash dSBSH-250MNA-32 blasthole rig being supplied to Erdenet in 2012. Interestingly, the company has also stated that in late January 2012, representatives from Atlas Copco visited Rudgormash with the stated purpose of a “consideration of possible co-operation and placement of joint production” in the territories where Rudgormash is mainly active. These were only preliminary discussions and the statement did not explicitly state what kind of equipment might be manufactured at the potential joint site. IM has previously mentioned the fact that Atlas Copco in its own right has already been highly successful in the Russian market and a large number of ROC L8, Pit Vipers and other models are operating at key Russian mines.