Epiroc says it has won a large mining equipment order from CITIC Pacific Mining in Australia to deliver a fleet of Epiroc Pit Viper 271 XC blasthole drill rigs.

The drill rigs will come with advanced automation features for use at the Sino Iron open-pit mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, with the Pit Viper drills used to drill for magnetite. They build on the delivery of three other Pit Vipers the company made to the operation back in 2019.

The equipment order was booked in the September quarter of 2022 and is valued at more than SEK300 million ($26 million).

“Epiroc delivered Pit Viper rigs to the Sino Iron site in 2019, and we are proud to continue this productive partnership as CITIC Pacific Mining is expanding the mine while optimising productivity and safety,” Epiroc’s President and CEO, Helena Hedblom, said.

Xianglin Cheng, General Manager – Mining at CITIC Pacific Mining, added: “In the last three years, Epiroc has provided satisfactory after-sale services to help the three Pit Viper 351 drill rigs perform to expectation and has also successfully established mutual trust with CITIC Pacific Mining. The confidence and trust are the major reasons for us to choose Epiroc.”

The Pit Viper drills are manufactured in Texas, USA. They will be installed with automation features including AutoDrill, which allows for up to 100% of the hole drilling cycle to be in automatic mode with high consistency and reliability of operations; and AutoLevel, which minimises the time it takes to level and delevel and hence provides more time drilling, according to Epiroc.