Around three years ago, Sandvik made a major statement at its Capital Markets Day in 2022: The OEM was aiming to take a leading position in the surface drilling market.
At last month’s Sandvik Capital Markets Day, Mats Eriksson, President of Sandvik Mining, stood on stage and provided the same message: “We are aiming at being number one on surface.”
The fact this goal now looks achievable considering in 2020 it was sitting on a surface drilling equipment market share around the 20% mark is remarkable.
The addition of the Leopard DI650i down-the-hole (DTH) drill rig to this offering is viewed as a key catalyst for this growth. At the time, it offered new levels of mobility, operator comfort and serviceability, as well as an intelligent DTH control system that gave the company a chance to compete with other peers offering fully autonomous blasthole drilling.
Leveraging and adapting the company’s underground expertise and know-how to achieve this leading surface mining position is another contributor; it was also a recurring theme within Eriksson’s most recent Capital Markets Day address.
“We have put in a lot of R&D, a lot of effort and focus on the surface side in terms of what we can do there, benefitting from our expertise and knowledge on the underground side,” he said in response to one analyst question from the floor.
“From the customer discussions we have already had, [it is apparent that] they are seeing us as a good choice for surface drill rigs.”
Continued momentum
The numbers and news back this up.
Eriksson talked about the company doubling its surface mining revenue over the 2019-2024 period, as well as increasing its installed fleet by more than 40%.
Notable contract achievements on this side include the supply of 34 surface drill rigs to US-based dealer Country Boy Supply, LLC – the largest-ever single surface drills order for the company; the supply of nine new surface drill rigs as a complete replacement for an ageing mixed fleet at the Gruyere open-pit gold mine in the Western Australian Goldfields; and more recently the supply of four Sandvik DR412i rotary blasthole drills to ArcelorMittal Mining Canada for its Québec operations.
“Our drill rigs are performing better than the competitors,” Eriksson remarked last month, adding that he saw double-digit growth going forward.
Patrick Murphy, President of Rotary Drilling at Sandvik Mining, echoed this sentiment at The Electric Mine 2025, in Santiago, Chile, on May 14 during a presentation with his colleague Nellaiappan Subbiah (Acting Vice President, Product Development & Product Management) and Boliden’s Peter Wallin (Manager, Electrification Program).
“We have gained significant market share growth over the last five years, and we are poised to increase that going forward,” he told delegates.
Tech developments
That same presentation highlighted the technology and innovation momentum the surface drilling business has witnessed over the same period.
Within the first few minutes of the ‘Electrifying the future: Zero emission surface drills in mining’ presentation, Murphy had referenced the planned delivery of the company’s first i-series cable-electric rigs to a customer in Mongolia this year – DR410iE rotary drill rigs destined for the Tsagaan Suvarga project – and a successful AutoMine surface drilling trial involving seven rigs – four blasthole and three pre-split rigs – at Antofagasta Minerals’ majority-owned Zaldivar copper mine, in Chile.
He also said the company’s My Sandvik Onsite solution, built on the renowned OptiMine technology platform, was taking hold in the market with more than 1,700 surface drill rigs connected at over 600 mine sites around the world. “A lot of that momentum has come in the last few years,” Murphy said of these numbers.
The rest of the presentation in Santiago focused on the delivery of a modular surface drilling platform to support customers’ sustainability plans, as well as the development of the battery-electric concept surface drill rig.
Subbiah (pictured below) said: “We have a clear target of making complete electrified drilling solutions…from the pre-split boom drills we have in Finland to the production drills we make in Alachua, (Florida). The plan is to electrify the whole production line by 2030.”
This production line goes from the 89-mm-diameter market all the way through to 406-mm-diameter market.
The modularity element will be important for this offering, giving companies the chance to invest in, say, a rotary drill rig – which has a 10-15 year life if maintained correctly – powered by conventional diesel means with the understanding that a ‘retrofit’ may be on the cards further down the line.
Subbiah said as much during his time on stage: “We are trying to get that retrofit kit that will consist of electric motor, soft starter, cable reel, control cabinet and all of those associated components needed for the electric transition.” The aim is to have an ‘in-the-field’ retrofit from diesel-to-electric occur within the space of a “few weeks”, he added.
Co-development
Cable- and tethered-electric drill rigs are not new to the industry; Wallin explained that the Aitik open-pit mine, in Sweden, has a full cable-electric fleet, for instance.
What Sandvik is now proposing is a new generation of rigs that are nimbler to operate and easier to maintain than what the industry has gotten to know. These same rigs are also much more energy efficient than the platform Sandvik had in the 1990s, Subbiah said.
“We are exploring all the possibilities of trying to bring emissions down as much as possible in the coming years,” Subbiah said. “We are exploring some hybrid technologies; some alternative energy sources.”
The company’s exploration to date has led to the development of that battery-electric concept surface drill rig. This rig combines the flexibility of battery operation with the endurance of a power cable, according to Sandvik. The on-board battery pack, which lasts for up to one hour of drilling or up to seven hours of tramming, is primarily intended for tramming and drilling individual holes, while the bulk of production relies on more than 180 m of tethered 37-mm-diameter cable.
In addition to increased freedom of movement and flexibility, the benefits of battery operation also include higher utilisation rates because the rig can immediately start drilling at a new location while the cable is still being set up. The more manageable tether, thanks to its simple setup with automatic tightening and smaller cable diameter, serves to make the cable operation as effortless as possible too.
Boliden’s Kevitsa mine, in Finland, has been putting this rig (see below) to the test, starting up in April and, by May 14, having drilled 6 km.
“Pretty soon we will finish the trial at Kevitsa and then move to commercialising the platform,” Subbiah said, adding that by the time the next The Electric Mine event rolls round (May 26-28, 2026, in Lisbon, Portugal) he and his colleagues should have more to say on this plan, as well as the company’s “hybrid” drilling strategies.
Murphy, meanwhile, was adamant that Boliden’s involvement in this project had been fundamental to the progress made to date.
“We get a lot of our great ideas when we co-develop with customers,” he said.
Test pit differentiator
This type of customer collaboration has been part-and-parcel of Sandvik’s underground mining developments over the years, with its underground test mine in Tampere, Finland, acting as the proving ground for turning R&D and conceptual thinking into a reality.
The surface mining division is now leveraging the Surface Test Pit – a new surface mining test bed located 40 km northwest of the underground test mine – to do exactly the same. The battery-electric concept surface drill rig was first put through its paces at this facility.
This location just outside of Tampere was chosen due to the “good rock” availability, the ability to offer significant scale where the company could test out all boom and rotary drill rigs up to the DR413 class at the same time as providing customer showcases both on electrification and automation, the ability to cross-fertilise underground learnings from the existing underground test mine with surface drilling developments, and the continued development of existing and new Sandvik surface mining engineers.
The company already has multiple rigs, both boom and rotary, at the site, with internal and customer-focused testing taking place.
“We have done several exciting technology developments there,” Murphy said in May.
Further automation of the drilling process – including the cable management function required for tethered-electric rigs – is being tested at this facility, along with advancements in autonomous operation and the use of alternative power sources.
Petri Virrankoski, President of the Surface Drilling Division, confirmed the importance of this testing facility when IM visited the underground test mine in December 2023: “Having a machine that can play in a real-life sandbox is very different to showing a model on a screen.”
This week, Eriksson was similarly effusive about the role of the facility in terms of capturing future market share in the surface mining market and convincing customers about the futureproofed solutions the company is developing.
“For years, our underground test mine has been a unique asset for validating equipment performance before delivery, as well as for R&D, training and customer collaboration,” he told IM. “With the inauguration of our new Surface Test Pit, we’re now able to offer the same value to our surface drilling customers.”
Sandvik previously tested its surface drill rigs before delivery, but the new facility – situated in a former quarry – offers even more realistic and demanding rock conditions, closely mirroring those at many customer sites around the world, Eriksson (pictured speaking on stage, below) added, saying it allowed the company to replicate real-life operating environments with “exceptional accuracy”.
Both the underground test mine and the Surface Test Pit enable the company to go beyond standard equipment testing.
“They serve as innovation hubs where we can develop, validate and demonstrate cutting-edge technologies in automation, digitalisation and electrification,” Eriksson said. “These environments allow for full-process simulations and end-to-end optimisation across our entire offering – rotary drilling, ground support, rock tools and more.
“Additionally, these sites create opportunities for deep collaboration – not just with our customers, but also with academic institutions, technology partners, startups and research networks. The test environments also serve as venues for hands-on training, customer demonstrations and high-impact launch events, providing an immersive and authentic experience.”
Eriksson viewed the new Surface Test Pit as a “significant differentiator” in the surface drilling space, providing the company and its clients confidence in the reliability, safety and productivity of its solutions.
He added: “The Nordic rock conditions are among the toughest in the world, extremely hard and abrasive, which makes them ideal for stress-testing new technologies.
“If our equipment performs here, it will perform anywhere.”
Strategic focus
Sandvik said the move reaffirmed its strategic focus on surface drilling, allowing it to increase production capacity by up to 30% while significantly shortening lead times for customers.
Representing one of the most significant development projects for surface drilling equipment in recent years, it could help more closely integrate the R&D, product development and delivery processes in this part of Finland.
It includes a “comprehensive” redesign of the production facility layout and workflows, modernisation of resource and operational planning, and enhanced safety and ergonomics, the company says.
“This investment not only expands our production capabilities but, more importantly, improves our ability to serve customers faster, more flexibly and with greater predictability,” Eriksson said in the news release on this investment.
The revamped facility is scheduled for completion by the end of 2025.