South Africa-headquartered Master Drilling, a world leader in specialised drilling solutions, today announced that it will exercise its call option to acquire 60% of the shares in Bergteamet Raiseboring Europe based in Scandinavia.

On 17 November 2015 Master Drilling International (MDI), a subsidiary of Master Drilling, entered into an agreement with Bergteamet AB through which MDI acquired 8,000 ordinary shares in the share capital of Bergteamet.

A shareholder’s agreement was entered into between MDI, Bergteamet and Bergteamet Raiseboring simultaneously and it is through this agreement that MDI now exercises the call option to acquire 12,000 ordinary shares in the share capital of Bergteamet, resulting in a 60% shareholding in Bergteamet.

Danie Pretorius, CEO of Master Drilling, said: “This transaction provides a launchpad for the company to expand our operations in the European markets and further diversify our geographic exposure. There are many synergies between the two companies and this business compliments our focus to provide innovative tailored technology solutions to our clients.”

Bergteamet is highly specialised in raiseboring and conducts operations all over the world. The majority of its raiseboring customers are within the mining sector, hydropower projects and other infrastructure project.

Both companies have interesting options for hard rock tunnelling. Master Drilling recently launched its Mobile Tunnel Boring (MTB) solution which can bore out an excavation of 4.5 and/or 5.5 m in diameter at a rate that far exceeds conventional tunnel construction methods.

Bergteamet last year acquired the Atlas Copco (Epiroc) Mobile Miner 55V originally built for Rio Tinto.