Tag Archives: exploration drilling

IMDEX evaluates the mining industry’s emerging trends

Environmental, IoT, Mineral exploration, Mining consumables, Mining equipment, Mining safety, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , ,

IMDEX says its global footprint in key mining regions throughout the world gives it an important glimpse of the some of the emerging trends and challenges facing the sector, trends that were taking shape prior to the onset of COVID-19.

Leveraging technology, or, more specifically, the cloud, is one development the Australia-based company has noted in recent years.

“The global minerals industry has turned to technology to improve safety, enhance efficiencies and reduce the cost of exploration and extraction,” it said.

When people think about innovation, most minds turn to autonomous haulage or remote operations, but there is an enabler to this innovation, according to IMDEX: the cloud.

Companies, not least of which those in the mining services and resources sector, are utilising cloud platforms to store data remotely and retrieve it via the internet. Remote mining operations using an array of software, sensors and communications are becoming routine because of these systems, IMDEX says.

But the cloud also provides the opportunity to improve productivity.

IMDEX General Manager, Product Development, Dr Michelle Carey, said clients were increasingly wanting to use the cloud because it enabled them to get data faster and in real time.

“We refer to it as the single source of truth,” Dr Carey said. “Accurate, reliable data delivered in real time that can be seen simultaneously by many people, which then enables real-time decision making.

“It also means there are no issues about the chain of custody. Using the cloud gives clients the confidence that no-one has tampered with the data so they can make decisions based on data they trust.”

Business’ enormous appetite for the collection and storage of data is making these platforms increasingly popular, according to IMDEX. A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable that companies would be sharing computing and IT resources over the internet. “Today the cloud is a business imperative,” it said.

The resources sector, once satisfied its concerns regarding access and data security were met, have been quick to capitalise on cloud computing.

Cloud computing of course does have its downside (similar to any technology). To work properly, cloud systems require reliable internet access. That is increasingly becoming essential on even the most remote mine sites.

EY’s September 2019 poll of mining executives indicated that ensuring digital (and data) effectiveness continues to rank within the top risks for their respective organisations. EY also noted further that cloud-related investment will account for the largest share of technology spend (over the next two years) in more than 50% of companies.

IMDEX has been in the cloud for over 10 years and is renowned for its real-time, subsurface intelligence solutions with numerous sensors on the drill site, at the core farm and increasingly on the bench collecting high-quality data, it said.

These technologies can be connected to IMDEXHUB-IQ™ – a cloud-based web portal that collects, stores and provides critical operational data. This data is protected through a validated chain of custody and a secure database, accessible from any internet connection to smart phone, tablet or PC, according to IMDEX.

Social licence to operate

According to IMDEX, the notion of licence to operate is evolving, with society expecting more from organisations.

“Once, companies in the minerals and resources sector focused primarily on ensuring compliant operations,” IMDEX said. “Today, compliance is just ‘step-one’… the minimum standard.”

The company added: “External stakeholders are scrutinising companies more than ever; how an organisation is managing environmental responsibilities and the health and safety of their workforce. They are insisting on local content and strong community investment; ensuring there’s support for local indigenous communities and that a company is committed to addressing climate change.”

The effective management of these requirements ensures the community will have confidence in an organisation, granting their social licence because they trust the company.

Earning trust and confidence is seeing a shift in how organisations structure the management of community stakeholders, according to IMDEX.

IMDEX said it will include additional economic, environmental and social impacts of its activities in its 2020 annual report, with the aim of preparing a sustainability report in accordance with Global Reporting Initiative standards within three years.

Dr Carey said IMDEX already had a suite of products and services that supported the sustainable operation of mining industry stakeholders.

“Our technologies improve productivity by providing information that affects decisions throughout the life of the mine, but they also have sustainability and environmental benefits,” Dr Carey said.

“The technologies enable clients to understand material properties accurately at a finer scale, and in real-time, enabling them to mine with less waste and process ore more effectively.

“Improved precision in exploration, drilling programs and mining means a reduction in waste. Things like our Solids Removal Units and BOS tool means reducing the use of water during the drilling and the size of the footprint disturbed during drilling.”

Avoiding hit and miss drilling programs

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As mining companies go further afield and explore under cover to replace diminished reserves, deep directional drilling on existing sites is increasingly becoming part of their campaigns, according to IMDEX.

There is plenty to consider before embarking on a drilling program, including traps in chasing the cheapest price if it fails to deliver, by not hitting the target.

IMDEX Global Lead, Directional Drilling, Kelvin Brown, and General Manager, Product Development, Dr Michelle Carey, discussed the issues in a recent webinar, ‘Directional Drilling: Strategies and technologies to stay on target and not blow your budget’.

Dr Carey said statistics revealed that directional drilling was increasing and is estimated to grow to around 20% of a drilling program.

“As we all know, it’s getting harder and harder to make discoveries,” Dr Carey said. “A lot of the reason for that is that increasingly we’re having to go under cover.

“What that means, in reality, is that instead of going into a greenfield site, people are going to their existing deposit to start drilling plans. Rapidly you find yourself in a situation where you are drilling quite deep holes, and you’re drilling quite deep holes where you have a target in mind.

“The other thing is the cost of drilling is going up, so we’re actually getting less bang for our buck.

“So really what we need are technologies and approaches that allow us to control cost as we drill deeper, and really balance out cost versus risk. It is not just about low cost – if it means you do not hit your target. It becomes increasingly important that we all know how to do it well.”

Dr Carey and Brown discussed a range of technologies and products designed to increase drilling productivity and efficiencies, including drilling fluids.

“There is an amazing amount of technology available now to help you in your cause of optimising your drilling program. It’s drilling with data,” Dr Carey said. “This is all technology that people have available to them now.

“In directional drilling, we offer downhole motors, one of a number of different technologies for directional drilling which has the combined advantage of flexibility and driller operability. You have got the fluids, which can be critical to how successfully your program runs and IMDEX MUD AID™, which allows you to monitor that.

“And, complementing the fluids, you’ve got a solids removal unit which, again, is optimising your fluid system, removing cuttings, things like that contribute heavily to how successful your drilling program is.”

The other critical technology in directional drilling is the survey tool. Brown said selecting the right survey instruments that could quickly provide the best data, faster, translated into a lower cost.

“The sooner you have it, the sooner you can make a better decision,” he said.

And, for Dr Carey, that means using the data to alter the drilling plan, if required, rather than “blindly going forward” with the initial plan.

“It’s incredibly important that you know when to pause when certain things happen and say, ‘here was our plan, but now we have some data and our plan has changed; let’s step back, plan again and go forward’,” she said.

Brown added: “You need to pay attention to the data. If the hole goes on and it is not going where it needs to go, it won’t fix itself.”

A good relationship with the drilling contractor is also essential, with Brown saying some contracts appear to have “punishment clauses” for failing to hit the target.

That approach has unintended consequences, according to Dr Carey.

“It actually causes people to cheat,” she said. To start manufacturing survey data to ensure they stay within the target zone and that is not the outcome you want.

“Another thing we do see sometimes is that people might have contracts put in front of them with what looks like an attractive rate for doing deep drilling and directional drilling; in fact it looks so attractive that you know they are not going to be able to get the job done for those price tags. Although it seems tempting to sign up to those contracts, you are not doing yourself any favours.”

Brown said: “Things look simple when everything is bundled into a cost per metre, but when it comes to directional drilling everyone needs to understand that there is a time component and you have to be conscious of that.

“If it is about hitting the target, it’s about hitting the target. There is no point having a cheap hole that misses the target.”

Master Drilling makes ‘horizontal integration’ move with Geoserve buy

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Master Drilling has announced that it has fulfilled all the necessary conditions to acquire Geoserve Exploration Drilling, increasing the South Africa-based company’s ability to offer exploration drilling, reverse circulation drilling, geotechnical investigations and grade control drilling services.

In its 2019 financial year results, released today, it said the relevant competition commission had approved the transaction and Geoserve, a private company specialising in exploration and drilling services, would now be embedded into the company’s African segment as a wholly-owned subsidiary.

Danie Pretorius, CEO of Master Drilling, said: “The transaction will augment our expertise and global reach, as well as provide a platform for horizontal integration in the mining industry, which has been under pressure in the past few years, necessitating consolidation.”

Master Drilling paid MOGS Mining Services ZAR100 ($5.7) for the company, as well as assumed the bank overdraft facility and certain liabilities tied to Geoserve, it said. The company said a detailed purchase price allocation will be performed during 2020 and disclosed in its 2020 financial statements.

Master Drilling added: “Geoserve has a well-established footprint and pipeline that will reinforce Master Drilling’s capacity and income profile through increased exploration drilling, reverse circulation drilling, geotechnical investigations and grade control drilling services, which are all key to the broader mining sector.”

Boart Longyear hits record drill depth at Ghana gold project

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Boart Longyear’s drilling crews have drilled the deepest hole ever drilled in Ghana, according to the Salt Lake City-headquartered company.

They drilled a hole 2,083.4 m (6,835 ft) deep, having installing a wedge and navi to drill the hole on track at 600 m and keeping it on track to the end of the hole. The directional drilling project for one of Golden Star Resources’ gold projects was completed safely and ahead of schedule, the company said.

Division Manager, West Africa, Jonathan Madigan, said: “Our drilling crew in Ghana on this project worked safely and diligently in directionally drilling the hole to the target depth. I couldn’t be more proud of the team that completed the project.

“Boart Longyear’s consistent hazard and risk-focused safety culture is embraced by the crews here in Ghana and they appreciate that the field level risk assessments, pre-shift meetings and other safety programs are designed to get them home safe to their families.”

Boart said: “The company has received client recognition for their safe, on-target, and ahead of schedule completion of the deep coring exploration drilling project. Boart Longyear acknowledges the participation, collaboration, and contributions from every employee within Ghana and especially the drilling crew that worked directly on this record-depth hole.”

Qtec, Wallis and UWA granted cash to expand real-time drill and assay technology

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The Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation and Science recently announced that the joint venture (JV) between Qtec, Wallis Drilling and the University of Western Australia has been awarded a three‑year grant from the Cooperative Research Centres Program (CRC-P) up to the value of A$2.8 million ($2 million).

Qteq, as the award recipients with Wallis and UWA as the JV partners, were awarded the grant for development of a real-time communications and downhole power generation system to be used with Qteq’s existing fleet of Measurement While Drilling instruments.

Following the initial phase of the project, the JV will work on developing Logging While Drilling tools that include nuclear magnetic resonance and spectroscopy, Qtec said.

The completed project will deliver the ability to provide real-time assay and moisture content during the reverse circulation drilling process, according to the company.

Qtec Chief Technology Officer, Dr Tim Hopper, said: “The ability to acquire assay and moisture content whilst drilling will dramatically change the face of minerals drilling in Australia. The cost and time reduction to clients is significant, with miners no longer needing to wait months to get cutting samples analysed before they can make decisions.

“When combined with the Wallis Drilling 300RC Autonomous Rig, the industry takes a step closer to achieving the ability to remotely drill and assay holes, with staff being able to monitor and direct operations remotely,” he said. “The mine of the future takes another step forward.”

The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science’s CRC-P aims to improve the competitiveness, productivity and sustainability of Australian industries, especially where Australia has a competitive strength and is in line with government priorities, according to Qtec.

“While the programme wishes to foster high-quality research to solve industry-identified problems through industry‑led and outcome-focused collaborative research partnerships between industry entities and research organisations, it also aims to encourage and facilitate small and medium enterprise participation in collaborative research,” the company added.

With the award of the grant, the Western Australia-based JV will be looking to further promote the use of high-quality, high-technology equipment in the mining industry which it hopes will further encourage WA’s highly skilled workforce to consider a career in this usually “low-tech industry”, Qtec said.

Qteq’s recently appointed Chief Executive Officer, Ewan Meldrum, said: “The development of this new, advanced logging system will support Australia in becoming a world leader in the commercialisation of mining technology and services.”

LKAB weighing up the prospects for crooked borehole drilling

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LKAB is using a variation of conventional prospecting drilling to search for new orebodies and secure reserves for the future.

Prospecting drilling will allow the iron ore miner to gain more detailed knowledge of the geometry and geochemistry of mineralisation, but this process can often be expensive in both man hours and euros.

That is why this year the company started trials with crooked, or deviated, bore holes in prospect drilling.

Karin Lindgren (pictured), geologist at LKAB, explains: “We can already see several advantages with crooked holes. Overall, the number of drilling metres is reduced, and we do not have to drive drifts at the outer edges of the orebody to the same extent and can reach the intended drilling locations with greater precision.”

She continued: “With crooked drilling, we can reach greater depth and access the ore from different angles. The technique can be used to reach the outer boundaries of the orebody and gain a better understanding of its geometry.”

Today, two drill rigs are being used and a third will soon be operational at the company’s operations, LKAB said. The company is testing the crooked-hole technique to first learn, and then evaluate, the method, it said.

Anders Edlert, Project Manager for Prospecting Drilling at LKAB, said: “We want to push the boundaries and find out what can be done with this technology in this type of rock and at what cost.”

He does admit drilling deviated holes comes with more friction, so drilling takes longer and currently costs nearly three times as much as conventional drilling.

“We, therefore, have to press the costs and compare them against the time and resources that are needed for driving new drifts for conventional drilling,” he concluded.

Swick Mining to drill deeper with new exploration division

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Buoyed by a strong set of financial results for the September quarter, mineral drilling contractor Swick Mining Services is making plans to launch a deep exploration division.

The company’s Managing Director Kent Swick said the creation of this unit would “further strengthen the company’s market-leading position” in underground diamond coring.

The announcement came at the same time as the company revealed its September quarter financial results, which included revenue of A$36.7 million ($26 million, up 1% year-on-year), EBITDA of A$6.8 million (up 93% year-on-year), total metres drilled of 297,904 m and an average fleet utilisation of 75% across the quarter.

Kent Swick said: “During the quarter, we ordered some specialised deep-hole drilling kits that will be the most powerful rigs available in the Australian market.

“We expect our specialist team, with its purpose‐built equipment, to deliver great outcomes for our clients who in general are requesting more deep exploration holes to be drilled from underground.”

The company added in its results that demand for underground mobile rigs continues to remain high, while its surface RC drilling division had experienced a rebound.