Tag Archives: Major Drilling

New Major Drilling rod handling rigs start turning at Hecla’s San Sebastian mine

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Two new Major Drilling EF-75 drills have arrived and are now turning at Hecla Mining’s San Sebastian mine in Durango, Mexico, the drilling services company says.

The drills arrived in March and are part of Major Drilling’s fleet improvements, adding innovative rod handling capability to the project, it said.

“We are thankful that we are partnered with a company like Major Drilling that can provide newer, innovative drills,” Stephen Redak, Exploration Manager Mexico, Hecla Mining, said.

Hecla’s San Sebastian property is a silver and gold mine, where exploration work is underway in two main veins. Using these new drills at the San Sebastian project enhances Major Drilling’s 12-year history with Hecla in Mexico. This has seen more than 354,000 m drilled since 2009.

Major Drilling’s EF-75 core drill is new equipment for the Mexico branch. It combines safety with a high level of productivity, according to the company.

With the rod manipulator, operators benefit from rod handling, horizontal stacking and a safety screen to protect them while lifting and lowering rods. The rig is capable of depths of up to 2,700 m.

Workers are protected by rod handling innovation, and they improve results using a unique mast designed for accurate core orientation, the company says.

David Boucher, Major Drilling Mexico General Manager, said: “Hecla has been a long-time client of ours in Mexico, and we are very excited to bring these new drills out in Durango to really see what they can do at San Sebastian. We are very happy to have this equipment turning in Mexico.”

Major Drilling’s USA Division previously partnered with Hecla at the Fire Creek Mine in Nevada (now under care and maintenance). The company’s exploration teams have also drilled at Hecla surface exploration projects in other locations in the western USA.

Major Drilling’s drilling dominance aim strengthened with new Manitoba office

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Major Drilling has opened a new office in Manitoba, Canada, as it looks to expand its contract drilling services and streamline its operations.

Completed at the end of 2020, the new 29,000 sq.ft (2,694 sq.m) operations head office houses an enlarged maintenance shop, parts warehouse and administrative offices. It also includes a 3.2 ha storage yard.

“We are proud of our long history in Manitoba,” Barry Zerbin, General Manager of Canadian Operations, said. “With our expanded space in Winnipeg, we can better serve our clients throughout the country and continue the specialised drilling results we are known to deliver.”

The new building stands over 8.5 m tall among developments inside the ‘CentrePort’ 8,094 ha inland port and foreign trade zone. The zone is home to North America’s largest tri-modal World Trade Center located in Rosser, part of the Winnipeg metro area, Major Drilling says.

The CentrePort campus positions Major Drilling well logistically. The geographic centre of Canada is mere kilometres from the new building where the shop, maintenance, and support staff supply crews, drills and parts across the country. The new building adds to the already strong and established framework of Major Drilling branches and shops throughout Canada including locations in Flin Flon, Sudbury, Rouyn, Timmins and Yellowknife, the company says.

The new Winnipeg location services Major Drilling’s Canadian operations with 24 offices for administration office staff, the human resources, safety and operations departments, and country managers. The maintenance team, with over a dozen employees, is housed in a 743 sq.m shop containing four full-sized bays with over 7.5 m in ceiling clearance to service all rig types in the Major Drilling fleet. The warehouse team works in a 650 sq.m facility containing inventory and spare parts. The building can also accommodate in-house training schools for additional crews coming aboard to meet client needs.

From left to right: the new Winnipeg branch location includes an 743 sq.m shop containing four full-sized bays with high ceiling clearance to service all rig types in the Major Drilling fleet; 24 offices for administration office staff; and a 650 sq.m foot facility containing inventory and spare parts

Zerbin says the expanded space allows the Winnipeg Branch to service Major Drilling’s clients in the province which include Hudbay Minerals in Flin Flon/Snow Lake; Vale in Thompson; 1911 Gold in Bissett; and Yamana Gold in Monument Bay. It also increases capacity for clients across Canada such as Foran Mining, Nighthawk Gold Corp and Sabina Gold & Silver.

Manitoba is a long-established operations area for Major Drilling. In 1998, the company completed the acquisition of the Midwest group of companies in Canada, which operated for more than 70 years of in central Canada and the Arctic. Midwest was one of the largest drilling companies in Canada with over 115 drills (80 surface, 35 underground).

The new Winnipeg office is opening just as the mining industry enters a projected upcycle in activity, according to Major Drilling.

“In 2021, Major Drilling continues its strategy of dominating specialised drilling across the globe,” the company said.

Osisko completes Major milestone at Windfall gold project

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Osisko Mining and Major Drilling have completed the longest diamond drill hole in Canada at the Windfall gold project in Quebec.

The Discovery 1 hole was a planned 3,000-3,500 m deep drill hole, designed to target two down plunge extensions of known gold zones and investigate the projected source area of the Windfall deposit at depth, Osisko said, adding that the working model for Windfall interprets an outer shell and centre of a possible porphyry intrusion feeding the Windfall-Lynx gold system.

The final length of Discovery 1 was 3,467 m, becoming the longest diamond drill hole in Canada, and achieving a vertical depth of 2,700 m from surface, the company said.

The hole was drilled from surface to 3,149 m with NQ rods and finished with BQ rods. Analytical results from the final 200 metres are at the laboratory, results are pending. The high value results from the hole are similar to those intersected in the Windfall and Lynx deposits, hosted in volcanics and felsic intrusions, with Discovery 1 ending in biotite and chlorite altered mafic volcanics with felsic porphyritic intrusions.

Osisko President and Chief Executive Officer, John Burzynski, said: “We are very proud of our Osisko team and Major Drilling for their tremendous work completing this hole. Successes include the discovery of the Underdog and Triple 8 extensions, the wide intercepts of anomalous gold values similar to those observed in the Lynx system, and now these new high value gold intercepts at depth. These results of the Discovery 1 hole show that the Windfall system is extensive with substantial room for potential growth.”

Major Drilling reaches new depths at Industrias Peñoles’ Bismark mine

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Major Drilling says its Mexico division recently drilled its deepest NQ diameter hole at the Industrias Peñoles-owned Bismark mine in Chihuahua.

The drill hole, which reached just over 1,985 m, is a “true milestone for drilling operations in the region”, Major Drilling said.

Cory Crawford, Major Drilling Mexico Assistant Branch Manager, said: “These are not easy holes to complete. Being dry holes, we have to use special back-end dry hole valves made in house.”

Major Drilling established its first contract with Industrias Peñoles just 18 months ago and has already drilled nearly 50,000 m for the miner. Its core drilling contract at Bismark is to explore and support long-term mining, it said.

Major Drilling bolsters northeastern Ontario offering with Norex buy

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Major Drilling Group has entered into an agreement to acquire Norex Drilling, a family-owned drilling company and leading exploration drilling contractor based in Timmins, Ontario, Canada.

The purchase price for the acquisition is valued at an amount up to C$19.7 million ($14.8 million), consisiting of cash and shares.

Denis Larocque, President & CEO of Major Drilling, said Norex had been operating successfully in the Ontario marketplace for around 40 years and had a solid reputation with its clients.

“The acquisition of Norex is a unique opportunity for Major Drilling to gain a strong position to service our customers in both surface and underground exploration drilling services in the prolific northeastern Ontario region,” he said. “The culture and operational values of both companies are very similar in terms of personnel and strategies, and this will allow us to provide our customers with expanded drilling services.”

Major Drilling is retaining the management team, is gaining access to skilled and experienced drillers and personnel, and is taking over existing contracts, according to the company.

Through the purchase, it will also acquire an additional 22 drill rigs, including 17 compatible specialised surface drill rigs and five underground drills, together with related support equipment and inventory.

For the last two years, Norex had average yearly revenue of approximately C$21 million and EBITDA of aroundC $5 million.

The company said: “While Norex’s historical performance should not be viewed as guidance for future performance, we are optimistic about the continuing growth potential in this region considering Norex’s customers’ stated plans and the current market condition in the mining industry.”

The acquisition is expected to close on or about November 1, 2019, and is subject to customary closing conditions.

Major Drilling helping narrow down Oyu Tolgoi orebody

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Major Drilling says it is nearing the completion of a cave tracking system installation at the Turquoise Hill Resources and Mongolia government-owned Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine, in Mongolia.

In early 2000, Major Drilling established a drilling campaign in the middle of the Gobi Desert, with operational supplies needing to ramp up to support 20 rigs that were transported to the site.

This drilling work has since evolved into the tracking system that has proven successful in the block cave operation.

These trackers are lowered through a specially-drilled borehole into the Oyu Tolgoi orebody below. Block cave magnetic beacons are embedded into the orebody and spun to create a magnetic field.

“Magnetisation has been found to be the most effective way to track the fragmentation as an orebody caves in allowing loaders to mine the ore from draw points deep underground,” Major Drilling said.

Major Drilling’s teams strategically place magnetic beacons throughout the mine to create a 3D map and to track the position of the orebody cave-in flow. The cables are attached to the duct rodder, which is lowered from a winch system. Once the trackers are placed, block caving techniques will undercut and fragment the deepest points of the geology, according to the company. The orebody is then collected and taken away for processing.

“Block caving is a low-cost mining method used for the development of massive ore deposits,” Major Drilling says. “Mine planners often use an experienced specialised drilling company to precondition the block cave mining area through hydrofracking. Tracking the flow of the fragmented, caved ore is a critical part of accessing targeted orebodies.”

Mine planners use the information from the magnetic tracking devices placed by the Major Drilling team to understand the direction of intended failure the stone is moving.

Shaun Hogan, Major Drilling’s Project Manager at Oyu Tolgoi, said: “We are nearing the completion of the cave tracking system installation at Oyu Tolgoi. Over the past two years, we have worked very closely with our client and various stakeholders; this partnership has achieved a successful deep tracking network.”

In addition to block cave tracking, Major Drilling also performs seismic monitoring to help predict rock mass instabilities. Seismic monitoring is another specialised drilling service that makes large-scale block cave work safer and more productive.

Major Drilling was awarded the Rio Tinto Growth & Innovation Group Award for the successful seismic drilling program at Oyu Tolgoi in 2017.