Master Drill launches Horizontal Raise Boring
SOUTH African-based firm Master Drill launched its cutting-edge technology at the Investing in Africa Mining Indaba in Cape Town after a successful pilot project.
Master Drilling announced yesterday its Horizontal Raise Boring (HRB ) technology is ready for an international rollout after the successful pilot test at the Cullinan mine.
The JSE-listed firm said the new drilling technology could replace conventional drill-andblast mining and was set to increase mining productivity thanks to its continuous process of rock boring while in addition offering significant safety benefits.
This would enable more mining construction projects to meet the required hurdle and feasibility rates towards becoming producing mines.
Projects with less safe access, such as deeper mining operations and higher stress zones, are also more likely to pass feasibility tests thanks to the safety improvements that HRB brings.
The technology is expected to offer support to Master Drilling’s revenue growth over the medium to long term, and thereby provide further income diversification.
Danie Pretorius, the chief executive of Master Drilling, said HRB was a locally developed, world-first technology that promised to change the very fundamentals of the global mining industry.
“The feedback from our multinational business partners from southern Africa and Latin America on visits to the actual technology has been highly encouraging.”
Pretorius said HRB would provide the mining industry with an excavation and construction tunnelling tool for the mechanical excavation of a tunnel between two existing access points, similar to the standard form of raise boring.
He said the technology offered the much-needed mechanism to reduce the number of workers who were exposed to dangerous underground conditions.
Benefits of the new technology included that there was no need to use explosives, no blast damage inflicted to the tunnel side-walls, a stronger tunnel, reduced rock-support costs, improved tunnel construction accuracy and lower excavation costs.
Ben Swarts, a group manager for mining projects at Petra Diamonds, said tunnel-cutting technology seemed to be the next logical step in underground mine development.
“This technology brings with it additional benefits such as improved excavation integrity and safety, better advance rates and possible downstream financial benefits. The HRB is one of the very few options currently in operation. We are optimistic about the technology and in progress to finalise a commercial agreement to continue the use of the HRB within Petra Diamonds.”
Pretorius said Master Drilling was about selling a solution and not a product.