KEY POINTS
- Master Drilling’s hard rock shaft boring system eliminates the need for conventional blasting.
- The system improves safety by reducing the need for workers to enter the shaft.
- The machine can bore at depths up to 3,000 meters, promising faster mining operations.
Master Drilling, led by Danie Pretorius, has introduced a new hard rock shaft boring system (SBS) with the goal of changing the way shaft sinking is done in the mining sector.
The new technology has successfully been launched at a site in Fochville, Gauteng and is still under testing. The technology offers a better alternative to the use of explosives in hard rock mining cutting down on risks and boosting effectiveness.
The hard rock shaft boring system makes use of a W-cutter head which is capable of boring through material as hard as 320 MPa norite at an average advance rate of approximately one meter per hour.
During a live demonstration Izak Bredenkamp, Master Drilling Company’s business development manager emphasized that there is nothing else in the market that can bore hard rock like the SBS.
Increased safety and efficiency
The SBS also ensure that personnel do not have to get into the shaft during the boring process, eliminating the probability of them getting injured. The conventional method of shaft sinking requires manual drilling and the use of explosives which can endanger human lives.
Bredenkamp emphasized regarding the SBS that “it will be safer going” as the system can operate non-stop without the presence of workers in the shaft. This decreases the possibility of an accident and therefore makes the whole process faster and safer.
According to a report by Mining Weekly, the system is also capable of drilling up to 3,000 meters and has the ability to bore up to 11.5 meters in diameter. The machine is currently being tested on a shaft with a diameter of 4. 5 meters, advancing at an average rate of 5 to 6 meters a day – more than the 1. 5 meters per day that the traditional method can do.
Commercial prospects and development costs
Although the SBS is still being tested, the development alone has led to capital expenditure of roughly R200 million ($11.16 million).
Master Drilling’s CFO, Andre van Deventer, indicated that the commercial version of the system would need another R600m ($33.49 million) – R700m (39.53 million) to meet the demands of clients.
It is expected that this machine will undertake boring of shafts with diameters ranging from 7.5 and 10 meters which is the desire of most of their customers.
