A Sandvik fleet of surface drill rigs will touch down at the Porgera gold mine in the coming months.
The machinery, which encompasses seven surface drill rigs, has been supplied to replace an aging non-Sandvik fleet and includes four Sandvik DR410i rotary blasthole drill rigs and three Leopard DI650i down-the-hole (DTH) drill rigs.
“Sandvik DTH and rotary drill rigs have proven to be both productive and reliable at our other operations across the globe,” Barrick (Porgera mine operator) mining executive Glenn Heard said.
“We look forward to continuing our cooperation and deploying these value-adding surface drilling technologies from Sandvik.”
Porgera includes both an underground and open pit mine, hosting an orebody with measured and indicated resources of 13.3 million gold ounces and inferred resources of 5.56 million gold ounces.
All but one of the Leopard DI650i drills at Porgera will be equipped with the reverse circulation (RC) sampling option Sandvik introduced for its flagship DTH rig in 2021.
The RC drilling system, which is fully integrated into the Leopard DI650i platform, provides a reliable and accurate method for ore body identification and grade control.
All seven drills will be connected under Sandvik’s Remote Monitoring Service (RMS), which Barrick rolled out to its entire global underground fleet of more than 200 connected Sandvik trucks, loaders and drills during 2023.
“We are excited to grow our partnership with Barrick from underground to the surface operation, where we will provide our latest technologies and collaborate to optimize productivity and cost efficiencies,” Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions president Mats Eriksson said.
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