Highly Accurate Drilling
Deep drill holes are the culmination of time consuming and costly work including mapping, geophysics, geochemistry, seismic and shallower drilling to refine small targets or target areas.
DDH1's directional drilling techniques ensure reliable spatially accurate intersections of planned drill targets.
At DDH1 we recognise that deep hole drilling is a costly business and those costs have been preceded by significant investment to refine drilling targets.
Missing targets is not just about the cost of the hole but includes project costs when a critical decision is based on a drill hole result.
Multiple Intersection Directional Drilling
These same techniques are valuable for drilling multiple intersection core holes with up to thirty-five evenly spaced intersections drilled from a single parent hole. In many mines, development does not allow an ideal underground drilling platform for drill programs that are significantly ahead of mine workings.
In others, sustaining an underground drilling operation may overload mine services of ventilation, power and water limiting mine production.
Mine Service Holes
Miners are increasingly using DDH1's directional drilling expertise to drill mine service holes to accurately break into mine workings. Uses include cable drop holes to run high voltage electrical cables direct from surface rather than running down declines. Another use is paste fill holes drilled directly from a paste plant to intersect current workings.
Potential accuracy is around one metre over a kilometre and the directionally drilled core holes are opened from 20 - 60cm, cased with oilfield casing and grouted back to surface. The deepest mine service hole drilled in a single pass is 1,450m with multiple successful projects completed in excess of 1,000m.
First Pass Exploration
DDH1 through its subsidiary Strike Drilling offer a complete suite of drilling services including first pass Aircore drilling with Strike's track and truck mounted crossover Aircore/RC rigs. These machines have taken Air core drilling to another level by using 6m drill rods, KL rod handlers, hands free breakouts and stationary cone sampling systems.
This concept of using one drill rig for both Aircore and RC is proving very popular allowing program flexibility and saving on mobilisation costs. When deep RC drilling is required Strike's powerful 685 Schramm rigs are the industry standard.
Iron Ore Specialist
Ranger Drilling have recently merged with DDH1 and are the groups specialist iron ore RC and core drillers. Primarily operating in the Pilbara, Ranger's systems and procedures are geared the most exacting standards expected in that industry segment
All drilling services from first pass Aircore to the deepest mineral drill holes in Australia can now be sourced under a single contract or individually from DDH1, Strike or Ranger. Regardless of the service required there is common commitment to safe personalised service delivery and technical competence.
