Major inks deal with Schramm
Major’s wholly owned subsidiary, Universal Drill Rigs Chile, will service and support 50 Schramm rigs, in addition to its own fleet of 65 drills in use in Latin America. (Note: UDR will not exclusively service Schramm equipment in Argentina.)
UDR Chile recently started building drill rigs, including the well-known UDR200D, at its facilities in Santiago, Chile. Fabrication was previously based in Australia.
“The manufacturing facility will open new doors to the possibilities of manufacturing our UDR Sampling systems, compressor/booster packages, and numerous other machinery packages [linked to] the exploration industry,” says Francis McGuire, president of Major Drilling.
To date, UDR Chile has orders for five Latin American-built machines: two in Chile, one in Peru, and two in Mexico.
UDR Chile is part of the UDR Group, based in Perth and Brisbane, Australia. UDR is known mostly for the design and manufacture of specialized multi-purpose mineral exploration drilling rigs.
U.S.-based Schramm provides drilling equipment for various markets, including mineral exploration, water wells, blasthole work, and oil and gas.
Major Drilling is one of the world’s largest metals and minerals contract drilling service companies, with operations in Canada, U.S., South and Central America, and in Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, Tanzania and Mongolia.
SRK to test French Gulch ore
SRK Engineering will begin metallurgical testing on ore taken from
Drilling will start later this month and is aimed at verifying existing amounts of high-grade gold ore.
A 15,000-ft. program of surface drilling will try to confirm the extension of known vein systems and test new vein systems. Another program, this one spanning 25,000 ft., will define the existing resource and determine the minability of certain veins.
Says Bullion River President Peter Kuhn: “Our goal is to fast-track these programs in order to bring French Gulch into production in 2005.”
Bullion River Gold has seven properties: five in Nevada and two in California.
Terex locks up Reedrill
Westport, Conn.-based
Reedrill, headquartered in Sherman, Tex., generated US$80 million in revenue in 2004.
“We believe the Reedrill product lines are a nice complement to our Terex Mining products,” says Rick Nichols, president of Terex. “This product extension helps us to service our customers’ needs.”
Nichols will be responsible for combining Reedrill businesses with Terex’s operations.
Cabo gets bigger
Vancouver-based
Advanced Drilling generated $3.7 million in revenue in 2004 and made a net profit, before taxes, of $570,000.
The deal would combine two of Canada’s largest drilling services companies and increase Cabo’s drilling fleet to about 100 drill rigs.
“This is the transaction we have been waiting for,” says Cabo President John Versfelt. “Strategically and geographically, Advanced Drilling is an ideal fit for Cabo. We are currently strong in central and eastern Canada. This acquisition is a pivotal move as we broaden our reach across Canada.”
Most of Advanced Drilling’s operations are in British Columbia, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
The deal includes 35 drill rigs and as many as 40 employees.
Advanced Drilling worked on the Eskay Creek and Hope Bay Gold projects, among many others.
P&H makes African sale
Milwaukee, Wis.-based
The machine joins other P&H equipment already operating at the site, including a 2800XPB shovel, two other 100XP drills, and two 100B drills. In addition, the mine operates a Reedrill SKF, which will be maintained by P&H.
Debswana manages 18 mines in four countries and is responsible, with its partners, for more than half the world’s gem diamond production. The Jwaneng diamond mine, in southern Botswana, produces 19% of the world’s diamonds by value.
The new drill will be commissioned by P&H MinePro Services near the end of 2004.
P&H MinePro Services is the global distribution and support arm of P&H Mining Equipment, a world-wide supplier of electric rope shovels, large rotary blasthole drills, and walking draglines.
Moncton-based
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