Swick Mining Services
reach 12 742 000 meters drilled milestone – the equivalent of drilling through the Earth
by Robert Burnett, Business Development – Swick Mining Services Ltd
Swick has reached the incredible milestone of ‘drilling through the Earth’ – a total of 12 742 000 m (41 804 462 ft) of core drilled as of March 2021. To put that into perspective: • The total weight of that core would equate to around 100 000 tonnes (all handled by hand) • To fly over that amount of core at cruising speed in an A380 jet would take over 14 hours • Swick has consumed over 100 000 drill bits to meet that goal • To achieve that milestone around 6375 rig months have been drilled or 531 rig years (24 hours a day, 365 days a year) • With two men per shift that is 9.33 million manhours of hard work by the specialist underground crews (a huge effort and a lot of wages) Reaching the distance of 12 742 000 m (41 804 462 ft) has also come with many challenges: intensive underground grade control drilling, underground exploration drilling, navigational drilling, geotechnical and geophysical engineering/service/paste hole drilling, water control drilling, and gas control drilling. 26
Swick’s History Since initially commencing as a longhole underground production contractor in 1997, the company has supplied drilling services to some of the most well-known and respected global mining companies across Australia, Europe and North America. In early 2004, Kent Swick, Founder and Managing Director saw an opportunity to grow and expand his business by entering the underground diamond drilling market. Being a mechanical engineer who was used to working with a large mobile mining fleet, it was surprising for him to see that the underground core drills were skid-based and very tedious and time consuming to move around the mine. As a result, Swick was able to quickly generate a competitive advantage by placing underground diamond drill rig components on a mobile single boom development jumbo and the Swick mobile diamond drill was born. Swick’s first underground diamond coring client was Reliance Nickel at the Beta Hunt mine in Kambalda, Western Australia and has since worked with 52 individual clients. Swick’s current workforce is now in excess of 600 employees with a fleet of 77 underground drill rigs globally. Kent Swick’s personal objective was to make a difference to the underground mining sector and Swick will continue with its objectives to improve the safety and productivity of the underCoring Magazine #16
