Frustrated by drilling costs, our customer - a palladium and platinum mine - agreed to let us run tests comparing our Montabert HC110 drifter to a leading competitor's hydraulic drifter to see if the Montabert drifter could help the mine reduce costs while improving safety and performance.

Solution design 

Our drifter conversion experts and mining application engineering teams collected data on the performance of a drill rig equipped with a leading competitor's hydraulic drifter and compared it to the performance of a Montabert HC110CS hydraulic drifter installed on the same drill rig.

Field time studies and data analysis were completed with the customer on site.

The conversion validation proved considerable cost savings and performance improvements when compared to the competitor's offering.

Results

The HC110CS conversion exceeded the requested performance benchmarks, resulting in:.

• Penetration rates increased by 8.34%
• Bit life increased by 47%
• Shank life increased by 60%.
• Noise levels decreased by approximately 6dB
• Service interval decreased by 50%

Based on these results, the customer is planning to convert its entire drill fleet to take advantage of the Montabert drifter performance, reliability and drill efficiency.