companies
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pared – for example – with Australia’s, and we intend
changing this.”
As evidence of this approach, Jordaan points to the
R1 billion, five-year contract that Master Drilling has
secured at Kumba Iron Ore’s Kolomela mine in the
Northern Cape, where it is providing essentially all
the drilling services required by the mine, including
grade control drilling. “For the grade control, we’ve
ordered two of Atlas Copco’s SmartROC D65 surface
drilling rigs,” he says. “These will be the first rigs of
this type in Africa and they take drilling to an entirely
new level as they use the latest computer technology
and offer a fully-automated drill cycle. SmartROC
machines are extensively used in Australia where
they have delivered massive increases in productiv-
ity. Labour-savings can be up to 90 % with the use
of remote-controlled multi units compared to manual
rigs but one does need crews with higher skills and
with different experience. As part of their training,
our first operators will be spending time in Sweden
and Australia.” He adds that Master Drilling will be
trialling an X-ray system on the rigs which will mea-
sure the mineralisation and deliver the data to the
production geologists on the mine on demand.
Notwithstanding its diversification into slimhole
drilling, raise boring is the skill for which Mas-
ter Drilling is best known and it remains one of the
world’s leading practitioners of the technology. Glob-
ally it only has a handful of competitors and, within
South Africa itself, only one major competitor. Its
A 3 m long drill rod weighing 2 tonnes is lifted into position.
Danie Pretorius (left), CEO of the Master Drilling Group, with
Technical Director Koos Jordaan.
raiseboring fleet, numbering nearly 100 machines, is
one of the biggest in the world and includes the Wirth
HG380 SP rig, currently in operation at the Marikana
site, which can drill shafts up to 7,3 m in diameter
and up to 1 300 m in length. It is one of only a handful
of such machines in the world and – since being pur-
