Swick Mining
2007. Swick Mining Services Ltd (“Swick”) is a Western Australian based ASX listed company specialising in the provision of drilling services to the Australian mining industry. Swick's core division is underground diamond drilling where it is recognized as one the industry's leading providers. This division has been growing rapidly in recent times and currently accounts for 15 of the 27 rigs Swick has in operation. 2007. Jump forward.
2019. Swick mining now has 76 Underground Diamond Drilling Rigs and 7 Surface RC Drilling Rigs in Operation with one-third of them deployed outside Australia.
The success of the division is in part attributed to the design of the rig (a Swick in-house design) which is more mobile and flexible than other rigs in the market. Swick manufacturers these rigs in-house at its Guildford workshop using components principally acquired from Boart Longyear and Atlas Copco.
The underground diamond drill rig has evolved over the course of the past 3 years to the point where future improvements are likely to be less frequent and have less impact. One of the issues which has been overcome in recent times was that of stability in the underground mine environment. Previously, the rigs were considered quite unstable and the drillers were quiet nervous when tramming the rigs from level to level. however as a result of a modification to the carrier, whereby the wheel base was extended, and the switch to the crocodile tires the stability of the rig has improved substantially and the drillers are much more confident with respect to tramming of the rig.
2019. Swick mining now has 76 Underground Diamond Drilling Rigs and 7 Surface RC Drilling Rigs in Operation with one-third of them deployed outside Australia.
The success of the division is in part attributed to the design of the rig (a Swick in-house design) which is more mobile and flexible than other rigs in the market. Swick manufacturers these rigs in-house at its Guildford workshop using components principally acquired from Boart Longyear and Atlas Copco.
The underground diamond drill rig has evolved over the course of the past 3 years to the point where future improvements are likely to be less frequent and have less impact. One of the issues which has been overcome in recent times was that of stability in the underground mine environment. Previously, the rigs were considered quite unstable and the drillers were quiet nervous when tramming the rigs from level to level. however as a result of a modification to the carrier, whereby the wheel base was extended, and the switch to the crocodile tires the stability of the rig has improved substantially and the drillers are much more confident with respect to tramming of the rig.