Once discovered, the viability of a new mine or expansion project needs to be proven demanding extensive development drilling.
External and internal financing requires a definitive review of the project economics (precise location, grade and tonnage) before funds are committed to advance a project. To obtain sufficient information development drilling is completed – using in very large volumes – providing detailed definition and parameters of the ore body.
Development drilling often requires additional rigs performing larger drilling campaigns, “ramping up” from the earlier exploration stage. Drilling services are often of the same type, but volumes and duration much larger. It is during the development stage that Foraco markets some of its more technical drilling techniques, such as:
– Deep directional drilling with multiple “branches” from one “parent” borehole to
depths of over 3000m.
– Large diameter bulk sampling utilizing destructive drilling techniques.
These techniques provide customers with a large tonnage of ore, typically for pilot
plant processing before the mine is put into production.