DRILL & BLAST
actually take almost the same time as with the long-hole method,” Suomela says. “We kind of specifi ed a mining jumbo that simply drills larger holes.” Elen Toodu, Agnico Eagle
underground planning engineer, says, “For us it was amazing how fast we were able to start up and commission this rig.” During the fi rst 11 months of operation the rig clocked roughly 1,400 hours of drilling. T e output over the period from July 2014 to July 2015 totalled 64 stopes, 11 mine infrastructure shafts and 2,993 drilled metres, averaging 5.3 stopes and almost 250 drilled metres a month. Miners can also use the Rhino 100HM for developing the mine infrastructure, a major benefi t for a mine undergoing fast expansion, such as Kittilä. T is is closely linked with the availability of drilling capacity in excess of the rig’s main task, production drilling.
Quick and smooth “What convinced me was the quick and smooth set-up,” Suomela says. “We have learned the specifi cations required of a drilling site, with proper support, heights and other clearances. After driving the rig to the site, it takes less than one hour to set up and you’re good to go. In that sense it was a very successful choice. We can now open up the stopes much quicker, which is a major asset for us since the throughput time per stope is such a crucial parameter in our operation,” he says. ‘Much quicker’ in practice means a total stope cycle of fi ve to six days instead of up to three weeks with the previous long-hole method. “We now need only two blasts
even for those 40-metre stopes, and we have eliminated the need to open up the drop raise in fi ve-metre breaks,” says Toodu, who is in charge of planning the mining process from
When we realised that the traditional raise drilling method did not meet our production needs, we had a joint vision of the way we should move forward
TRB-Raise Borers CEO, Jarko Salo, says that operator commitment is of particular importance in slot hole boring, where drill tailings are fl ushed down on the rig and need to be properly managed to prevent the muck from damaging vulnerable components
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