Real Time Drill Rig Operations Tracking

BMA is interested in how they can better track drill rig operations during exploration drilling with off the shelf solutions.  The challenge will look at how to tracking locations, monitor and recording rig operations in real time.  And then visual display and monitor aggregated rig operations vs known inputs (e.g. planned hole locations, hole depth and planned drilling time)

BMA is always looking to improve exploration activity and support drill rig operations.  Drill rig operations account for 40% of the exploration cost and ensure the correct data is collected is paramount for the future mining operations.  All drilling operations are either for a core sample to be collected or a chip sample to be collected. Chip drilling is rapid drilling to understand where coal seams are located for mine planning while core drilling provides a sample for laboratory analysis of coal properties. Standard phases of the drill rig activity are moving, setting up drill rig, drilling, sampling. Each phase of drilling operation will be associated with a different physical activity of the rig either down hole or surface.

Understanding the surface location of the drill rig within 200mm of the borehole location is a critical process that currently requires an additional resource to collect the data. Incorporating the location information into drilling metrics will solve a larger problem.

Solutions for downhole drilling metrics exist in blast hole rigs as part of the automated operations of the rig. The end solution would be how do we retrofit similar technology to current exploration rigs.