Category: References

FOREPOLING through the Colombian Andes

Posted on by Jari Silver

“4G”, or Fourth Generation, typically refers to a mobile network. In Colombia, it’s also an abbreviation for the largest and most ambitious road infrastructure program in Latin America.

Colossal investment

Colombia’s 4G program involves 7,000 kilometres of roadway – a more than $ 50 billion investment divided into more than 40 projects. Part of a master plan to place Colombia at the forefront of Latin American economies, its aim is to step up regional development and promote foreign trade by reducing transport times across the country.

4G has marked a massive boost for the construction industry in Colombia, a country traversed by no less than three branches of the Andes. In addition to 1,400 km of four-lane highways, 4G includes 141 tunnels (125 km in length) and as many as 1,300 viaducts (146 km in length).

One of the 4G projects, called “Autopista Conexión Pacífico 1”, is the construction of a highway between Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city, and Bolombolo, in central northwestern Colombia. It includes two tunnels, Sinifaná and Amagá.

Partnering in a competitive market

Sinifaná, consisting of two parallel tunnels, 1,6 km each with a cross-section of 100 m², is contracted by the Spanish-owned OSSA. They are drilling with Robit tools, supplied by SESCO, Robit’s exclusive dealer of tunneling tools in Colombia. Through SESCO, Robit entered the Colombian market three years ago.

“Entering Colombia was a real challenge since the prices were very depressed. We are by no means the cheapest in the market, but thanks to the durability and fast performance of our tools, we have been able to demonstrate that Robit is the most economical cost-per-meter choice”, says José Cisneros, Sales Director for Robit SAC.

In addition to providing tools, Robit consults the main designers in the projects, and provides training to drillers to ensure optimal use of the various tools. In forepoling, the Robit system can offer key advantages for the driller. It’s easy to install, couplings between sections are very fast to make, and the durability helps minimize downtime.

Impressive performance

“We have seen performance that has not been reached in this country before: 13,000 m for rods, 25,000 m for couplings, 24,000 m for shanks, to name a few. Add to that the superior penetration rate of our drill bits, and our client has been able to reduce execution times up to 40%”, says a pleased José.

The Sinifaná tunnel is expected to be completed in September 2019, and the Amagá tunnel two years later. Once finished, the Pacífico 1 highway will cut the travel time from Medellin to Bolombolo in half.

Picture: The Cauca river crosses numerous towns in the Department of Antioquia, including Bolombolo.

Ylimäki quarries with more than 30 years of experience

Posted on by Jari Silver

Markku Viitanen sits in the cab of the drill rig, wearing protectors on his ears and expertly operating the joystick. An echo sounds out from the surrounding forest as Robit’s drill bit is hammered into the rock. It’s a typical day at the office for Markku. And the quarry, located in Karstula, central Finland, is a typical work site for Markku’s employer, Louhintaliike Ylimäki.

This is Markku’s third day of drilling at the quarry. Red borehole plugs in the snow mark the holes that have already been drilled. The 83-millimetre bore holes are being drilled to a depth of 10–12 metres, down to the bottom level of the quarry. Half of the roughly 1,600 metres to be drilled has already been completed. As a quarrying site, this one is of a moderate size, at 25,000 tonnes. Large sites can be in the range of 100,000 tonnes.

When the boring work is completed, the shot-firing team takes over. An explosive, such as ‘Kemiitti’ – an emulsion explosive developed for open-cut excavations – is loaded into the hole, and a second explosive is placed on top as a guarantee. The area is blasted. A hydraulic hammer is used to break any oversize rocks into a crushable size. At this point, Louhintaliike Ylimäki’s work at this quarry is finished; another contractor will take over the crushing operations.

– Ylimäki’s main areas of operation are western Finland and northern Ostrobothnia, and its main customers are aggregate suppliers and crushing companies,” says civil engineer Matti Pitkäjärvi, who supervises the work at the company’s quarrying sites. Blast rock is also produced at the Karstula quarry, to be crushed for infrastructure construction or concrete or asphalt production, for example.

Industry leader after three decades

Louhintaliike Ylimäki Oy is a family business that was established in 1983. The company started out small, with rented equipment, but over the decades has grown to become the largest rock extractor in the region. With about 20 employees and a solid equipment base, Ylimäki blasted five million tonnes of rock in 2014. A second generation of Ylimäkis – brothers Matti and Mikko – now run the company.

How does a regional operator competing with major national companies survive?

– We’re doing well. We have a lot of long-term, established customer relationships. With adequate and modern equipment, expert staff and reasonable prices, the customers are happy. We don’t have to fight for every site, says Matti.

Annual contract speeds up processes

Louhintaliike Ylimäki has been drilling with Robit bits for a long time. And as Robit’s Sales Manager, Mika Mankinen, recounts, co-operation between the two companies was taken one step further in 2015: they entered into an annual agreement covering not just drill bits, but also shank adapters and drill rods.

– It came down to the price/quality ratio or, to put it in more concrete terms, cost per drilled metre. The Finnish aspect is also an important criterion,” says Matti, elaborating on how the deal came about.

The annual agreement will simplify the purchasing process, and drilling equipment will come at a fixed, competitive price. A volume-based price saves the customer not only money, but the headache of having to negotiate a price separately for every construction site. The process is as simple as can be: Matti makes an order and Robit delivers the agreed amount of products.

– The co-operation between Ylimäki and Robit has for years been practical and smooth. We can always call Mika if new requirements or requests arise during a drilling job, says Matti. – Robit is always able to flexibly respond to changes or development needs, Mika adds.

For this western Finland quarrying company, business is going well. When asked about the bigger challenges facing the company, Matti pauses to think about it.

– In this business in general, the challenge is the unequal distribution of the work load – the ups and downs of the quiet and busy times of the year. But we don’t experience that. Our fleet of equipment is always in use, says a pleased Matti.

Widening Hong Kong’s traffic bottlenecks

Posted on by Jari Silver

Hong Kong is one of the world´s most densely populated metropolises. The neighbouring Shenzhen, founded in the 1980s, is the fastest growing city in China. As a reminder of the time when Hong Kong was under British control – no more than 20 years ago – there are still control points between the two cities.

The existing six land control points are major bottlenecks due to the massive traffic. That’s why the Hong Kong government launched a big development project in 2014 to open a seventh road connection. It involves a tunnel excavation where Robit’s tools have been put to the test.

Different rock, different methods

To accommodate the high volume of the traffic, two tunnels are being built side by side, one for each direction. Excavation for the 4.8-kilometre-long tunnels has been started at both ends, using different techniques. TBM is the method of choice at the north end on the Shenzhen side; at the south end the rock is so hard that the drill & blast method yields results faster and more efficiently.

Dragages Hong Kong, the main contractor, organized a bidding tender for the drill & blast work. Robit’s tools, represented by Merman Technology, proved to be the most competitive. The drilling work is performed by Robodrill, using tunneling jumbos and Montabert drifters.

– Before reaching the hard rock, there was a great deal of forepoling. Some of the ground was more challenging and softer than we expected, says Antti Mäkinen, Robit’s Sales Director for Southeast Asia.

– Robit supplied the ring bits, pilots and casings for the forepoling stage, as well as the tools – shanks, couplings, drill rods, and button bits – for drill & blast.

Smooth sailing for all parties

– I’m happy to say this has been a successful project from the very start. Our client has been extremely satisfied with Robit’s services, deliveries and products. I would also like to give my warmest thanks to Mr. Jacky Lee, the CEO of Merman, who has been providing excellent support to our client throughout the entire project.

In a large scale project like this, what have been the biggest challenges so far?

– As far as our tools are concerned, we have faced no problems. The major challenges have more to do with organization than technology, precisely because of the vast scale of it all. Planning the delivery schedules for all the various delivery points has taken a lot of effort, Mäkinen explains.

– Actually, this has been a learning experience for all of us. Cooperation with Dragages and Robodrill has been very fruitful. We frequently visit the work site, evaluate the processes, methods and tools, in a joint effort to make things run ever more smoothly.

The learning experience underneath the hills of northern Hong Kong continues. A staggering 770,000 total drill metres with Robit’s tools is to be completed by the end of 2017. The new Boundary Control Point is scheduled to open a year later.

Billion-euro Tripla project to transform Pasila

Posted on by Jari Silver

The Pasila area holds a major role in the vision for a future Helsinki: there are plans for it to be the new heart of Helsinki. One of the key words for the plan is ‘Tripla’. Upon completion, the billion-euro construction project, massive on Finland’s scale, will connect East and West Pasila. Offices, flats, a shopping centre, a public transportation hub, hotels and other services will emerge within a three-block area. Tripla’s developer is YIT.

Completing Tripla will naturally require comprehensive foundation engineering work. The lowest level of the block will be a parking facility on which the foundation work was begun in April 2015. It was decided that the surrounding retaining wall would be implemented as an RD-pile wall because it can tolerate loads, allows relatively rapid installation and has accurate dimensions even in challenging soil conditions. The difficulty is ensuring the watertightness of the RD-pile wall and significant amounts of slurry can accumulate during the drilling phase.

Strict demands, challenging conditions

It was known from the very beginning that the project was going to be challenging. Developers were faced with backfill full of boulders, combined with construction waste. Much of the backfill was saturated with badly polluted liquids. The nearby busy railway yard posed restrictions of its own.

The quality criteria were also strict. The design age of the structures, including factors such as corrosion resistance and watertightness, were specified to be 200 years instead of the more usual 100 years. The location and incline demands on the RD-pile wall were also relatively strict.

A three-company consortium was responsible for the construction of the retaining wall on behalf of the main contractor YIT. The main contract for the piling was carried out by Keski-Suomen Betonirakenne, the drilling by the Estonian subcontractor Fort Ehitus, with Ilmi Solutions functioning as the consultant. Robit supplied the drill bits for all of the drilling. YIT also uses Robit’s Top Hammer equipment at the worksite.

Inside the bedrock in three phases

There were three main phases in building the retaining wall. During the first phase, the piles were vibrated through the loose clay and sandy soil into the hard ground moraine. During the second phase, the vertically installed piles were emptied with an auger, from the clay layer all the way to the tip of the pile. In the third phase, the piles were drilled through hard or extremely hard moraine into the bedrock to a maximum depth of 1.5 m. Robit’s opening winged bit was selected for down-the-hole drilling. Senior Specialist Kari Juntunen was onsite to supervise on behalf of Robit.

“The alternative for the winged bit would have been a traditional ring bit. The subcontractor took a bit of a risk when selecting the winged bit because there were some tricky spots in the bedrock. We at Robit were still making further improvements to the bit during the project based on tips given to us by the subcontractor. Everything turned out all right in the end and the costs for the customer were lower than they would have been with a ring bit,” says Juntunen.

Trust and seamless collaboration

“The job was completed on schedule with excellent results. I have to take off my hat to the Fort Ehitus guys. We had a strong trust in them to begin with: I had worked with them before on a piling project and became impressed by their expertise,” says Juntunen. According to Jouko Pasanen from Ilmi Solutions, which oversaw the worksite, the co-operation was seamless.

“Despite the challenging worksite we barely ran into any problems. Once my phone rang at nine in the evening. A subcontractor told me that a bit had broken, what should they do? We had agreed that there should always be spare bits available. I promised to be there at six the next morning with a new bit. And I was. The subcontractor thanked me and said that no other supplier could have done it,” says Juntunen with satisfaction.

The retaining wall was completed on time before the new year. The work at Tripla is still far from finished, however. The first cars will not be able to park in the garage set off by the retaining wall until 2019.

Drilling of Tripla’s retaining wall
• RD700 pile elements
• D711 x 14.2 RM/RF interlocked piles, 746 pcs
• Robit DTH SF 711/16 winged pilot bit
• Length of piles 5.5–33.5 m
• Altogether 16,335 m of piles
• Drill rig with a 40-m mast

Deep in the heart of the Iron Range

Posted on by Jari Silver

U.S. Route 53 traverses the state of Minnesota, from Duluth at the southwest end of Lake Superior, ending 240 km later at the Canadian border. On its way it crosses the socalled Iron Range, an area rich in iron ore, which has served the raw material needs of the American steel industry since the 19th century.

Today, the ore deposits in the Iron Range are far from depleted. On the contrary, just south of the city of Virginia, a mining company is in the process of expanding an old mine pit. As it happens, Route 53 currently runs right on top of the planned expansion and needs to be relocated. The main element of the relocation project is a new bridge across the neighbouring Rouchleau Mine Pit.

Minnesota’s highest bridge

Abandoned in 1977, the Rouchleau Pit has since served as a tourist attraction. The new bridge will be 335 metres (1,100 ft) long with an elevation of 61 metres (200 ft), making it the highest bridge in elevation in Minnesota.

The construction of the foundations of the bridge started in December 2015 with the installation of 30-inch piles. Drilling deep piles into very hard ground with a high iron content is quite a challenge. Due to strength requirements the holes need to be drilled 12 metres into hard rock – way deeper than at a typical bridge construction site.

Veit USA took the challenge of the drilling work. For the casing advancing system, Veit considered two suppliers.

Tight time schedule

– Veit had heard about Robit through the industry grapevine. They contacted us and presented their two challenges: deep piles in a mine site and a very tight delivery time, says David Delorme, General Manager of Robit Inc.

– We were selected because we were able to supply on a very short notice. We designed a system for the conditions Veit described, and delivered in six weeks – exactly as promised. What about the drilling work itself – how has it been coming along?

– This is the biggest piling job for Robit Inc so far. Despite the technical challenges posed by the rock and the length of the piles, we haven’t faced any major problems, and we are well within schedule, David says.

The installation of the 30-inch piles is set to be completed by mid-March, 2016. Work on the site continues at a swift pace though. The new bridge spanning the Rouchleau Pit should be open to traffic in late 2017 – offering a magnificent new lookout spot for travellers on Route 53.

Bridge construction for Route 53 relocation, Virginia, Minnesota
• 5 x 762 mm (30”) QL200s pilot bit
• 35 x 762/12,7 (30”) mm DTH RoX+ HD (Heavy Duty) ring bit
• Bermingham Reverse Circulation (RC) drill tube system
• Bermingham 50 m lead
• 4 x 25 bar compressor + oiler
• Drill hole depth: 53 m, into hard rock 12 m

Strong hands in the Australian soil and market

Posted on by Jari Silver

Rolling grass plains and awesome rock faces rising up behind them – it’s like a scene out of a western movie. A monotonous pounding can be heard beyond the mountains. Yet we are not in the prairies and the bangs are not from revolver guns. The source of the noise is a Robit Hyper 181 Down-the-Hole (DTH) hammer striking deep into Australian soil, more precisely the mineral deposits of Narrabri.

Lucas Drilling Services, part of the Australian AJ Lucas Group Limited, is more or less halfway through a major coal mine project at the Whitehaven Coal company’s Narrabri North mine. They have drilled around 50 holes down to the bedrock, the deepest ones extending to 240 metres. Around 70 holes remain to be drilled.

Lucas Drilling selected for the project T120XD and Schramm T685 drill rigs equipped with the Robit Hyper 181 DTH hammer. The contractor requested a brand-new 18-inch Robit 181 from the local Robit dealer in Queensland, Dilong Drilling, with whom Lucas Drilling had already successfully collaborated for several years. Angus Simmons, Drilling Supervisor at Lucas Drilling, describes the operation as follows:

“We’ve used our Robit Hyper 181 DTH hammer in a Schramm T130XD drill rig for more than fifty jobs now without a single problem. Some time ago we upgraded our equipment with new Robit Hyper 181 DTH hammers and we’re now using them also in a Schramm 685 rig. We use the Hyper 181 model for hard and brittle basalt and other volcanic types of rock down to depths of 64 metres.”

After that, a 14” DTH hammer will go further down to 200– 220 metres to reach conglomerate of ancient petrified gravel. Finally, a 9” DTH will hammer away the rest, at a depth of between 220 and 240 metres.

AJ Lucas Group, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), has more than 60 years of experience in the sectors of energy, water & waste water, resources and public infrastructure. Headquartered in Brisbane, Lucas Drilling has broad experience in engineering services, horizontal directional (HDD) drilling, drilling for oil, gas and coal, surface-to-inseam (SIS) drilling and many other areas of special expertise, making them one of Australia’s largest and most diversified drilling service suppliers.

Dave Crane, sales coordinator with Robit, spared no praise for the quality of work at the Narrabri North mine:

“The workmanship at the mine is solid testimony of Lucas Drilling’s know-how and experience, of Dilong Drilling’s technical support and special expertise as well as of the power and reliability of the Robit Hyper 181 DTH hammer. It’s truly a winning combo!”

Picture: The Schramm drill rig uses three different-sized hammers and drill bits for drilling a 240-metre-deep hole. Lucas Drilling Services relies on Robit’s DTH drilling equipment in demanding conditions.

AUSDRILL’S SUCCESS STORY – “Blood, sweat and tears”

Posted on by Jari Silver

Developing DTA’s drilling consumables to their current level of excellence was a long and hard learning curve. Looking back, it was all well worth it. These days Ausdrill is the one to raise the standards to its competitors.

David Hart, Area Manager at Ausdrill Ltd, recalls being one of the first customers to use DTA’s products:

“When I look back on the whole process, I realise now that this could not have been done without some ‘blood, sweat and tears’, and also not without close co-operation between Ausdrill’s and DTA’s personnel. The tight relationship between Ausdrill and DTA was a stroke of luck! DTA was able to make improvements and changes to the products on short notice, and Ausdrill was able to trial those changes just as fast. This made the whole experience less painful than it could have been. There was some frustration, but also satisfaction along the way to producing and developing a product that today will hold its own against the competition. It was a great learning experience!”

At the Super Pit operation we are required to drill approximately 190,000 metres per month. The size and depth of the holes vary, as does their purpose; we have 20,000 metres of grade control holes, 50,000 metres of probe holes and the remaining 120,000 are blast holes. Grade control holes are designed to define the ore body boundaries within each bench prior to blasting. The blast holes are loaded with explosives and the blast fractures the soil into pieces suitable for loading and hauling. Probe holes are designed to define the border
between safe ground areas and potentially unsafe areas, where old underground workings are present.

“Prior to Kalgoorlie becoming the ‘Super Pit’ in the late 1980s, there were many different gold leases owned by different prospectors and lease holders in the area. The majority of the individual gold operations across the Golden Mile (now the site of the Super Pit) were underground operations. The combined length of the underground workings is over 2,000 kilometres, and the size of each mine varies according to the era and methods used at the time. In the 20-plus years that Ausdrill has been working in the Super Pit, I know of one case where a drill rig partly fell into some old underground workings. It couldn’t be retrieved, so it was blasted and dug up with the rock. The operator survived the incident,” Hart says.

Ausdrill uses DTA products at all of their 10 drill and blast sites in Australia and also on some exploration division drill rigs. The most common products are the 4- and 6-inch blast hole hammers and bits used for drilling holes from 115 through to 165 mm. We additionally use a few 7- and 8-inch hammers for drilling hole sizes from 203 to 251 mm and reverse circulation hammers for grade control and RC exploration.

The manufacturing business in Australia is very challenging financially, and many companies have either left Australian shores and set up in India or China to reduce their costs or closed up shop altogether.

“Continuous improvement will be required to keep DTA’s products in the markets and to meet the competition headon,” Hart believes. “A lot of competition stems from the price dumping due to hand-made products from China and India.”

DTA uses robotic machines to contain labour costs, while still maintaining high reliability and proven quality in production. While it is apparent that more and more competitors are entering Ausdrill’s market, the company is determined to stay focused and have fun along the way. It is “cost per metre and reliability” that will win out in the end, Hart concludes.

Picture: KCGM Kalgoorlie Super Pit – Ausdrill has been the production drilling contractor at the Super Pit for many years.

Uptime – from necessity to opportunity

Posted on by Jari Silver

Uptime Earthmoving Solutions Inc. (Uptime) was established in 2016 by engineers and technical people of Delta Earthmoving, Inc. a leading contractor in the Philippines specializing in earthmoving, quarrying and mining.

Delta was executing nine quarrying contracts and one major open pit mining contract, extracting a combined 4.5 million metric tonnes of materials per month, each one requiring drilling operations. Mr. Geoffrey Omengan, Delta’s EVP for asset management then observed that in spite of the operations’ results showing the obvious cost efficiency of Robit products over other brands, the company continued to use an assortment of brands. With this observation, Mr. Omengan envisioned not only expanding the utilization of Robit products but also distributing the brand in the Philippines. Not only would sustainable drilling solutions be provided to Delta but business opportunities would also arise in distributing products which have shown a distinct advantage over other brands based on actual applications. Thus, Uptime
was created with Mr. Geoffrey Omengan at the helm.

On the other end, Binn Lim, Export Manager of Robit Korea, had been waiting for years for the opportunity to introduce the Robit brand to Delta. As fate would have it, Mr. Lim and Mr. Jimmy Omengan, a director of Delta, crossed paths during the Bauma Expo in Munich, Germany in 2016. The two did not waste time discussing the availability of Robit products in the Philippines, which quickly graduated into Uptime’s possible dealership and distribution of Robit products. This would pave the way for further discussions between the two parties and as the adage goes, “the rest is history”.

Less than a year from its establishment, Uptime has gained tremendous momentum in developing Robit as a major player in the Philippine market. The use of Robit products has expanded beyond Delta to other drilling contractors. Furthermore, Uptime was able to confidently conduct drill testings for several significant players in the Philippine mining industry. The results have been encouraging and Uptime foresees a significant growth in the market for Robit.

Picture: Rusialda (Uptime), Binn Lim (Robit Korea), Bryan Lumongtad (Uptime).

Hydro power from the Himalayas

Posted on by Jari Silver

Starting some 4,000 metres high up on a Himalayan glacier, The Alaknanda River winds its way down towards the south through the state of Uttarakhand, gaining momentum, finally meeting with the Bhagirathi river to form the mighty Ganges. Some of that momentum will be harnessed by a hydroelectric plant, now under construction in the Chamoli district in Northern India.

The 444 MW hydropower construction project includes a diversion of the river into a headrace tunnel and a diversion dam of 65 m height across the river. This will create a gross head of 237 m for power generation.

A project this size requires also a number of adits, or access tunnels, to be built. The ground conditions for tunnelling work has proven to be quite challenging: the TBMs would have to drill through loose soil mixed with large – or small – boulders made up of very hard quartzite.

Machino International was selected to supply and install the piperoofing system for the TBM entry adit with Robit’s tools.

– We had heard a lot of positive feedback about Robit’s piperoofing system from previous projects, such as the IL&FS Kiratpur Ner-Chowk highway tunnel and the IRCON railway tunnel at Jammu & Kashmir. Also, Robit’s Sales Manager S.K. Back paid a personal visit on-site to meet our client and made a convincing case for Robit, says Director Vibhore Agarwal, Machino International.

Thanks to the timely supply and high quality of Robit’s ring bits and pilot bits, the goal of installing the 12-metre casing system was reached in time. Once completed, the hydroelectric plant will significantly improve the supply of electricity in the area by providing clean, renewable, low-carbon energy.

Espoo waters to be treated in a massive cave

Posted on by Jari Silver

Playing a round on Espoo Golf’s green fairways, you would never guess that right next to the golf course, under the Blominmäki rock, a massive excavation project is underway: the construction site of a new wastewater treatment plant. Once completed, the plant will process the wastewater of over 400,000 residents.

Espoo is building the new plant to prepare for an increase in its population. The plant will be equipped with the best modern technology which will improve treatment results. Energy efficiency is another design feature: the plant will produce more than half of the electricity it needs itself. It will also produce heat in excess of its needs.

The contract was awarded to Lemminkäinen Infra. Robit will supply all the drill bits and some of the drifter shaft adapters and rods to the construction site.

– Robit’s assets in the competitive bidding process were full service, delivery reliability and uncompromising quality, says Project Engineer Jarkko Meriläinen from Lemminkäinen.

During the first months of the project, Robit and Lemminkäinen worked on product development to find the most suitable drilling tools. Before long, their co-operation resulted in an optimal wear part maintenance cycle during excavation. Robit’s sharpening service ensures that operations can continue uninterrupted.

– It’s not about the unit price of a product, say, a drill bit, but about the life cycle cost. When co-operation with the drillers is smooth and maintenance flows like clockwork, considerable cost savings can be made, comments Robit Sales Manager responsible for the project.

A whopping 900,000 cubic metres of rock will be excavated at Blominmäki in total. The excavation work will be completed during 2017, followed by the actual construction work. The new plant will go on stream in 2020.

New motorway in Macedonia straightens the bends

Posted on by Jari Silver

In Macedonia, the verdant heart of the Balkans, narrow and winding roads hug the mountainsides making journeys by car excruciatingly slow. The situation is about to change, though, through massive investments in infrastructure.

The single largest road building project underway in Macedonia is the 57-kilometre stretch of motorway between Kicevo and Ohrid, a popular lake-side city in the southwest corner of the country. The project employs 1,200 people and 550 machines. The EUR 375 million investment project is financed by Sinohydro, a Chinese state-owned company and the main contractor of the project.

A twin-tube tunnel with two lanes in each tube will be built through the Preseka mountain, totalling four kilometres in length. Traffic will travel in one direction in each of the tubes.

To an extent, the tunnelling work will be carried out the traditional, manual way by around two to three hundred employees, while the rest of the excavation work will be handled by tunnelling jumbos. The local subcontractor for the project is Avtotehna d.o.o. Skopje, which is in charge of procurement and the maintenance of the equipment and machinery. For forepoling, Avtotehna chose Robit’s tools. The criteria for the decision were clear.

– Robit clearly outperformed its competitors in the tests. With Robit’s products, the drilling of one cross section equalling 39 holes took 30 hours in contrast with 48 hours achieved by the best competitor. There are several reasons for this: Robit’s casings are thicker, the casings’ threading is superior, and as a whole, the products are stronger and more reliable, says Vladimir Ovcarov, Manager at Avtotehna.

Robit has guaranteed a constant supply of wear parts.
– It is all about customer service. By listening to the customer and making plans together with them onsite, we are able to estimate what products and how much of them will be needed at the site over the next couple of months, and most importantly, we are also able to deliver on those needs. We dispatch a truckload of products every week, Robit’s Sales Engineer Rasmus Sokura says.

– Competition in this field is stiff. You have to be prepared for surprises and risks and be able to react quickly. We have proven from the get-go that you can always rely on Robit. We have since also managed to gain a foothold in the Balkan mining sector, Rasmus adds.

Avtotehna is also very happy with Robit.
– Our co-operation with Robit has run smoothly. They listen to our wishes and offer flexible, quick service 24/7. This is something that large, rigid organisations have not been able to provide, Vladimir says.

Deep inside the Preseka mountain, tunnelling work will continue for over a year. If the project stays on schedule, the motorway will be completed in 2018, cutting – to the delight of Macedonian motorists – the travel time between Kicevo and Ohrid in half.

ROBIT’S ROX+ 114,3/10 SYSTEM FOREPOLING PRODUCTS IN MACEDONIA:
• Pilot bits
• Ring bits (welded to casing)
• Extension casings and end casings
• Grouting plugs/end caps with ball valves
• Drifter shank adaptors and rods

Picture: Planning and scheduling everyday operations at the jobsite: Avtotehna d.o.o., Sinohydro and Robit.

Munch Museum rises from the sea

Posted on by Jari Silver

Edvard Munch was an incredibly prolific artist. He willed 28,000 of his works – paintings, sculptures, and photographs – to the city of Oslo. It had long been clear that the old Munch Museum was too small to house the collection. A new one is now being built on water in Bjørvika bay in downtown Oslo.

There was a long and heated debate about where the new Munch museum should be built and what it should look like. In 2008 the city of Oslo announced an architectural competition, and the following year a proposal called Lambda, by the Spanish architect Juan Herreros, was declared the winner.

Initial controversy

As is often the case with contemporary architecture, Lambda’s bold design and size met with some resistance. It was considered strange shaped and too tall for its surroundings. After years of a political tug-ofwar, the construction work finally started in 2016.

The job site was not the easiest possible either: Lambda was designed to rise directly from the sea. That meant a massive piling project for the contractor Hallingdal Bergboring. Robit, having been in close cooperation with Hallingdal for years, was selected as the provider of drilling tools for the project.

Custom-made drill bits

Old seaports are often challenging for piling jobs. The bottom of Bjørvika was filled with silt, large boulders, wooden piles from old dock, et cetera. The bedrock underneath them, on the other hand, was very hard. For these reasons Robit and Hallingdal designed the optimal drill bits in cooperation.

Location in the city centre was another challenge. The famous Oslo Opera House sits right next to the job site; one had to make sure that its foundations remained unharmed while drilling up to 12 metres into the bedrock. This was achieved by using Robit’s DTH-RoX+ FC (Flow Control) pilot bits.

16 kilometres of piles

For the foundations of the Munch Museum, some 16 kilometres of piles were drilled, 311 piles altogether, the thickest being 711 mm in diameter. Some were drilled on solid ground; others from a drilling platform floating on the bay. In these circumstances, drilling work takes a lot of skill.

– When you’re on the platform, controlling a machine that’s thumping on the rock 50 metres below you, you need to keep your eyes, ears, and touch on full alert, says Hallingdal’s operations manager Sverre Bjella.

Despite the difficult conditions, no major surprises or problems were encountered. The piling project was finished on time in October 2016. In addition to Hallingdal, Robit’s Senior Specialist Kari Juntunen extends his thanks to other parties involved.

– Our agent Norsk Pumpeservice was responsible for the storing and technical service of the drilling equipment, and did a great job. There wasn’t a single gap in the supply of consumables on the job site, Kari says with content.

In October 2016, Princess Mette-Marit laid the ceremonial foundation stone for Lambda. The imposing, glass-faced 12-story building is set to open its doors to the public in 2020.

Robit puts down roots in the Middle East

Posted on by Jari Silver

In late 2016, Robit took a step to expand its foothold in the Middle East by establishing a sales company (Robit Plc – BFC) in Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates. The new sales company is led by Export Manager Juhani Sivenius.

What are the starting points for the operations in the Middle East?

Considering the size of the market, Robit’s sales in the area have been modest to date. The journey is only just beginning. We are currently focussing on presence to enhance visibility, and on availability, which is indispensable for growth. So we have a lot of footwork to do. We have achieved a few successes, which creates a good foundation for the future.

Tell us more about the successes!

Stevin Rock, the area’s largest quarry located in Ras Al-Khaimah, is my customer. Robit has a two-year agreement for the supply of wear parts for their entire DTH line. Drilling in Tel Aviv’s metro tunnel project in Israel will start during the summer using our forepoling tubes. The Turkish market is already looking good, thanks to my colleague.

What is Dubai like as a business environment?

The culture is quite colourful because of the wide variety of nationalities. Taking care of administrative matters can be a little slow and bureaucratic, but you get to used to it. My goal is to turn the operations in the area around as soon as possible by acquiring end customers and expanding the distributor network.

Picture: Cliff McGowan (DTARobit) giving instructions to Bharadwaj Ventaraman (Delta Corp Global, right).

A new Goliath rising up in Turku

Posted on by Jari Silver

The Finnish shipyard industry has wind in its sails. This is evident at Meyer’s Turku shipyard whose order books are full well into the 2020s. To ensure additional capacity, a new gantry crane – the largest in the Nordic countries – is being erected at the shipyard.

Shipbuilding in Turku began at the mouth of Aurajoki river almost 300 years ago. The newest shipyard was built in Perno in the 1970s, and since then a long line of tankers, cargo vessels and, above all, passenger ships and luxurious cruise ships have left the shipyard to sail the world’s seas.

Right from the start, the shipyard’s skyline has been dominated by a 600-tonne gantry crane rising to 105 metres. It is used to lift the ship sections, the size of small blocks of flats, manufactured at the shipyard into the basin to be joined together.

Lifting capacity doubled

As the shipyard saw its order book fill up and the ships growing in size, the need for additional capacity became apparent. That is why the construction of a new, even sturdier crane is now being planned. It will have a lifting capacity of 1,200 tonnes, i.e. twice that of the old crane. The new crane will be 122 metres high, thus also increasing the lifting height by more than 10 metres.

Three DTH hammers have been busy at the shipyard before the crane construction begins. In the past, the plates coming from the steel mill were stored outdoors; now a hall is being built specifically for them. Hundreds of piles measuring 170 and 220 mm have been drilled for its foundations in demanding conditions.

– We chose the suitable methods in collaboration with the contractor to make sure that everything goes as planned. And we succeeded: the piling proceeded within schedule and the deliveries arrived on time, says Robit’s Senior Specialist Kari Juntunen.

Old and new work side by side

In summer 2017, the piling work for the foundations of the new gantry crane has been started, and the erection of the crane will begin at the turn of the year. The old crane will not be scrapped – it will just be moved a little further backwards on the rails. As of summer 2018, the skyline of the Turku shipyard will be dominated by not just one but two Goliaths.

Building Thailand’s Infrastructure

Posted on by Jari Silver

Power generation, irrigation, road construction, railroad tunnels – when it comes to building the backbone for Thailand’s economy, Right Tunnelling Ltd. is playing an active part in it.

Founded in 2000, the first project Right Tunnelling undertook was a tunnel excavation for the massive Khun Dan Prakan Chon Dam construction in the province of Nakhon Nayok, initiated by His Majesty the King. Since the completion of the dam in 2005, the local communities have enjoyed a constant supply of water for irrigation, and damages caused by flooding have decreased. The dam itself has become a major tourist attraction, with fishing and other outdoor activities.

Since the beginning, Right Tunnelling earned a reputation as a reliable contractor for civil engineering projects and has grown into the leading tunnel contractor in Thailand, with operations also in the neighbouring Laos and Myanmar.

Similarly, Robit has earned a reputation as a trusted partner for Right Tunnelling, providing them with Robit rock tools such as drill bits, rods, couplings, and shanks, as well as BulrocRobit hammers.

– Our cooperation with Right Tunnelling has been really smooth for several years. We have frequently visited their jobsites in Thailand and Laos to gain insight about their challenging drilling conditions so we can design the optimal tools for them, says Antti Mäkinen, Sales Director, Southeast Asia.

The latest jobsites where Robit’s tools have been put to the test include a railway tunnel, commissioned by the State Railway of Thailand in the province of Saraburi, the Maetaeng-Maengad water tunnel near Chiang Mai, and a headrace tunnel for a diversion dam in a hydropower project in the Bolikhamxay province in Laos.

Breaking Records in a Silver Mine

Posted on by Jari Silver

By the summer of 1546 Juan de Tolosa, a Spanish Basque conquistador, had grown frustrated. He had led several expeditions in search of silver in North-Central Mexico, with little success other than a handful of silver-rich rocks he’d obtained from local natives. On September 8th his luck finally changed.

De Tolosa had hit a mother lode that soon turned out to be one of the richest silver deposits in the world. Within a few decades, the mining camp he founded on the spot grew into a prosperous city called Zacatecas, which later became the capital of the state carrying the same name. By the 18th century, the state of Zacatecas produced no less than one fifth of the world’s silver.

Almost 500 years after de Tolosa, the silver deposits in the state of Zacatecas show no sign of depletion. One of the largest underground mines in the area is called El Saucito, near the city of Fresnillo, some 50 km north of Zacatecas City, owned by Fresnillo plc. Operational since 2011, it produces some 22 million oz (more than 620,000 kg) of silver per year, along with some gold, lead, and zinc.

To maintain and ramp up production, extensive mine development is constantly underway. In 2017, some 24,000 meters of rock will be excavated by the contractors at El Saucito. In such a scale, successful performance requires a reliable supply of all consumable parts of the drill string, such as bits, rods, couplings, and shanks.

Several contractors at El Saucito have chosen Robit’s tools, supplied by their local Robit distributor Rock Bits Tools. “It’s all about communicating and following up with the customer, so we can ensure we have the right drilling parameters and good conditions on the drill rig. Rock Bits Tools are doing a great job serving our customers”, says Sales Director Jorge Leal of Robit S.A.C.

Cominvi, one of the contractors Robit is serving at El Saucito, has reached impressive results with Robit’s tools in drifting and tunnelling. “Each drilling tool has a life expectancy relative to a specific mine or area. In El Saucito for example, a shank that lasts around 5,000 drill metres can be considered high quality. Recently, Cominvi drilled 9,196 metres on one of their drifters with our shank adapter COP1838 R38 038/435. To our knowledge, that’s a record”, Jorge says with a tinge of pride in his voice.

There may yet emerge new opportunities for breaking that record: the ore resources at El Saucito alone are estimated to last for another 25 years.

Picture: The Rock Bits Tools task force ready for action. From left: Gustavo Martinez, Jorge Rodriguez, Felipe Azpilcueta, Ricardo Castillo, Carlos Torres.

Granite – From the Bottom of the Pit to America’s Rooftops

Posted on by Jari Silver

Harvey, Irma, Maria – familiar names to all of those who watched the news on the hurricanes wreaking havoc around the Gulf of Mexico in 2017. As unlikely as it may seem, they are part of the reason why the drillers in a granite quarry in Arkansas are quite busy these days.

“I was introduced to Robit’s CEO at the Conexpo trade show in Las Vegas. I had a really good first impression of him and we got along good. We were having excessive wear of bits, chucks and hammers at our Arkansas site because of the material we were drilling. Robit said they could help us with that, so I decided to give them a try. It turned out my drilling foreman George Aday had already tested Robit tools, but as he had been buying them through a distributor, he had found the prices too high. Sometime after Conexpo, I visited the new Robit factory in Sherman, Texas and placed a first order for DTH hammers and bits. At first, we had some bits that did not work so good, but Robit did some redesign based on our feedback. Ever since, their products have worked better than anything we have used before. I would say we are very happy with Robit products and service as well.”

Dane Braden
President, Explosive Contractors, Inc.

Asphalt shingle is the most popular roofing cover in the United States – it’s relatively easy to install and not very expensive. The base mat of the shingle is saturated with asphalt and the top surface is coated with mineral granules. These granules add durability and protect the asphalt from the deteriorating effects of ultra-violet radiation. They also give the shingles their colour.

However, when a hurricane strikes, no amount of granules will protect a roof unless it’s carefully stormproofed. Each year, thousands of roofs in the hurricaneprone areas in South-Eastern US are damaged, if not entirely ripped away, by storms. This has boosted the production of roofing shingles and, consequently, the demand for mineral granules in the area.

Small clouds of grey dust rise from the ground as Justin Brandt operates the drill in his orange-red rig in a granite quarry in central Arkansas. He drills 5.75“ (14.6 cm) holes that go 14–15 metres deep into the hard rock. Later, the holes will be loaded with explosives and detonated; the blasted rock will then undergo a two-stage process of crushing and grinding, finally resulting in granules about 2 mm in diameter – the perfect coating material for asphalt shingles.

The orange-red drill rig belongs to Explosive Contractors, Inc. (ECI). Besides Arkansas and their home state Missouri, ECI operates dozens of drilling and blasting jobsites in Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma, employing a fifty-strong regular staff and a large number of subcontractors.

Rich in quartz and thus very hard and abrasive, the Arkansas granite is a true challenge for any rock tool. Drill bits and hammers tend to wear out quickly. “Every time we need to shut down the machine to change bits, we lose production”, says Dane Braden, President and owner of ECI.

Recent months have seen a remarkable increase in production at the Arkansas site: replacing their previous Down-the-Hole drill bits and hammers with Robit tools has really made a difference for ECI. This did not happen overnight though: it required some testing, analysis, and product improvement by Robit until the optimal set of tools was developed. Today, the hammers are drilling up to twice as far as the previous ones.

This sounds like good news for all the other granite quarries in the area as well.

From left: Owner of ECI Dane Braden, his Drilling Foreman George Aday and Safety Manager Sam Crutcher

The Sense System goes to Java

Posted on by Jari Silver

Drill hole deviation is a problem most mining operations have had to deal with – until recently. Robit’s groundbreaking Sense System product line was created to address this issue. It has been extensively tried and tested in quarries and mines around the world, now including Indonesia.

In gold mines, blast hole sampling – analysing rock cuttings extracted from the drilled holes – is a common method of exploring ore grades. Accurate sampling allows for identifying ore zones and waste rock zones, which is essential for efficient mine planning.

Usually you have to settle for two dimensions when plotting the blast zones from sampled data. Also, the deeper you drill, the more the hole tends to veer off from its desired direction. Because of this drill hole deviation, you may end up with inaccurate sample data.

These are familiar problems at the gold mine owned by Bumi Suksesindo in Banyuwangi, East Java, Indonesia. That’s why the mining contractor and the blasting contractor at the site welcomed the opportunity to test Robit’s M-Sense system with PT. Marton, Robit’s distributor in Indonesia.

“We found that the M-Sense helped improve ore grade sampling. Normally you plot blast zones using two-dimensional data, but thanks to M-Sense, you get an instant 3D view of the drilled hole in the drilling pattern on a tablet screen. Any deviation from ore zone to waste rock zone is easy to spot”, explains Sales Manager Frandy Widjaja from PT. Marton.

“Also, when you can measure drill hole deviation, you can avoid overcharging the blast holes, which improves safety in a free-face area”, Frandy adds.

The M-Sense system has also been tested at a cement mine in Citereup in West Java, with equally promising results. “At both sites we have received great feedback from the test teams: M-Sense is simple to use, light-weight, and easily operated by one person. That saves a lot of time and hassle in the measuring process”, Frandy concludes.

Picture: The test team at Citereup, from left: Benny Sofyan, Wijaya Surio, Frandy Widjaja (PT. Marton); Ronaldo Indra Putra,Andry Kurniawan (PT. Indocement); Sunyong Choi, Binn Lim (Robit Korea)

Setting new performance standards in Phalaborwa

Posted on by Jari Silver

There are hardly many mining sites in the world where you can see herds of elephants and buffalo roaming about. At the mining complex in Phalaborwa, right next to the mighty Kruger National Park in the northeast corner of South Africa, that sight is commonplace.

The vast Phalaborwa complex is host to several valuable minerals such as phosphate, copper, zirconium, iron, and vermiculite. Phosphate is a key mineral in fertilizers. Before the foundation of the Phalaborwa mine in 1951, the South African agriculture was dependent on imported phosphate rock. Today, South Africa exports phosphate fertilizers around the world.

Venter Drilling, a local family business, has been the drilling contractor at the site for some ten years. In early 2018 they were contacted by Robit SA with a proposal to test Robit’s DTH bits and hammers. Not being completely satisfied with the products of their then supplier, the owner of Venter Drilling, Pieter Venter, agreed to have a testing programme arranged. This was a win-win deal, as it would also provide Robit with genuine feedback on their products.

The first test run involved ten DTH bits and a DTH hammer. “On the outset we wanted to achieve 800 metres per bit and 8,000 metres per hammer”, says Len Botha, who does business development for Robit SA. “In the initial test, the hammer reached 10,767 metres. The bits reached an average of 1,198 metres, with the best one drilling down to 1,699 metres. The previous supplier had averaged only 811 metres per bit”, Len recounts.

This was, of course, extremely promising, but to thoroughly convince Pieter Venter, another set of tests was arranged. This time the hammer went on to do over 12,000 metres. The bit performance was consistent with the first tests.

“Robit tools managed to reduce the overall bit cost by 32 %. This was mainly due to the DTA type of design that we introduced: 18 mm buttons on the peripheral and 16 mm on the inside, with the three centre flushing holes”, says Len.

Phalaborwa holds reserves of some 2.5 billion tonnes of phosphate rock, or five percent of known world reserves. That means the elephants and buffalo will be continuing their friendly co-existence with the miners for quite some time in the future.

Taking ground in the Brazilian quarry market

Posted on by Jari Silver

Concrete is the most versatile and most widely used material for construction. In a typical concrete mix, as much as 60% to 80% of it consists of aggregates. Aggregates for the construction industry are the most consumed mineral inputs in the world – including Brazil.

“In Brazil, extracting aggregates is a key activity in the mining sector. The recent economically lean years saw a reduction in production volume, but the economy is now recovering step by step. This applies to the aggregates market as well – and Robit found an important partner to help advance our growth strategy in the country”, says Alexei Albuquerque, Distributor Business Manager for Robit in Latin America.

Paraná Drill was founded in 2001 to serve the quarry market with equipment, parts and consumables. Based in Curitiba, the capital of Paraná state, the company covers the south states of Brazil.

“I’m always looking for quality products with a good reputation. Knowing that Robit was searching for a new distributor for this market, I approached them Taking ground in the Brazilian quarry market and introduced Paraná Drill and our operation in the segment”, says Fabiano Buffon, the President of Paraná Drill.

“We then organized a test in our quarry to learn how Robit’s tools would perform. I had a really good first impression of them and the results were positive, as we’d expected. We are happy with the performance of Robit’s tools and the support their team provides”. Today Paraná Drill is a recognized company in the quarry market, especially in southern Brazil. The market has great growth potential but also faces challenges.

“In addition to contending with our competitors, we need to deal with import duties, long-term customer financing and great variation in exchange rates. Having a partner with cost-effective high-quality products certainly helps”, Fabiano Buffon concludes.

Picture: Mikko Vuojolainen, VP, Robit Americas (left) and Fabiano Buffon, President, Paraná Drill