Reverse Circulation (RC) Drilling
As Australia’s leader in underground reverse circulation (RC) drilling, we’re working closely with mining companies to improve and further extend this service at underground mining operations.
Underground RC provides a proven method to increasing sampling density and volume, resulting in a much faster and cheaper alternative to diamond drilling.
MDU are highly qualified in underground RC drilling operations and utilise the latest equipment and drilling techniques to ensure the highest standards of safety and quality control are met.
The Benefits of Utilising Underground RC Drilling
Traditionally, with diamond drilling, sample volumes are not large enough to provide a reliable grade estimate of the area surrounding the drill hole. If your underground operation permits it, RC drilling offers a number of significant benefits over diamond drilling:
Advantages of Underground RC Drilling
- Faster than diamond drilling
- Cheaper than diamond drilling
- Larger sample volume
- Less downstream core processing
- Increase sample density
Testimonial
“Reverse circulation drilling has proved to be an effective means of providing large representative and high quality samples in open pit gold mines for over three decades. Applying this drilling methodology to underground grade control at Sunrise Dam has demonstrated that it can be as effective as surface RC for defining ore.”
Carswell & Clark 2013
Metres Down Under management have many years of surface reverse circulation drilling experience and have applied this to perfect underground RC drilling procedures.