The DET CRC’s development of the revolutionary RoXplorer® coiled tubing drill rig has won a prestigious national Award for Excellence in Innovation.
Hailed as the most significant development in mineral exploration drilling for 50 years, the RoXplorer® was announced as one of three award winners at a gala presentation dinner on May 15, part of the CRC Association’s Annual Conference, Collaborate | Innovate | 2018.
DET CRC Chief Executive Officer, Professor Richard Hillis said new technologies for mineral exploration are urgently required to reverse Australia’s declining rate of discovery of mineral deposits and share of global mineral exploration.
“The RoXplorer® coiled tubing drill rig drills at around one sixth of the cost of conventional diamond drilling and provides major safety and environmental benefits,” he said.
“Conventional drilling requires that additional sections of drill rod are manually connected to the drill string as the hole deepens.
“RoXplorer®’s drill string is a continuous coiled tube that progressively unwinds from a reel without requiring manual connections, resulting in quicker, cheaper and safer drilling.”
Professor Hillis paid tribute to the DET CRC’s partners who had shown “great confidence” in the RoXplorer® project despite plummeting expenditure on mineral exploration in Australia between 2012 and 2016. He also thanked the dedicated project team from the DET CRC, Boart Longyear, Curtin University, CSIRO, Omnilogix and UniSA.
He was confident a licensing agreement would be reached prior to the conclusion of the DET CRC in 2018 and Barrick Gold, one of DET CRC’s major sponsors had already committed to trialing RoXplorer® in its Nevada (USA) drilling operation.
