What percentage of your business is represented by product sales compared to drilling services, and which of these services has been in high demand in 2021?

Approximately 30% of our business is products and 70% is services. There has been a steady demand throughout the cycle for what we call percussive or production related tooling. We have seen a significant uptick for exploration tooling and drill rigs, and over the past three months (February to April 2021) the demand has been higher than we have seen for several years. Exploration tooling is a good indicator for drilling, and we have seen a strong take-up in growth in Latin America, Africa, and especially North America.

Can you provide examples of some of Boart Longyear’s latest innovations?

We have seen tremendous demand across the globe for our surface coring products, such as the LF 160 drill rigs which, when coupled with our Freedom Loader for rod handling, is a growing success. In addition, Boart Longyear has launched new exploration tooling products such as our line of Longyear Diamond Bits that help drillers with longer bit life, faster penetration rates or both. Boart Longyear has also developed rigs that can be controlled remotely, which provide a large amount of information to the driller, which we believe will gain traction in the market.  Finally, we have introduced a line of Production Tooling drill rods branded as Driftmaster rods.  These rods are growing in share in markets such as Peru that have a large underground mining market.

GDS (Geological Data Services) and down-the-hole information gathering technologies, such as core orientation and gyro products, are key components of Boart Longyear’s innovation. Some of our GDS technologies reduce the need for on-site presence as a substantial amount of the work can be done remotely with only a few people on site.

One of the biggest challenges for drilling contractors is finding skilled labor to meet the level of demand. What could be done from a human resources standpoint to find new recruits?

Being a world-class drilling company and well-known employer, helps Boart Longyear recruit drillers easier than others, but it is always going to be a challenge for the drilling industry. In some parts of the world, it is a little harder to recruit than in other regions. Ensuring that we take care of people from a safety standpoint, and look after them well in terms of their pay and benefits will remain a very important focus for us.

One way to improve the ease of recruitment is to ensure we provide our employees with career progression, employing them at an early stage as a drilling assistant and letting them move up within the organization at a reasonable pace. We need to help prospective employees understand what the expectation of the job is, with a focus on safety. Companies need to live their core values and be transparent in expectations and give better training upfront. New technologies can help us to attract a more diverse workforce to become drillers (including women) opening up and increasing the talent pool of prospective employees.

In what ways do Boart Longyear’s products increase the safety of mining operations?

The biggest tool to be safe is to firstly ensure that our employees are properly trained, and secondly that employees know that they have Stop Work Authority (SWA) in any unsafe situation.  Additionally, that they do a field-level risk assessment to fully understand the risks of the job they are doing. We engineer safety into every aspect of our business and our products are designed to increase safety for the operator.

Where do you expect to see Boart Longyear by 2022?

I believe that there will be significant investment into the mining industry over the next year and that drilling activity will be even higher than it is today in both exploration and in actual mine production. Boart Longyear would like to continue to progress its new technologies and products to a point where the benefits are evident and they are accepted in the market. The Holy Grail for underground operations is hands-free drilling technology, and Boart Longyear has a prototype which is going to a test site in a few months. We believe that this technology is truly revolutionary as it will change the safety profile, reduce employee exposure, and increase the speed of drilling activities.