Pit Viper fleet for Batu Hijau

2010 Aug 02

The Batu Hijau copper and gold mine on the island of Sumbawa has decided to upgrade its current fleet of Atlas Copco DM and DML drill rigs to the larger Pit Viper rotary rigs by the end of this year. The mine has placed an order for six rigs ? four PV-351s as well as two PV-235s ? bringing its Pit Viper fleet to seven.

Batu Hijau was opened in 1997 and five DM rigs were initially acquired for the start-up of the project. These have now topped more than 60 000 hours. The mine already had one PV-351 which was acquired in late 2006. All rigs at the site will be equipped with the automation platform RCS and automatic drilling and leveling

Footnote: Batu Hijau is owned by Newmont, the world?s second largest gold producer and reported sales in 2009 of 500 million pounds of copper and 10 million ounces of gold.

Epiroc operated under the trademark “Atlas Copco” prior to January 1, 2018.