Month: August 2026

More life from every hammer at Eagle Mine

Posted on by Jari Silver

Deep below Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a road descends into Eagle Mine, one of the most unusual workplaces in the United States.

Eagle Mine is said to be the deepest point in the country accessible by car, reached via a ramp normally used by special mining vehicles. In 2022, the mine also set a Guinness World Record when an electric vehicle started from deep underground at Eagle and drove all the way to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, achieving the greatest altitude change ever driven by an electric car.

The setting is memorable, but Eagle Mine is significant for another reason: it’s the only primary nickel mine currently operating in the United States. The underground mine produces nickel and copper, both essential materials for modern industry, used in everything from stainless steel and electrical systems to batteries and electric vehicles.

Since January 2026, Eagle Mine and the associated Humboldt Mill have been owned by Talon Metals. The acquisition turned Talon into a multi-asset US nickel-copper company, combining the producing Eagle operation in Michigan with the Tamarack Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Project in Minnesota. Domestic nickel production is an important part of building a more integrated US battery supply chain.

At Eagle Mine, the ore body is reached through a mile-long decline tunnel. Mining is carried out deep underground using long-hole stope and cut-and-fill methods. The process starts with drilling and blasting. The loosened ore is mucked, loaded into haul trucks, and brought to the surface. Once an area has been mined, it is backfilled with a mix of rock, aggregate, and concrete to support the ground for continued mining nearby.

In this kind of environment, drilling consumables are not a small detail. Their condition affects underground productivity, reliability, and cost efficiency. That is where Robit’s cooperation with its US distributor NISS Global comes in. At Eagle Mine, Robit’s drilling consumables are supplied and serviced through NISS.

Over the course of 2025, the mine observed that the consumption of Robit® Dominator 30 Down the Hole hammers used for blast-hole drilling was faster than optimal. Robit’s Sales Engineer looked into it and found that the hammer was often replaced sooner than was necessary. He decided to arrange training sessions on disassembling and rebuilding the hammers instead of discarding them for new ones.

As a result, hammer lifetime and drilled meters grew longer. “They already had the capabilities,” explains VP North America at Robit. “They just needed the training and shown the cost savings in getting more out of each hammer.” Improved cost efficiency translates into higher productivity.

For Robit, the training was also a practical example of how distributor cooperation works at its best. NISS knows the local mining market and handles the day-to-day service relationship at Eagle Mine; Robit brings product knowledge, technical training, and support that help the distributor deliver more value to the end user.

In an industry where drilling is the first step in every production cycle, small improvements in service capability can make a meaningful difference. At Eagle Mine, Robit and NISS are helping ensure that the tools doing the work underground keep performing for longer.

 

Drilling into Tenerife’s geothermal future

Posted on by Jari Silver

Tenerife is known worldwide for its volcanic landscape. Mount Teide, Spain’s highest peak, rises from the centre of the island as a visible reminder of the geological forces that formed the Canary Islands.

Tenerife’s volcanic geology makes it a natural candidate for geothermal exploration. However, volcanoes alone don’t guarantee a viable geothermal resource. The heat must be close enough to the surface to be reached economically, and the underground rock must allow water or steam to circulate. Until now, the key question has been whether Tenerife’s volcanic subsurface can meet these requirements in practice.

Tenerife’s geothermal potential has long remained largely unexplored. Unlike Iceland, where geothermal energy plays a clear role in heating homes and buildings, the Canary Islands have had less need for space heating. Their energy challenge, however, is very real. Island grids require stable, local, and renewable electricity sources, and the Canaries have historically relied heavily on imported fossil fuels for power generation.

From volcanic promise to exploration

Now, Tenerife is taking a more concrete step towards understanding what lies beneath the island. In early 2026, geothermal exploration drilling began in Vilaflor, on the southern side of the Teide. The aim is to investigate whether the area can support future geothermal energy production.

The project is being developed by Reykjavík Geothermal and DISA, a Canary Islands-based energy company, with EU support for drilling activities. The first drilling work in Vilaflor was carried out by Marriott Drilling Group, a UK-based drilling specialist with a long track record of deep, technically demanding onshore projects.

Marriott’s first phase in Tenerife began in early 2026. The task was to install the so-called upper conductor sections for two future boreholes: one for extraction and one for reinjection.

In geothermal drilling, these conductor sections serve as the large-diameter, steel-cased starting points for the wells. They stabilise the top of the borehole, protect the surrounding ground, and provide a foundation for continued deeper drilling.

The conditions were far from uniform. “We had some challenges,” says Marcin Kurmaniak, Drilling Engineer at Marriott. “We encountered hard but weathered cracked rock, frequent driller’s breaks, formation change to clay, and then from around 45 metres a sudden change to very hard rock.”

Large-diameter Robit tools in action

For the conductor installation, Marriott used Robit’s large-diameter Down the Hole drilling tools, including a Robit® Hyper 241 hammer and a Robit® DTH Prime 762 mm XXXL casing system. The conductor casing was installed to a depth of around 40–60 metres below ground level and cemented to the surface.

Marriott’s confidence in the Robit system was based on earlier experience. “We used Robit hammers and casing systems in 2022 for a deep exploration well project in Albania, drilling large-diameter conductor sections through challenging limestone karst”, says Marcin. “Their performance convinced us of their suitability for demanding conductor installation work.”

In Tenerife, the Robit system performed flawlessly on the first well. On the second, drilling was stopped at 60 metres after a component in the drilling assembly failed. The damaged part was returned to Robit UK for repair.

For Marriott, the geothermal project in Tenerife is continuing, using standard oilfield drilling techniques for the deeper sections. The plans include several wells with target depths of 2,500 and 3,000 meters.

If the explorations prove successful, geothermal energy could eventually provide Tenerife and the wider Canary Islands with a powerful, stable domestic renewable energy source, independent of imported fuel. The first wells in Vilaflor will help show whether Tenerife’s geothermal promise can move from exploration to energy production.