Category: Drifting, Tunneling & Bolting

Widening Hong Kong’s traffic bottlenecks

Posted on by Jari Silver

Hong Kong is one of the world´s most densely populated metropolises. The neighbouring Shenzhen, founded in the 1980s, is the fastest growing city in China. As a reminder of the time when Hong Kong was under British control – no more than 20 years ago – there are still control points between the two cities.

The existing six land control points are major bottlenecks due to the massive traffic. That’s why the Hong Kong government launched a big development project in 2014 to open a seventh road connection. It involves a tunnel excavation where Robit’s tools have been put to the test.

Different rock, different methods

To accommodate the high volume of the traffic, two tunnels are being built side by side, one for each direction. Excavation for the 4.8-kilometre-long tunnels has been started at both ends, using different techniques. TBM is the method of choice at the north end on the Shenzhen side; at the south end the rock is so hard that the drill & blast method yields results faster and more efficiently.

Dragages Hong Kong, the main contractor, organized a bidding tender for the drill & blast work. Robit’s tools, represented by Merman Technology, proved to be the most competitive. The drilling work is performed by Robodrill, using tunneling jumbos and Montabert drifters.

– Before reaching the hard rock, there was a great deal of forepoling. Some of the ground was more challenging and softer than we expected, says Antti Mäkinen, Robit’s Sales Director for Southeast Asia.

– Robit supplied the ring bits, pilots and casings for the forepoling stage, as well as the tools – shanks, couplings, drill rods, and button bits – for drill & blast.

Smooth sailing for all parties

– I’m happy to say this has been a successful project from the very start. Our client has been extremely satisfied with Robit’s services, deliveries and products. I would also like to give my warmest thanks to Mr. Jacky Lee, the CEO of Merman, who has been providing excellent support to our client throughout the entire project.

In a large scale project like this, what have been the biggest challenges so far?

– As far as our tools are concerned, we have faced no problems. The major challenges have more to do with organization than technology, precisely because of the vast scale of it all. Planning the delivery schedules for all the various delivery points has taken a lot of effort, Mäkinen explains.

– Actually, this has been a learning experience for all of us. Cooperation with Dragages and Robodrill has been very fruitful. We frequently visit the work site, evaluate the processes, methods and tools, in a joint effort to make things run ever more smoothly.

The learning experience underneath the hills of northern Hong Kong continues. A staggering 770,000 total drill metres with Robit’s tools is to be completed by the end of 2017. The new Boundary Control Point is scheduled to open a year later.

Uptime – from necessity to opportunity

Posted on by Jari Silver

Uptime Earthmoving Solutions Inc. (Uptime) was established in 2016 by engineers and technical people of Delta Earthmoving, Inc. a leading contractor in the Philippines specializing in earthmoving, quarrying and mining.

Delta was executing nine quarrying contracts and one major open pit mining contract, extracting a combined 4.5 million metric tonnes of materials per month, each one requiring drilling operations. Mr. Geoffrey Omengan, Delta’s EVP for asset management then observed that in spite of the operations’ results showing the obvious cost efficiency of Robit products over other brands, the company continued to use an assortment of brands. With this observation, Mr. Omengan envisioned not only expanding the utilization of Robit products but also distributing the brand in the Philippines. Not only would sustainable drilling solutions be provided to Delta but business opportunities would also arise in distributing products which have shown a distinct advantage over other brands based on actual applications. Thus, Uptime
was created with Mr. Geoffrey Omengan at the helm.

On the other end, Binn Lim, Export Manager of Robit Korea, had been waiting for years for the opportunity to introduce the Robit brand to Delta. As fate would have it, Mr. Lim and Mr. Jimmy Omengan, a director of Delta, crossed paths during the Bauma Expo in Munich, Germany in 2016. The two did not waste time discussing the availability of Robit products in the Philippines, which quickly graduated into Uptime’s possible dealership and distribution of Robit products. This would pave the way for further discussions between the two parties and as the adage goes, “the rest is history”.

Less than a year from its establishment, Uptime has gained tremendous momentum in developing Robit as a major player in the Philippine market. The use of Robit products has expanded beyond Delta to other drilling contractors. Furthermore, Uptime was able to confidently conduct drill testings for several significant players in the Philippine mining industry. The results have been encouraging and Uptime foresees a significant growth in the market for Robit.

Picture: Rusialda (Uptime), Binn Lim (Robit Korea), Bryan Lumongtad (Uptime).

Espoo waters to be treated in a massive cave

Posted on by Jari Silver

Playing a round on Espoo Golf’s green fairways, you would never guess that right next to the golf course, under the Blominmäki rock, a massive excavation project is underway: the construction site of a new wastewater treatment plant. Once completed, the plant will process the wastewater of over 400,000 residents.

Espoo is building the new plant to prepare for an increase in its population. The plant will be equipped with the best modern technology which will improve treatment results. Energy efficiency is another design feature: the plant will produce more than half of the electricity it needs itself. It will also produce heat in excess of its needs.

The contract was awarded to Lemminkäinen Infra. Robit will supply all the drill bits and some of the drifter shaft adapters and rods to the construction site.

– Robit’s assets in the competitive bidding process were full service, delivery reliability and uncompromising quality, says Project Engineer Jarkko Meriläinen from Lemminkäinen.

During the first months of the project, Robit and Lemminkäinen worked on product development to find the most suitable drilling tools. Before long, their co-operation resulted in an optimal wear part maintenance cycle during excavation. Robit’s sharpening service ensures that operations can continue uninterrupted.

– It’s not about the unit price of a product, say, a drill bit, but about the life cycle cost. When co-operation with the drillers is smooth and maintenance flows like clockwork, considerable cost savings can be made, comments Robit Sales Manager responsible for the project.

A whopping 900,000 cubic metres of rock will be excavated at Blominmäki in total. The excavation work will be completed during 2017, followed by the actual construction work. The new plant will go on stream in 2020.

Building Thailand’s Infrastructure

Posted on by Jari Silver

Power generation, irrigation, road construction, railroad tunnels – when it comes to building the backbone for Thailand’s economy, Right Tunnelling Ltd. is playing an active part in it.

Founded in 2000, the first project Right Tunnelling undertook was a tunnel excavation for the massive Khun Dan Prakan Chon Dam construction in the province of Nakhon Nayok, initiated by His Majesty the King. Since the completion of the dam in 2005, the local communities have enjoyed a constant supply of water for irrigation, and damages caused by flooding have decreased. The dam itself has become a major tourist attraction, with fishing and other outdoor activities.

Since the beginning, Right Tunnelling earned a reputation as a reliable contractor for civil engineering projects and has grown into the leading tunnel contractor in Thailand, with operations also in the neighbouring Laos and Myanmar.

Similarly, Robit has earned a reputation as a trusted partner for Right Tunnelling, providing them with Robit rock tools such as drill bits, rods, couplings, and shanks, as well as BulrocRobit hammers.

– Our cooperation with Right Tunnelling has been really smooth for several years. We have frequently visited their jobsites in Thailand and Laos to gain insight about their challenging drilling conditions so we can design the optimal tools for them, says Antti Mäkinen, Sales Director, Southeast Asia.

The latest jobsites where Robit’s tools have been put to the test include a railway tunnel, commissioned by the State Railway of Thailand in the province of Saraburi, the Maetaeng-Maengad water tunnel near Chiang Mai, and a headrace tunnel for a diversion dam in a hydropower project in the Bolikhamxay province in Laos.

Breaking Records in a Silver Mine

Posted on by Jari Silver

By the summer of 1546 Juan de Tolosa, a Spanish Basque conquistador, had grown frustrated. He had led several expeditions in search of silver in North-Central Mexico, with little success other than a handful of silver-rich rocks he’d obtained from local natives. On September 8th his luck finally changed.

De Tolosa had hit a mother lode that soon turned out to be one of the richest silver deposits in the world. Within a few decades, the mining camp he founded on the spot grew into a prosperous city called Zacatecas, which later became the capital of the state carrying the same name. By the 18th century, the state of Zacatecas produced no less than one fifth of the world’s silver.

Almost 500 years after de Tolosa, the silver deposits in the state of Zacatecas show no sign of depletion. One of the largest underground mines in the area is called El Saucito, near the city of Fresnillo, some 50 km north of Zacatecas City, owned by Fresnillo plc. Operational since 2011, it produces some 22 million oz (more than 620,000 kg) of silver per year, along with some gold, lead, and zinc.

To maintain and ramp up production, extensive mine development is constantly underway. In 2017, some 24,000 meters of rock will be excavated by the contractors at El Saucito. In such a scale, successful performance requires a reliable supply of all consumable parts of the drill string, such as bits, rods, couplings, and shanks.

Several contractors at El Saucito have chosen Robit’s tools, supplied by their local Robit distributor Rock Bits Tools. “It’s all about communicating and following up with the customer, so we can ensure we have the right drilling parameters and good conditions on the drill rig. Rock Bits Tools are doing a great job serving our customers”, says Sales Director Jorge Leal of Robit S.A.C.

Cominvi, one of the contractors Robit is serving at El Saucito, has reached impressive results with Robit’s tools in drifting and tunnelling. “Each drilling tool has a life expectancy relative to a specific mine or area. In El Saucito for example, a shank that lasts around 5,000 drill metres can be considered high quality. Recently, Cominvi drilled 9,196 metres on one of their drifters with our shank adapter COP1838 R38 038/435. To our knowledge, that’s a record”, Jorge says with a tinge of pride in his voice.

There may yet emerge new opportunities for breaking that record: the ore resources at El Saucito alone are estimated to last for another 25 years.

Picture: The Rock Bits Tools task force ready for action. From left: Gustavo Martinez, Jorge Rodriguez, Felipe Azpilcueta, Ricardo Castillo, Carlos Torres.

Lemminkäinen and robit provide underground parking for 900 cars

Posted on by admin

Overview

A world-class parking facility called Kivisydän (“Heart of Stone”) is currently being excavated by Finland’s leading underground construction company, Lemminkäinen Corporation at a depth of 30 meters beneath Oulu’s city center. One of the largest and most challenging of its kind in Finland, the project makes good use of Robit’s expertise.

Robit Rocktools Ltd and Lemminkäinen have worked in close co-operation for nearly a decade, mostly in ground drilling. Kivisydän is the companies’ tunnel excavation pilot project. “The project extends our good partnership to the area of tunnel construction. Robit is supplying us with the latest technology button bits needed to excavate the underground parking facility. They are also taking care of sharpening the bits,” says Pentti Nieminen, site manager from Lemminkäinen.

Construction and excavation in the downtown core sets special demands on the work and planning. “This is a challenging underground site” emphasizes Pentti Nieminen. “We need expert partners whose work we can trust explicitly. In demanding conditions, knowledgeable people and state-of-the-art equipment are crucial for success”.

Robit’s trump card is, in addition to high-quality products, the smooth integration of a bit-sharpening service with deliveries. “Thanks to the service, our cooperation partners don’t have to worry about servicing the bits. This allows them to focus completely on their core competence,” explains Timo Rajala, Robit’s Finnish Sales and Marketing Director.

Metro heads to the west with Kalliorakennus and Robit

Posted on by admin

Overview

The challenging construction work of the new, westbound metro line in Helsinki demands wide-ranging expertise. Drilling maintenance shafts for metro tunnels has little room for error, but Kalliorakennus-Yhtiöt ensured a successful end result by using Robit products.

The metro tunnel shafts are a vital part of the underground railway system. They serve as emergency exits, smoke vents and pressure equalization as well as ventilation systems. Among their other large contributions to the West Metro construction, Kalliorakennus-Yhtiöt had to drill 44 meter-deep shafts with a surface area of 68 square meters to solid Scandinavian bedrock – by no means a trivial task.

“We set tough quality requirements for the project, as the work outcome must be exact. We drilled the excavation holes for the shaft from the top right down to the bottom, whereas drilling is normally carried out from both the bottom and the top. It was crucial that the holes turned out straight,” explains site manager Martti Kähkönen from Kalliorakennus. “We used Robit Rocktools special equipment to make sure the drilling holes were straight”.

The collaboration between Kalliorakennus and Robit go back since the early ‘90s. “All of the bits we use are from Robit, because they are familiar products for me. I participated in the bit development work for the first time many years ago”, Kähkönen recalls. In addition to the shared history, Robit’s wide service offering has also impressed Kalliorakennus. “Robit is a reliable partner, but their bit-sharpening service was also a major reason behind why we chose them as co-operation partner in the West Metro project,” he says.