2,000m drillers26 Nov 2020 10:28
I know from my past experience with directional drilling on construction sites that if you haven't got an experience hand working it then it can go all over the place and possibly lose the bit and the hole.
They don't start drilling and let the drill go where it wants to, everything is planned, a coordinated position to start with, the angle of drill. After each core is retracted sensors are used to find the end of hole position, which is accurate to 0.5m and the drill continues to its pre determined target.
To get down to 2,000m within 0.5m of where you want it to be is quite some skill and to get down deeper is impressive .
I like the thought of Havieron ore body getting to below 2,000m of ore body but don't think that will happen at this stage.
The drillers are using existing holes so they don't have to keep drilling through the top layer to save costs. This gives other issues of being further from targets and longer drill cores so more experienced hands are needed.
In the next few results longer drills should be expected but vertical depths maybe not. The deeper depths may not be carried out until the Decline is in place.
This is a continual increase in knowledge as the months go by and I am fully expecting more of the same next year as we've had with this one.