[Article Gold Sponsor 14th MGEI Annual Convention: PT. Indodrill Indonesia]

/IN FOCUS: GLOBAL DRILLING & EXPLORATION GROUP PTE LTD

To reflect the international diversification of GDE, it was during this time that, the still Indodrill Group, was re-badged as Global Drilling and Exploration Group.

GDE now has offices in eight countries, and a fleet of approximately 80 drill rigs. Today, GDE offers most forms of drilling to the mineral resource, geothermal and industrial (geotechnical) industries, including surface diamond drilling with man-portable, heli-portable, and track-and truck-mounted rigs, underground diamond drilling and exploration and grade control RC drilling. GDE also offers geotechnical and geothermal drilling.

Like most international drilling companies, GDE has been impacted by the current COVID-19 pandemic leading to most of its operations being suspended for several months. However, these same operations are now either back to normal drilling activities, restarting now, or have plans to restart in the next month or so.

At the same time, GDE has won a significant underground contract at Merdeka Copper Gold’s Tujuh Bukit Copper Project in Indonesia and has seen a resurgence of activity in the Philippines with active surface diamond and RC drilling at two new projects.

Indonesia – upwards and underground

The Indonesian operations, through its subsidiary PTII, have been the most productive of the Group over the last few years and PTII has established itself as the premier diversified drilling company in Indonesia. PTII is currently the preferred driller at the Martabe and Tujuh Bukit gold operations and the Hu’u, Awak Mas and Sihayo development sites. At Tujuh Bukit, PTII has been the incumbent surface drilling company since 2017, drilling a range of resource, hydrological and geotechnical holes with both surface diamond and RC rigs. PTII has drilled the Tujuh Bukit Copper deposit to greater depths than any previous contractor and has completed deep diamond parent holes with wedged and Navi-directed daughter holes through the deposit for the first time there. PTII is now mobilizing five Sandvik DE150 underground rigs to the site; of which four have already commenced work. The DE150 underground rig is unique in Indonesia as it is capable of drilling to 2000 m (6561.7 ft) N-size (as it demonstrated at Lepanto) and can also drill P-size core, which is aided by the use of a proprietary-built.

Coring Magazine

(Picture: Night shift RC drilling, Indonesia)

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