By Chris Eversole
Sandvik Alachua is celebrating the manufacturing of 100 DR500-series drill rigs. These drill rigs offer surface mining customers the only boom-mounted high pressure DTH (down the hole) drills in the market made specifically for mining.
According to Sandvik Mining President Gary Hughes, this milestone cements the drill series as a global player in surface mining technology. Sandvik Alachua is part of Swedish-based Sandvik global engineering group that purchased the former Driltech Company and its 42-acre mining drill rig manufacturing plant off County Road 235 in 1998.
DTH drill rigs are massive self-contained units for high-capacity rock drilling in surface mines, the company says.
“We produced the 100 rigs in just two years since we began making the DR500 series,” Hughes says. “The team in Alachua maintains a strong focus on both quality and speed.”
MacMahon Contractors purchased the 100th rig, and the company plans to use it for the Tropicana Gold Project in Western Australia.
