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Production Services
Production stage drilling involves drilling within the mine boundaries and includes both surface and underground operations. Operating mines require drilling services to further delineate the ore body for mine planning and grade control over the life of the mine. Production drilling is also required to control or obtain water. Large diameter water wells are often drilled to supply the mine with process water, or to extract water from the vicinity of the mine to improve mining conditions (depressurization wells). One specialized area of production stage drilling is drilling for the solution mining industry such as potash, magnesium or uranium.
Solution mining is a technique that utilizes a drill hole to extract the valuable components from a mineral deposit using an aqueous leaching medium. These highly technical programs involve the drilling of injection wells to introduce the leaching solution, and extraction wells to recover the dissolved minerals. A market in which Foraco has recently entered is the Coal Bed Methane (CBM) market, also known as Coal Seam Gas (CSG). Foraco is drilling for CBM in Australia in exploration and Production projects in shallow (up to 1000m) deposits, with specially retrofitted mineral drilling rigs. This niche expertise is an offering which we intend to bring to different regions. During the life of a mine there are often opportunities for near mine exploration to expand the scope or scale of the mine or for the mining company to establish additional pits or operations that can utilize the existing mine infrastructure. The life of mine extension projects often requires significant drilling services and often utilizes multiple drilling types.