CITIC Pacific Mining has ordered a fleet of Epiroc Pit Viper 271 XC blasthole drill rigs with advanced automation features for drilling magnetite at its Sino Iron open-pit mine in Western Australia. 

The OEM said the order was booked in the third quarter 2022 and is valued at more than SEK 300 million. Delivery is scheduled to begin in 2023.

“Epiroc delivered Pit Viper rigs to the Sino Iron site in 2019, and we are proud to continue this productive partnership as CITIC Pacific Mining is expanding the mine while optimizing productivity and safety,” said Epiroc President and CEO Helena Hedblom.  

“In the last three years, Epiroc has provided satisfactory after-sale services to help the three Pit Viper 351 drill rigs perform to expectation and has also successfully established mutual trust with CITIC Pacific Mining,” added Xianglin Cheng, general manager – Mining at CITIC Pacific Mining, noting that the miner chose Epiroc due to trust and confidence in the manufacturer.

The Pit Viper drills will be installed with automation features including AutoDrill, which allows for up to 100% of the hole drilling cycle to be in automatic mode with high consistency and reliability of operations; and AutoLevel, which minimizes the time it takes to level and delevel.

Sino Iron is the largest magnetite mining and processing operation in Australia. It is located 100 kilometres southwest of Karratha in the Pilbara region.

Sources: Epiroc and CITIC Pacific Mining