Built to last
Published Thursday September 4th, 2008
Industry Mining and exploration companies to speak at annual convention this weekend
John Labonville set out in 1999 to build a better diamond drill system for the mining industry.
As a mechanic at the Moncton-based Major Drilling Group from 1983 to 1999, he realized he could build something better than the machines he got paid to keep running.
His company, Discovery Drill Manufacturer, sold its first EF-50 drill to a gold mining company in British Columbia in 2004. To date the company has sold 21, including nine this year, in Canada, the United States and Finland, Labonville said in an interview on Tuesday.
The enterprise employs only eight people, who build these 9,000-kilogram machines in a shop undergoing an expansion in Beresford. The suggested retail price for the EF-50 is more than $400,000, Labonville said. "We're not billionaires, but we're doing OK."
Business New Brunswick honoured Discovery Drill at its Innovation Recognition Banquet in 2006. Last year Enterprise Chaleur named the company the regional Entrepreneur of the Year.
On Friday, Labonville will pitch his message at the 33rd annual convention of the New Brunswick Branch of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, which will take place this weekend in Beresford.
New Brunswick Natural Resources Minister Donald Arseneault will open the convention. Representatives from several mining and exploration companies will speak on the projects they have underway.
Natural Resources official Malcolm McLeod will speaks Friday afternoon on the geological potential for uranium mining in New Brunswick.
Discovery Drill will set up an EF-50 in the yard at Danny's Inn and Convention Centre, the convention hotel, so that this industry audience can give the machine a a critical eye.
"We don't sell a drill, we sell a way that our contractors can make money," Labonville said.
The machine costs less to operate than other diamond drills on the market, Labonville said. It provides a safer and more comfortable worksite for the crew, and includes features to protect the environment.
A diesel engine powers it, doing away with any need for electrical power. The enclosed crew quarters keeps warm in winter, with no ice or snow under foot. It has electric lights, and easy to handle controls.
The machine's containment system might capture 50 per cent of an oil spill, Labonville said. Most mining drills working around the world today have no system for catching oil, he said.
A hydraulic system installs and removes drill rods with no need for workers to climb the six metres up the "mast," often wet and covered with ice, to do dangerous physical labour. Hydraulics allow the crew to level the drill by pulling a lever.
If you have to move the machine, the hydraulics can lift it four feet up, allow a truck to back under it.
The 10 by 16 foot machine will sit on a truck bed. At nine and one-half feet high, it comes to about 13-foot-2 on most trucks, just under the 13-foot-6 height restrictions on most highways.
"We ship them by transport," Labonville said.
"We can put one together in five weeks," Labonville replied to a question about how long it takes to build each EF-50. He expects this to drop to three and one-half weeks once the expansion is completed, likely in December. Depending on the market, the company might hire a couple more employees, he said.
By selling nine units this year, Discovery Drill beat its annual sales projections of four. One near completion will leave Monday or Tuesday next week, and another in about three weeks, at which point work will start on the next one.
"It was a struggle, but we managed to keep our nose above water. The rest of us was under water, but our nose was still floating," Labonville said, referring to the last nine years.
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