The drill rigs have been out for lease, not being leased at present. They cant be that bad if they are available for lease.
All iron ore projects in the area would in my opinion use contract drillers except SDL.
There are around 7 or 8 other iron ore projects in the area that I have been aware of.
Yes in The Pilbara there would be a lot of drilling companies or companies with multiple gangs of drillers available. A lot of the iron ore projects would need drill rigs for blasting of the ground to get out the iron ore. The large companies may have a couple of drill rigs for blasting purposes, but for normal drilling for resource finding and JORC code purposes they would in my opinion use contract drillers. Any number of mining equipment available cheaply since the down turn of iron ore price in Australia.
The drill rig staff that SDL had would most probably be locally based around Mbalam.
The picture posted of the tracked drill rig is shown with all local Cameroonians.
At present most of those local drill rig staff would be working on the new roads being built in the area, waiting to start up again with SDL if funding is found for the mine and other infrastructure.
Would Equatorial Resources bring in contract drillers from overseas or use local drill rigs and local staff? EQX I believe are suppose to be looking to do more drilling they have said.
All other projects as far as I am aware are on stand by waiting for funding of the Port and Rail Infrastructure.
Regards
Westcott.
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