GROUND SUPPORT
and Boomer rigs were already in operation in the 1990s. That depth of existing experience in technology plus technology commonality is a real plus for Epiroc.“ From a technical perspective the booms, carriers and control systems have all been quite similar between our long hole drills, face drills and our bolters – including the Rig Control System( RCS).”
Bray continued:“ The reason we haven’ t gone to full automation with Boltec in the past has not so much been technical or software side of things, it’ s more been the practical side of the type of bolts that we’ re trying to install. Traditional bolt types like resin cartridge rebars are still one of most common long-term bolt types, but have a real downside in broken ground when using resin- when you drill a bolt hole in broken ground and remove the drill steel, it’ s very common for small rocks to fall into the hole you’ ve just drilled and partially block the hole. So when you try to then shoot a resin cartridge into the hole, the cartridge can get stuck, which puts an end to automation possibilities as a result.”
Of course a big part of the industry is price sensitive, with customers wanting to use cheaper rebar bolts. But how you look at the cost is relative. Bray added that for a resin cartridge rebar of 2.4 m of length, in good ground, you can install that bolt probably, you know, 3 to 3.5 minutes.“ In bad ground, we can be talking 5 to 10 minutes with a big question mark on the quality of that bolt installation. What value or cost is attributed to that? The time it takes to install the bolt is doubled or more. And there’ s a big question mark on the quality of that bolt installation. So we would argue that using more traditional rebar bolts has become an industry bottleneck, driven by looking at initial bolt cost but not taking into account the big picture.”
He added:“ We had to find a bolt and a system that allowed us to have a high percentage chance of drilling and installing a bolt without there being some sort of stoppage or interruption in a potential automated cycle. That’ s where we are now. We’ ve got a system that works. The next step was the introduction of additional magazines for bolts, and that’ s where we are now with our Auto Bolt Reload( ABR). We’ ve got a carrier magazine which we then use to feed the feed magazine with the additional bolts.”
The first machine which is being actively used in normal operations as an autonomous bolter is in operation up at LKAB Kiruna, and it’ s been working since September 2025, and primarily using either teleremote or auto bolting from a control room. A total of 52 bolts can be installed in a heading before reloading of the carrier magazine is needed. The system combines Self Drilling Anchor
( SDA) bolts and pumpable resin with much improved productivity over using cement by providing more bolting time. Other ABR machines are also working globally including two at Rio Tinto Kennecott in the US. Those machines today still have the operator physically in the cab but the bolting process is still largely automated with them having more of a supervisory role but clearly benefiting from much reduced risk exposure due to them not have to do any manual reloading.
Overall, the Boltec ABR opens the door to live work elimination and productivityenhancing autonomous functionalities that were previously not compatible with underground bolting machines. Teleremote control and Multi-Bolt Auto are now available options that can provide bolting potential during shift changes or when conditions preclude having an operator physically on the machine.
What role does cable bolting play then in terms of bolting scenarios? Here Epiroc has the Cabletec range.“ Cable bolting is where you would need to have deeper ground support. Typically, that’ s where you have larger spans such as a loading bay or underground workshop or crusher station. Installing longer cables means that you are able to support ground deeper inside the rock mass, so that when you have the rock stresses then taken up and moves around the opening much deeper inside the rock mass. Cables are also used quite a lot in and around stopes where you are trying to stabilise crown pillars and keep the working area or the extraction area open over longer periods of time. So cable bolting is still a very important part of underground mining and will remain so because of that.”
Back to pumpable resin bolting, to address a high demand for the Australian preference where you drill, scale, and bolt with a face drill ie jumbo, Epiroc now has a resin solution for the Boomer M20 S and M20 SG and has done a lot of work on internal hose routing in the booms to reduce any downtime due to any potential hydraulic hose failures.
However, Bray added that one of the issues with using a face drill for bolting is that if you are using it for drilling the face and scaling and bolting, the scaling part of it brings a risk of damaging the feeds and the booms and hoses plus sensors and cables at the front of the machine, which can limit the face drill’ s ability to utilise digital drill plans.
In addition, he said while it often works well in Australia, in Canada the mines tend to be deeper. And the rock stress conditions tend to be a little bit tougher.“ So I think while there is a market for the use of face drills for bolting in the Canadian market the ultimate market size will be quite limited compared to the scissor bolter or our Boltec in that market. They also tend to have smaller drive sizes in Canada than they do in Australia. Using a face drill for installing bolts means you have a much longer feed relative to the length of bolt you’ re trying to install. So, you need to have slightly larger drive sizes to accommodate that if you’ re going to install the bolts perpendicular to the rock.”
MacLean and the omnipresent Omnia
MacLean Engineering is a market leader in the Canadian market with its 975 Omnia bolter- with record sales in 2025 / 2026 and a very healthy forecast into 2027. The company recently completed unit number 600 and there are still over 400 Omnias working in mines, predominantly in Canada.
Today’ s machine has Gen-3 drill feeds with high-durability wear guides, a singlebolt bolt handler, and its increased 3,000 lbs( 1,400 kg) deck payload can be combined with a wide range of options that MacLean says provides customers with the utmost in flexibility to match the unit with their specific ground conditions and mining method.
Beyond that, its battery power, highreach, resin injection, and seven foot-wide deck configuration all position the 975 Omnia“ to offer the signature MacLean safety, durability and productivity in response to varying and evolving ground support requirements and operational business drivers across the global hard rock industry.”
Maarten van Koppen, VP Product Management and Marketing at MacLean said that while there has been interest in jumbo-based bolting in Canada, a number of mine operators and contractors are now coming back to MacLean for its bolters.“ Jumbo bolting continues to be a challenge in Canada. I think there are several reasons for that. The first one is that ground support patterns that are deployed in Canadian mines are typically a combination of Swellex and rebar. And jumbos are not great at installing rebar. In addition, jumbo operators, certainly in Canada, are at a high premium and are hard to find. Thirdly, bolting with a jumbo usually requires a helper who is on the side of the drift, manhandling a lot of the consumables, and quite often putting their hands close to rotating parts, which has resulted in accidents. Finally, in practice we see that a lot of operations have dedicated bolting jumbos and drilling jumbos, which defeats the purpose of having a single machine complete both tasks.”
MacLean believes that the 975 Omnia bolter, where the operator is on an elevated deck under supported ground, is a much safer place to be. Van Koppen also says that based on data shared by customers, that its bolter is also more productive than others on the market.
34 International Mining | AUGUST 2026