Inside CED: UK Leadership, South African Engineering & Indonesian Manufacturing
Exploration drilling equipment does not become field-ready because somebody painted it nicely, stuck a logo on the side and loaded it into a container.
There are engineers behind it.
Fabricators.
Hydraulic technicians.
Mechanics.
Drillers.
People checking components.
People changing designs.
People asking awkward questions about what happens when the machine is 500 kilometres from the nearest decent workshop and something decides to stop cooperating.
Welcome to Inside CED Workshop.
This is our new Saturday series from Cylinder Exploration Drilling (CED), where we are opening the doors on the people, engineering, manufacturing and occasionally organised chaos behind the equipment we send into mineral exploration projects around the world.
And CED has an interesting setup.
UK leadership. South African engineering and manufacturing. Indonesian manufacturing. International drilling experience.
That combination is becoming a major part of what CED is building.
CED Is Not Trying to Be a Traditional Drill Rig Manufacturer
The traditional model is fairly straightforward.
Build a drill rig.
Sell the drill rig.
Wave goodbye to the drill rig.
Hope you don't hear from it again too quickly.
That isn't particularly interesting to us.
CED operates across both sides of exploration drilling: we manufacture and supply equipment, and our people actually work in drilling operations.
CED provides drilling crews, supervisors, mechanics, mobilisation, commissioning and project support alongside equipment, consumables and spares.
That changes how we think about equipment.
When you've worked around drilling operations, you quickly realise the machine itself is only one part of the problem.
Can you transport it?
Can you repair it?
Can your crew understand it?
Can you get the correct consumables?
What critical spares should have gone with it?
What happens when access is terrible?
What happens when the ground is worse?
And the big one:
What happens when something breaks a very long way from home?
Those questions influence how CED approaches equipment.
🇬🇧 The UK: Where CED Connects to the Global Mining Industry
CED is a UK company operating internationally across exploration drilling equipment, services and support.
Being British isn't simply something we want written underneath the logo.
The UK remains deeply connected to the international mining industry through engineering, mining finance, consulting, technology, equipment and professional services. The UK Department for Business and Trade describes British capability as spanning the mining lifecycle from engineering consultancy and exploration through mine operation and specialist equipment.
There is serious engineering trade behind that reputation too. In July 2026, mechanical appliances were the UK's largest goods export chapter, worth £7.448 billion for the month according to HMRC's provisional figures.
CED wants to build on that international British mining connection.
But we don't believe everything needs to happen in Britain to create a strong British international business.
Quite the opposite.
We want engineering and manufacturing capability positioned where it makes commercial and operational sense.
That brings us south.
A long way south.
🇿🇦 South Africa: Engineering Built Around Mining
If you're going to develop exploration equipment for Africa and other difficult operating environments, South Africa is a pretty sensible place to engineer it.
South Africa has generations of mining, drilling, fabrication and heavy-equipment experience.
For CED, it is becoming an increasingly important engineering and manufacturing centre.
Most visibly, it is home to the development of our SFM Series 6×6 exploration platform.
The SFM concept starts with a 6×6 vehicle platform and expands into surface diamond drilling, RC, Air Core, auger, water well drilling, underground drilling, exploration support and modular trailers. CED's current SFM platform is designed and manufactured in South Africa.
But the interesting bit isn't simply bolting a drill onto a Land Cruiser.
It is thinking about the complete exploration operation.
Rig. Compressor. Rods. Tooling. Water. Diesel. Consumables. Spares. Crew. Mobility.
How do we make those things work together?
That is the engineering problem we are interested in solving.
The SFM Series is one example of what happens when CED's drilling experience starts feeding directly back into equipment development.
🇮🇩 Indonesia: Where CED Builds Drilling Equipment
Then there is Indonesia.
This is another major piece of the CED story.
CED has drilling equipment manufacturing capability in Indonesia, complementing our South African manufacturing and engineering operations.
This is where Saturday's Inside CED Workshop series is going to get properly dirty.
We want to show you the actual process.
Frames.
Hydraulics.
Rotation heads.
Control panels.
Engines.
Pumps.
Tracks.
Welding.
Assembly.
Testing.
Modifications.
Consumables.
Spare parts.
And, crucially, the people doing the work.
Because a photograph of a completed drill rig tells you surprisingly little about the company behind it.
We would rather show the machine halfway through assembly with someone underneath it wondering why an engineer has made their Saturday considerably more complicated.
That's manufacturing.
Meet the People Behind CED
This series isn't going to become 52 articles about shiny machinery.
Machines don't build businesses.
People do.
Over the coming Saturdays, we want to introduce more of the CED team across the United Kingdom, South Africa and Indonesia, alongside the people supporting our drilling operations internationally.
Engineers.
Mechanics.
Fabricators.
Drillers.
Supervisors.
Technical personnel.
Operations.
Logistics.
Management.
Some will have decades of experience.
Others will represent the next generation we are developing inside CED.
We want customers to understand who is actually behind the equipment they are considering purchasing and who may eventually be supporting that equipment thousands of kilometres away.
That matters.
Build It. Then Go Drill With It.
There is another important part of the CED model.
Field experience needs to come back into the workshop.
A drilling rig can look fantastic on a CAD drawing.
The field is less polite.
Mud gets everywhere.
Dust gets everywhere.
Water gets everywhere.
Operators occasionally do things nobody involved in the original design anticipated.
Access can be horrendous.
Ground conditions change.
Components wear.
Logistics fail.
And exploration programmes have an inconvenient habit of happening nowhere near a dealership.
CED's drilling business covers surface core, underground core, Reverse Circulation, Air Core, auger and water well drilling.
That operational exposure gives us something valuable:
feedback.
What worked?
What was awkward?
What took too long?
What could be simpler?
What spare should have been easier to reach?
What needs strengthening?
What would the driller change?
That information should not disappear into a site report.
It should come back into engineering.
One Rig Is Not a Drilling Programme
This is probably the biggest idea behind CED.
We aren't particularly interested in selling somebody a lonely drill rig.
A successful exploration programme may require a rig, compressor, pumps, drill rods, core barrels, bits, drilling fluids, sampling equipment, critical spares, support vehicles, experienced personnel and technical support.
CED already supplies equipment and operational support across those areas.
So when somebody approaches us about a drill rig, we would rather ask:
Where are you drilling?
What are you drilling?
How deep?
How many metres?
What does access look like?
Who's operating it?
Then we can start talking about what the project actually needs.
Sometimes that's one rig.
Sometimes it's a complete drilling package.
Sometimes it's people.
Sometimes it's all of it.
Three Countries. One CED.
This is what we want Inside CED Workshop to document.
Not polished corporate nonsense.
The actual company we're building.
A UK-based international exploration drilling business.
Engineering and manufacturing capability in South Africa.
Manufacturing capability in Indonesia.
Drillers and technical people operating internationally.
Equipment being designed for increasingly remote exploration projects.
And a growing team trying to build something genuinely useful for the global exploration industry.
Every Saturday we'll take you somewhere different inside CED.
One week it might be a hydraulic system being assembled in Indonesia.
Another might be the SFM 6×6 platform taking shape in South Africa.
Another might introduce one of the mechanics, engineers or drillers behind our equipment.
Sometimes we'll show what went right.
And occasionally we'll probably show you what had to be changed because the first idea wasn't good enough.
Because that's engineering too.
What Are You Trying to Drill?
If you're planning a diamond drilling, RC drilling, Air Core, auger, water well or remote mineral exploration programme, talk to CED before simply ordering another piece of equipment.
Tell us the country.
Tell us the commodity.
Tell us the drilling method.
Tell us the expected depths.
Tell us what access looks like.
Tell us what's making the project difficult.
We'll start from there.
CED can support projects with drilling rigs, the SFM Series 6×6 platform, compressors, pumps, drilling consumables, critical spares, experienced personnel and complete drilling solutions.
Because ultimately, the workshop only matters if what comes out of it works in the field.
UK. South Africa. Indonesia.
Built around one objective: keep exploration drilling.
Question for the drilling industry: If you could change one thing about the exploration drilling equipment you currently operate, what would it be?
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