RC & Air Core Drilling Packages: Why the Drill Rig Is Only the Beginning
A DRILL RIG IS ONLY PART OF THE PACKAGE.
Watch an RC drilling rig working and the rig gets most of the attention.
Fair enough. It's loud. It moves. It drills holes.
But anyone who has actually had to put together an RC drilling or Air Core exploration program knows something important:
The rig is only one piece of the puzzle.
You need air. Lots of it.
You need the right drill string.
You need hammers, bits, subs, hoses and tooling.
You need consumables.
You need spares.
And, most importantly, you need all of those components to actually work together when the equipment arrives on site.
That is why CED approaches RC and Air Core drilling equipment as a complete drilling system rather than simply selling a machine.
Inside CED: The RC100 Drilling Package
This week's Inside CED video shows exactly what we mean.
At the centre of the package is the CED RC100, a compact tracked exploration drilling rig designed for RC and Air Core applications.
But look beyond the rig.
Alongside it is a CED tracked high-pressure air compressor, creating a mobile air package capable of following the drill rig into exploration terrain where conventional support vehicles can quickly become a headache.
Then comes the less glamorous—but absolutely critical—part:
the drilling consumables.
RC and Air Core drill strings, bits, hammers, subs, tooling, hoses, spares and the other equipment required to turn a collection of machinery into an operational exploration package.
That's the difference between buying a drill rig and building a drilling program.
RC Drilling Needs Air
In Reverse Circulation drilling, compressed air isn't an optional extra.
It is fundamental to the drilling process.
The compressor and drilling system therefore need to be considered together around expected hole depths, drilling diameter, ground conditions, hammer requirements and the wider exploration program.
Buying the rig first and asking “what compressor should we put behind it?” afterwards is backwards.
At CED, we'd rather start with the target.
What are you drilling? How deep? Where? In what ground? And how many metres are you trying to achieve?
Then we can start building the equipment package around the actual job.
Air Core Is a System Too
The same principle applies to Air Core drilling.
Air Core is widely used for relatively shallow mineral exploration programs and is particularly useful where exploration teams need efficient geochemical sampling across larger target areas.
The drill rig still needs the correct air supply, drill string and consumable package.
And when those programs are being undertaken in remote exploration areas, equipment mobility becomes another consideration.
A tracked drill rig isn't much use in difficult terrain if the equipment supporting it can't get there.
That's why pairing the CED RC100 tracked drill rig with a tracked compressor platform makes sense for certain exploration environments.
The support package needs to follow the drill.
One Purchase Order Beats Seven Headaches
Here's where things become commercial.
An exploration company could source:
the drill rig from one manufacturer,
the compressor somewhere else,
the drill string from another supplier,
the bits and hammers from somebody else,
the hoses separately,
the spares separately,
and then try to make the whole thing work together on mobilisation.
Or we can build the package.
CED can supply an RC or Air Core exploration setup incorporating:
RC / Air Core drilling rig
High-pressure air compressor
Tracked compressor carrier
RC and Air Core drill strings
Bits, hammers, subs and tooling
Hoses and connections
Operational and maintenance spares
Drilling consumables
Commissioning and training
Technical and project support
One supplier doesn't magically make drilling easy.
It does make procurement considerably less stupid.
Built Around the Exploration Program
There is another reason we prefer this approach.
Not every mineral exploration drilling program needs the same equipment.
A shallow Air Core campaign targeting geochemical anomalies is very different from a deeper RC program.
Gold exploration isn't automatically the same as copper exploration.
Ground conditions change.
Access changes.
Elevation changes.
Hole depths change.
Logistics definitely change.
That's why CED can configure drilling packages around the project rather than forcing every customer into exactly the same equipment list.
For exploration companies and drilling contractors working across gold, copper, lithium and critical-mineral projects, this can mean fewer interfaces between suppliers and a much clearer mobilisation plan.
Remote Exploration Changes the Equation
Remote mineral exploration makes this even more important.
Once a drilling program moves away from established infrastructure, every missing component becomes considerably more expensive.
A forgotten spare sitting in a warehouse thousands of kilometres away isn't a small procurement problem anymore.
It can become downtime.
That is why we increasingly look at the entire drilling ecosystem:
Rig. Air. Tooling. Consumables. Spares. Mobility. Training. Support.
Get those pieces working together before mobilisation and you give the drilling crew a considerably better starting point.
The CED Approach
CED manufactures and supplies exploration drilling equipment for projects worldwide, covering diamond drilling, Reverse Circulation, Air Core, underground drilling and specialised mobile drilling systems.
But manufacturing the drill rig is only part of what we're trying to do.
We want to understand the drilling program and then help build the equipment package required to execute it.
Because ultimately nobody buys an RC rig because they desperately wanted another yellow machine sitting in the yard.
They buy it because they need metres in the ground.
And that's the objective the entire package should be built around.
Planning an RC or Air Core Drilling Program?
If you're putting together a new RC drilling, Air Core drilling, gold exploration, copper exploration, lithium exploration, grade-control or critical-minerals program, talk to CED before sourcing the individual components separately.
We can help configure the rig, compressor, drill string, consumables, spares, tooling, training and technical support around the project.
One supplier. One drilling package. One objective: metres in the ground.
The question is: when you're buying exploration drilling equipment, are you buying a drill rig—or are you actually building a drilling system?
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