North Ballarat Pty Ltd has engaged the services of Statewide Drilling to drill a series of 9 diamond drill holes on the Grey Horse line of reef.
Drilling commenced on April 5th.
Drilling is carried out 6 days per week, Monday to Saturday.
To date, 5 holes have been drilled for a total of approximately 700m.
It is expected that the program will take several months to complete (dependant on weather, down-time, etc.). The drilling program, which is not dissimilar to drilling a small water bore, is a low impact method of obtaining geological information.
On the completion of the drilling program, the drill site will be restored to its original condition.
Drilling Commenced April 5th, 2008
(updated 3rd July)
North Ballarat Pty Ltd held a neighbourhod information day in March for interested residents and landowners in the vicinity of our drilling area on the 15th March 2008.
The purpose of the day was to demonstrate a drill rig (NOTE: As the commencement of drilling had been delayed we were not able to show residents the drill rig), display maps and other information relating to our exploration program and to provide an opportunity for community input relating to our operations.
Update June 2009
North Ballarat finished drilling at Nerrina late last year before moving the drill rig to Creswick forest. We completed the current drill phase earlier this year and are evaluating results.
Update 13th December 2008
Drilling has met with some technical difficulties and the original planned programme is taking much longer than anticipated. North Ballarat has recently completed its 10th hole and has moved from the previous site to the south. We are planning to do about 10 more holes, mostly from the new site, including completing the original holes to the north before the winter rains made access difficult.
