A year in review - 2020

November 27, 2020

2020 was a challenging year on all levels. The global pandemic managed to disrupted relationships at every level – personally, professionally and socially and within the community.

 

With the onset of the pandemic, plans were quickly formulated to ‘flatten the curve’ while trying to sustain commercial operations, with consideration for our people’s health and economic welfare.

 

We were blessed in terms of resourcing and cross-skilling across the business, our administration and management staff were able to work effectively from home to maintain operations and our clients rapidly put screening and social distancing protocols in place to protect the worksites.

 

Our administration and management staff were able to work effectively from home to maintain operations and our clients rapidly put screening and social distancing protocols in place to protect the worksites.

 

We’d like to express how grateful we are for the teams’ adaptiveness and understanding around modified rosters, financial imposts and particularly, the eastern states and international staff who were and in some cases, still are, enduring particularly difficult times.

 

Despite the grim outlook as lockdowns began, Ranger Drilling continued our growth, including the completion and mobilisation of Rig 20. The Austex X350HC began operation with the automation of set up functions and improvements made with Cortex MDP systems.

 

Rig 20 was commissioned in March/April before mobilising to Roy Hill to carry out grade control drilling. Rig 22, the third LF160 diamond drill mobilised in November, meaning the addition of two rigs in 2020.

 

The Cortex MDP system was further developed to capture more data and provide live tracking of drill performance daily. The new capabilities allow better operational decisions to be made with ‘live’ information at hand.

 

Ranger started the year with 168 employees. As COVID-19 hit our shores, no one knew how things would go. The positive news is: as we move to the end of the year we now have 182 employees in the fold, with an additional two rigs to join the fleet in the first half of next year.

 

2021 looks to be exciting with further innovation and automation on the new rigs, providing better drilling outcomes for our clients, as well as safer operations, reducing exposure to critical risks for our staff.

 

Other milestones worth celebrating include an unprecedented number of 5- and 10-year’ Rangerversaries’ – displaying our culture and desire to be an employer of choice.

 

Ranger Exploration Drilling — now 15 years in business – has, on average, added 1.4 rigs each year. It’s a growth curve to be proud of, with the company and team growing as our customers have demanded it. Through the turmoil of an unforgettable year, we are stronger together; a business delivering on our values. All of this has been possible through the dedication of the whole Ranger team, to whom I offer my sincere gratitude.

 

– Matt Izett