Macmahon Underground has put Sandvik’s Rhino 100 mobile raise borer into service at AngloGold Ashanti’s Boston Shaker mine, part of the Tropicana Gold Mine in Western Australia, according to footage of the deployment released this week.
The rig, a compact, self-propelled machine mounted on rubber tyres, was shown being trammed into a development heading and set up in as little as 15 minutes — considerably faster than the multi-day rigging typically needed for conventional raise borers, and quicker than the roughly 45-minute setup previously reported for the Rhino 100 at other Australian sites.
Three people connected to the project appeared in the footage: Riaan Lingenfelder, who spoke on site about getting the machine running; Justin Winnan, Macmahon’s project manager for Tropicana Underground; and Luke Reymond, Macmahon’s managing director for Underground Australia, who addressed the company’s broader plans for the equipment.
Slot raises — vertical or inclined openings driven between levels of a mine — are a routine part of underground development but have traditionally been slow to prepare, requiring a small crew to rig a raise borer over one to several days before drilling can start. The Rhino 100 is designed to cut that preparation time: it moves under its own power through the mine, runs with a single operator, and, according to Sandvik and contractors who have used it elsewhere in Australia, can typically be ready to drill within about 45 minutes of arriving on site. Because it is not fixed to one heading, the rig can also be redeployed between raises, or moved to other mine sites entirely.
Boston Shaker is the underground component of AngloGold Ashanti’s Tropicana operation, a joint venture with Regis Resources located about 330 km northeast of Kalgoorlie. Macmahon has operated Tropicana’s surface mining fleet since 2012 and was awarded the underground development and mining contract in 2019. That contract has since grown into one of Macmahon’s largest in Australia and was extended through to 2027. The addition of the Rhino 100 expands the company’s vertical-development and slot-rising capability at the site, supplementing a program that had previously relied on more conventional raise-boring equipment.
Macmahon said crews had completed dedicated operator and maintenance training as part of the rollout. In the footage, the machine — branded with Sandvik and Rhino markings on its red chassis, hose reel and integrated lighting — is shown working face-on in a narrow drive, the type of confined heading in which a compact, self-contained borer has an advantage over larger, fixed rigs.
