Taking The Narrow Road To Success

The BOSS Magazine

January 2020

For the innovators of manroc developments, focusing on specialization makes all the difference

The sophistication of underground mining is greatly underappreciated. This supremely technical work is the product of the best and brightest because anything less than dedication to the art and science of extraction simply means your company won’t be around for very long.

While Ontario’s Manroc Developments has been an industry presence since 1989, they envision and perform like a cutting edge startup, leaning in to collaborate, innovate, and support technological and organizational developments that are making underground mining safer, more profitable, and a more desirable industry to join.

Manroc has carved out a niche as the world leader in raise excavation, which is part of the Alimak mining method. Simply put, Alimak mining is a method developed specifically for excavating narrow veined ore bodies. Manroc leverages innovative methods and equipment to successfully extract previously uneconomic or inaccessible ore reserves while increasing safety, lowering production costs, boosting productivity, and decreasing cycle times for their global clients. When clients are in need of safe, low-cost mining techniques that yield high tonnage and low dilution results, they turn to Manroc.

The Canadian Institute of Mining describes the Alimak method this way: “Alimak mining uses a specialized piece of equipment called a raise climber (or, casually, an “Alimak”) to drive a raise upwards from the bottom level of the stope to the top level, following the dip of the ore body. Eliminating the intervening levels cuts out a good chunk of lateral development time and spending.”