Perseverance Drilling, Underground Pty Ltd

14/08/2026

30 Years of PerseVerance – Part 9 – The GFC and the WOMBAT!

As the team at PerseVerance was settling into their new home in Kalgoorlie - Boulder and the Daisy Milano Mine was finding its feet, the Global Financial Crisis came knocking on Australia’s door. Challenging times faced the Australian economy and the industry contracted as commodity prices and investment collapsed. During 2008 - 2010 like many mining companies and service providers, Perseverance Drilling, also battened down the hatches.

All though work was tight, opportunities still existed, and the continued progression of mechanised narrow vein mining led to the development of the PDU WOMBAT 22-30 Rotary Rig.

The team designed, built and operated this small mobile tricone rotary production drill to provide mechanised slot opening options in narrow ore bodies. The WOMBAT was named after the company dog, Wombat and could drill a 560mm hole to 30m in length in a small 4.0m high x 4.0m wide Ore Drive.

The WOMBAT was the first of many new design ideas the team at PDU would review and progress, , build and operate in various mines around the goldfields, including Plutonic, Judee and Mittel.

Cheers to the WOMBAT, and cheers to our !

12/08/2026

30 Years of PerseVerance – Part 8 – “Diggers and Dealers”

The question... “So, what is mining?” ….
And the answers… would fill a dictionary…
The clear definition that forever holds true...
Mining is a “primary industry” ….

Last week the great city of City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder hosted the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum, the main event that brings those like-minded primary industry people together, (and others) to share the history, discuss the current, and look to the future, of what this great mining industry means to the people of Western Australia.

The team at Perseverance Drilling, Underground Pty Ltd, says thank you to Diggers for continuing to put the right people in the right places.

A great event and a great place for those that mine, fish and farm, to have a chat.

01/08/2026

30 Years of PerseVerance – Part 7 – A New Day and The Dawn of Daisy

As business continued to progress, it was time for the team at Perseverance Drilling, Underground Pty Ltd to head to the big smoke. Pulling stumps in , the business would migrate north to its current home in South Boulder. A new home, new workshop, brought new ideas and opportunities for Percys, as 10 years of operation was looming. WOW!!

With a fleet of rigs working from Kambalda to Leinster and and trading price cycles, PDU was seen as a primary production drilling contractor in the goldfields, especially when it came to navigating the challenges on narrow vein orebodies.

The Mount Monger goldfields east of , always had potential, “gold was there in them there hills”, but it wasn't until 2007 that a group of like-minded people with the grit and determination to make something of it would start Silver Lake Resources buying the Daisy-Milano mine and tackling the challenge of a high-grade narrow vein orebody like no other.

Percys was invited to be part of this little project, supporting a great team of airleg miners, ounces started to flow. This was good as Silver Lake had doubled down purchasing the Lakewood Mill, derisking the haulage costs and processing delays that had previously hampered the project.

20 years later, Daisy Milano is still producing ounces, and yes, PDU has been continually drilling providing production drill meters. The relationships and history around the Daisy-Milano Mine is another book entirely but it is the backbone of one of the greatest gold stories in WA, seeing Silver Lake, join with RED 5 Limited and become Vault Minerals.

The team at PerseVerance truly thanks all those involved with the Daisy Milano Mine over the years, as well as the teams from Maxwells, Cock-Eyed Bob, Rothsay and Darlot Gold Mines.

We look forward to the next chapter….

27/07/2026

30 Years of PerseVerance – Part 6 – More than just drilling!

The passion that built Perseverance was and still is the passion that sees the people of PerseVerance not just work to continually improve the business but continually be engaged and involved with the communities around the goldfields and the great state of Western Australia. The business has always had strong connection with the local communities because the people of PerseVerance are also part of these communities. Sporting clubs, charities, community functions and events, PerseVerance has pride in knowing that dipping in and doing what we can to help the communities and people is what makes tough workdays so much better.

The Red Cross Soup Patrol provided many serves of warm soup and fresh bread to those that needed it most, visiting Ninga Mia, Boulder Camp as well as of the Parks in Kalgoorlie Boulder and several Housing Commission unit blocks.

PerseVerance didn’t just sponsor the Bushwackers Rugby Union Club, probably made up half the team there for a while, establishing a lifetime of Friends and “Foes”.

The team loves dressing up a drill (and themselves) for the NAIDOC and St Barbara Parades down the iconic Hannan Street.

Although PerseVerance was founded in mining, it’s the Mining Communities that makes the drilling more rewarding, especially when you get to go land yachting in the bathtub race??!!

21/07/2026

Perseverance Drilling, Underground Pty Ltd currently has capacity to take on your production requirements, with various drill options (64mm/76mm/89mm) and experienced drilling and maintenance teams ready to go, don't wait until Diggers & Dealers to contact the team, get in touch now. Celebrating 30 Years of Operation, Perseverance has your production drilling challenges covered.

15/07/2026

30 Years of PerseVerance – Part 5 – Y2K and ITH Drills.

At the turn of the century as the bug “Y2K” and emerging technologies were worried about “00”, hard rock mining didn’t miss a beat as it wasn’t reliant on computer programming and IT outages, just, air and water with a “bit” of diesel thrown in would ensure that the Australian Mining Industry worked through the night as always.
Yes, risk had to be assessed and yes, precautions taken but at the end of the shift, mining stood strong.

Meanwhile, the team at Perseverance Drilling, Underground Pty Ltd were finishing up the build and configuration on new ITH Drill Rigs (in the hole hammer) to bigger and longer and adding to the PDU electric hydraulic fleet of drills, supporting a time of major mechanisation in narrow vein in Western Australia.

LH008 – filled its passport pretty quickly across Southern Cross, Kambalda, Kalgoorlie/Boulder, Liester and the Murchison during the early 2000’s.

10/07/2026

Last chance to buy your tickets! Be involved… and have fun.. making a difference for the people that need it!

Goldfielders will glitz up in diamonds and denim this weekend for a fundraising event that will help local breast cancer patients with the costs of receiving treatment.

09/07/2026

The team at PDU loves this great cause, not to mention dressing up in pink!
Raffle tickets still available and drawn tomorrow night! $$$

02/07/2026

30 Years of PerseVerance - Part 4 - The Laser Clino!

The ingredients that laid the foundations of Perseverance Drilling, Underground Pty Ltd weren’t just percussion, rotation and feed. The team is driven by the ensuring that all the fundamentals of drilling are shared across the engineering, design, building and maintenance of the drills and the people operating and maintaining them to ensure the best outcome is possible, regardless of ground conditions and commodity.

Although technology, 30 years down the track is different, the fundamentals of the angles and dangles (i.e. trigonometry) haven’t changed. As the team progressed in the narrow vein gold mining space, mechanised long hole drilling needed to better ensure accuracy and productivity.

As options to drill long holes in airleg drives caught the attention of miners, the team at PerseVerance took on that challenge. “So, you want to drill 15m drags in a 60° dipping thin vein ore body, and well we’ll strip down a Simba H157 to do it.”

This needed alignment system that fitted onto the drill rod, rather than the rail holder, as the electronic units do. And the PDU Handheld Magnetic Laser Clinometer was developed. (no acronyms back then!)

This simple, but effective device, covering both rotation and dump angles, that can provide “half the tonnes at twice the grade” is still in use today.