The Hole Truth: Why What Gets Drilled Isn't Always What Gets Blasted

10 June, 2026

The gap between what gets drilled and what gets blasted is one of mining's costliest inefficiencies. And it is almost never about technology.

That is the case Orica's Peter Leckie makes in my Drill and Blast feature for the new Australasian Drilling. The word he keeps returning to is disconnect, not a lack of tools, but a gap between what has happened and what should change in response. The clearest example is the hole plan. For years it was exported from modelling software and emailed to crews, manual, error-prone, version-dependent.

Orica's fix links Axis Connect with Leapfrog Geo to push a single source of truth straight to the rig. But the lesson that lands hardest is about people.

After eight years building software for blast crews, Orica's clearest finding: if the person holding the tool does not benefit from using it, adoption fails. Technology that burdens the operator fails regardless of its merit. For contractors, delivering accurate, timely hole data is now a point of differentiation, not just compliance.

Read the full article in the Australasian Drilling Magazine