This Herrenknecht shaft boring roadheader at the Sirius Minerals’ Woodside project in England is a secondgeneration design, incorporating lessons learned after the company’s original model was used in Saskatchewan at the Jansen potash project. Courtesy of Herrenknecht.

In April 2019 BHP’s Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan made history when two shafts – with a 10-metre outer diameter and a depth of approximately one kilometre each – were successfully sunk using mechanical excavation and without explosives. The machine, called a shaft boring roadheader (SBR) was developed by Herrenknecht, a German company that specializes in tunnelling equipment. The project demonstrated it is possible to replace drilling and blasting with the precision of mechanical shaft sinking and make the task safer by removing personnel from the excavation area.