Australia’s Byrnecut, one of the world’s largest specialised mining contractors, has placed a significant new equipment order with Sandvik to support its operations Canada, Australia, West Africa and southern Africa.
Deliveries of seven underground drills, four loaders and four trucks, plus five raise boring units, have started and are due to run through to June 2028. Stockholm-listed Sweden did not disclose the order value.
Byrnecut, the world’s largest hard-rock underground mining contractor, generated 2025 revenues of more than US$2 billion. The company is 70% owned by Claudio Thyssen, 20% by co-founder and executive chair Steve Coughlan and 10% by director Bill Blake.
The contractor’s mobile underground equipment fleet is almost entirely Sandvik origin and it is also a big user of the Swedish company’s automation and machine control technologies.
“Our relationship with Sandvik has been built over many years on trust, collaboration and consistent performance,” Byrnecut Australia managing director Pat Boniwell said.
“As our business continues to grow globally, we need equipment that delivers the productivity, reliability and technology our customers expect. This investment strengthens our fleet with proven underground equipment, automation capabilities and the global support we need to deliver for our customers.”
Sandvik mining president Patrick Murphy said Byrnecut’s investment showed its confidence in Sandvik’s underground equipment portfolio and “our ability to support customers consistently across multiple continents”.
“Together we are focused on delivering safer, more productive and increasingly automated underground mining operations,” he said.
