Black Lion Limited 

2017

Underneath Sydney's Inner West.

Westconnex New M5 Tunnel

Our Principal Consultant, Alex Phillips, has been assisting Golder Associates' Sydney team with their Construction Phase Services since February 2017. 

The New M5 will provide twin underground motorway tunnels, nine kilometres long, from Kingsgrove to a new St Peters Interchange at the site of the old Alexandria landfill facility. The St Peters Interchange will provide motorists with connections to Alexandria and Mascot. It also includes  connections to the future Sydney Gateway and M4-M5 Link. The New M5 tunnels also include underground connection points for the M4-M5 Link and the proposed Southern Connector. 

Alex has been undertaking round the clock geotechnical mapping, verification of ground conditions and recommendations for additional support where required.

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July 2017

ACC Silver Accreditation for Johnson Bros.

Johnson Brothers Transport Safety Management Plan.

Following last year's assistance in developing an updated Safety Management System to Johnson Brothers Transport (2006) Ltd; a significant local business and employer, we were pleased to hear that they have achieved ACC Silver Accreditation. This accreditation directly affects their bottom line as a business with significantly lower ACC levies, keep up the good work JBT! 

May 2016

Data in the Cloud!

Symmetric Software Distribution.

In May 2016 Black Lion Limited and K&A Epimetron entered into partnership for Australasian Distribution and first level support for their product Symmetric.

Symmetric is a Complete, Intuitive, Dedicated, Geotechnical Drilling management Software Platform. It allows you to enter, process and monitor Geotechnical data wherever they are, wherever you are, in real time, over the Internet.

Best of all, the information is immediately available to supervisors, managers, clients and users alike, whether they are on the road or in the office.

To find out more click here....

May 2016

Assisting local business to achieve H&S excellence.

Johnson Brothers Transport Safety Management Review.

We have been asked to assist Johnson Brothers Transport (2006) Ltd; a significant local business and employer in developing an updated Safety Management System. This work involves a review of their existing systems and then implementing a few changes to enable them to achieve ACC Fleet Saver accreditation. Attaining this will have a significant bottom line impact on their business in terms of levies and reputation.

1/1/16

Explosive Start to 2016!

Buller Fireworks Extravaganza

We were really pleased to be able to assist again in this year's Buller Fireworks. What a great event and subscibed, we felt, by more people that 2015.

Great effort by all concerned and hope to be able to make this a regular New Years Day event for our region.

5th to 8th August 2015

Geotechnical Drilling at Holcim's Westport Quarry

Increasing Confidence in Geotechnical Model

In August we were on site at the Westport Quarry undertaking some geotechnical drilling to verify the rock mass model. Working with the lads from Alton Drilling and Weatherfords we drilled 3 holes and retrieved some good cores for lab testing. The geophysics will give us some detailed structural information and then we can confidently recommend inputs for Holcim's rehabilitation plan.

15th to 17th July 2015

2015 QuarryNZ Conference

Promotion of Safe Working Practice at the forefront.

Alex spent this week in Hamilton exhibiting Black Lion's services at the QuarryNZ conference at Claudelands Arena in Hamilton. A good deal of interest was shown in the UAV and the business card raffle of a nice bottle of Glenfiddich. Sorry to those of you who missed out on the single malt, at least some of you went away with some tasty craft beer from The West Coast Brewery! Joking apart the serious side to an event like this is to promote the use of detailed geotechnical assessment and analysis in the quarrying industry. The introduction of new guidelines later in 2015 will include considerable geotechnical input and we aim to provide cost effective and appropriately scaled solutions to our new clients.

May 2015

Rockfall Analysis

Effective Design Change from Modelled Data

In 2015 we were asked to have a look at a problem area in the highwall of Oceana Gold's Globe Prospect mine near Reefton.

To assess this we first undertook a detailed 3D survey of the mine with UAV techology generating an accurate model of the slope in question. Using OGL's rockfall register we were able to establish the frequency and mass of the rockfall occurences.

Using specialist software developed by Frans Basson to generate a modelled dataset we were able to establish the fallpaths of rocks of varying sizes. The dataset then provided us with the ability to alter the design width of a proposed lower bench to significantly reduce the number of fallpaths reaching the pit floor and haul road.

On a later visit to the site we were able to view a 2t boulder which had recently been arrested by this widened bench.

15th to 17th July 2015

Black Lion Limited & RPAS Exhibiting at QuarryNZ in Hamilton

Exploring New Markets

We are busy putting together our display and looking forward to attending the Institute of Quarrying (NZ) conference this year. We are hoping to be able to promote not just geotechnical, environmental and professional services but also to increase awareness of the UAV services available. 

23rd to 29th April 2015

International Rockfall Protection Conference 2015

Tour of installations in Switzerland & Germany.

A very enlightening trip in April to Europe attending the 2015 Rockfall Protection Conference hosted by Geobrugg in Zurich. It was great to meet with professional peers from Europe, North & South America, Asia, Africa and Australasia to discuss different approaches and reassuring to find that they have many of the same issues to overcome. Apart from that it was a fun trip with some good company and stunning scenery. See some photos and video here.

16th April 2015

New! Environmental Consulting Services

Di Rodgers joins the team!

We are very pleased to announce that Black Lion Limited can now offer our clients an additional area of expertise. Di Rodgers is joining us as Principal Environmental Consultant and offering a range of consulting areas based on her extensive experience.

Please join us in welcoming Di to the Black Lion team and if you have an Environmental issue you'd like her to look at drop us a line.

9th March 2015

High Resolution Survey near Reefton

Leading the way in Remote Survey.

Black Lion Limited is established as New Zealands leading specialist in UAV survey for the extractive sector. Undertaking an extensive full pit scan in a sequence of pre-programmed flights we are now developing an extremely high resolution model for our client Oceana Gold. This will include densified point cloud data around areas of the mine where there are a few geotechnical issues to be examined.

27th January 2015

New Contract, New Client

Providing Technical Expertise to a major local business

We are excited to announce that Black Lion Limited has been engaged to undertake Geotechnical Assessment and Final Landform Design for Holcim's Westport Quarry.

We are very much looking forward to this project and hope to provide an innovative and cost effective solution.

5th January 2015

New Office

Business Hub just off the main drag.

This week we moved in to our new office shared with Roche Marketing on Russell Street, Westport. We are hopeful that the workspace will attract hot-desking for business people passing through and are looking for additional tenants.

1st January 2014

Burnt Sausages anyone?

New Year 2015 off with a bang!

We were very proud to be helping out at the Buller Fireworks Extravaganza on New Years Day. Alex and his visiting brother, Douglas, ran the sausage sizzle. Got a bit busy and many thanks to Nikki from Roche Marketing for jumping in when things got a bit hot! 

15th December 2014

Whitehall Quarry Test Flight

UAV in Action near Cambridge

Today we had a test flight over Winstone Aggregates' Whitehall Quarry. Many thanks to the Winaggs team for all their help. We obtained some excellent footage and stills which we are processing into a promotional video and 3D model.

30th October 2014

Aerial Survey

Innovation in data gathering and imagery

Putting together a package of services for the extractive industry in conjuction with strategic partners Aeronavics and Russell Meek Photography. Using UAV technology and specialised software, high resolution stills, movies and georeferenced photographic grids can be manipulated into a 3D surface. We think a number of sites could easily benefit from using this extremely cost effective method.