Drilling contractor Percusso-Bor is a family-run operation based on the southern shores of the Vaal dam, just outside Oranjeville in the Free State province. Established in 1969 by Pieter Pretorius, Percusso-Bor is now a leading, multi-million-rand exploration drilling business employing over 200 people, servicing several major South African mining concerns across four provinces as well as in Mozambique.
“It is a capital-intensive industry with some drilling rigs costing as much as R15 million,” explains Pretorius. “These rigs, along with the industrial air compressors that power them are transported to drilling sites by truck. At present, we have a fleet of 17 heavy trucks, all of them from Mercedes-Benz.”
The Percusso-Bor fleet comprises a mix of long wheel-base rigid trucks and truck-tractor/semi-trailer combinations, all mounted with drilling rigs to conduct both percussion and diamond-tip drilling tasks reaching depths of up to 2300 metres. “Our trucks are an integral part of our business,” says Pretorius, “and reliability is the most important factor when it comes to choosing a new truck. Our drivers can travel as far as 1 000 km in a single trip for certain projects, so ride comfort, good fuel consumption and safety are also strong purchasing factors.”
Constantly designing more efficient ways to conduct business, Pretorius and his colleagues, son Johan Pretorius and operations manager, Jaco van der Heever, recently purchased an ‘abnormal load’ truck-tractor/low-bed trailer combination to optimise Percusso-Bor’s transport of drilling rigs to and from client sites.
Choosing the prime mover for the new truck-trailer combination was a fait accompli for Pretorius. “There was no question it had to be a Mercedes-Benz, our truck of choice for over 35 years,” he says.
Pretorius opted for the Actros 2650 premium cab. “Our drivers need to transport drilling rigs over hundreds of kilometres both on and off highway and therefore we were looking for a 6x4 with plenty of horse-power,” continues Pretorius. “The Actros 2650 with its V8 engine was a natural choice, not only for its technical specifications but simply because it’s a top-class vehicle, worthy of carrying equipment that costs millions of rands to customers who think in terms of billions of dollars! At the end of the day, image is everything and the 500hp (378kW) V8 Actros is the best truck money can buy.”
- Mercedes-Benz
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