Exploration drilling and core-drilling services (San Juan)
Drilling is the mining service that already bills in San Juan and waits for nobody's investment decision: the 2025-2026 season closed, according to the sector's chamber, with more than 230,000 metres drilled in the province, against some 150,000 the season before. And yet the president of that same chamber says that 80 % of that market is in the hands of firms that are not from San Juan. The most recent proof was published by the operator itself: on 10 September 2026 Vicuña awarded its 55,500-metre campaign to Boart Longyear Argentina and Hy-Tech Griffith Drilling Argentina —neither of them belongs to the San Juan chamber: they are subsidiaries of groups from outside— after a process which, according to that same announcement, also assessed local development. What decides that outcome is not a certificate: it is scale. The programme envisages up to eight rigs working at once, across Argentina and Chile and at between 4,500 and 5,500 metres of altitude, with holes that could go beyond 1,500 metres deep. No San Juan drilling firm reaches that alone, and the form that has already proved it works in the province is the partnership: in the same month, the same operator awarded the first 63.6 kilometres of its access road to a joint venture with a San Juan firm inside it.
Sustained, and at its highest point: according to the sector's chamber, the 2025-2026 season closed with more than 230,000 metres against some 150,000 the season before.See the clocks that are running, one by one
On this page
What the market is made of
The TAM is drilling activity, not capturable spoils. The high-mountain anchor contracts —the deep holes of Vicuña, Lunahuasi and Altar, the directional drilling— are won by the globals with their own fleet and balance sheet, and McEwen has already bought eight rigs of its own: that is captive. Your real gap is shallow-to-medium drilling, the geotechnics of the early works, the water wells and the production blastholes, where extreme specification is not the barrier: the addressable segment.
~50-60% of the TAM (USD 33-53 M): high-specification anchor contracts — Vicuña's binational campaign (deep-hole, heli-support, two-country management), Lunahuasi/Altar +1,000 m holes, directional drilling — go to globals with fleet and balance sheet irreplicable in years; plus the internalisation (eight rigs owned by McEwen at Los Azules)
USD 24-42 M/yr addressable by a local/national entrant: shallow-to-medium infill drilling, early-works geotechnics, water/monitoring wells, production blastholes, subcontracted metres the globals release at season peak. The 80/60 law + RE.PRO.MIN enlarges it (mandatory register consultation + tax credit for meeting targets), with the "competitive market terms" valve as the limit: it grows only for whoever is competitive, not by decree
USD 3-8 M/yr capturable in 2-3 years, and the arithmetic is in plain sight: a high-mountain diamond rig bills of the order of USD 1.5 to 1.9 million a year when it is working —the reference comes from the accounts of the world's largest drilling firm, with 688 rigs— and a credible small fleet is 2 to 4 rigs. The three routes.
See how the range is built
Who really pays?
Drilling is contracted through four different routes, and in three of them the signatory is not the same. It is worth knowing which one is yours before you bid:
The RIGI operator (Glencore at Pachón, Lundin/BHP at Vicuña, McEwen at Los Azules) or the junior financed by a major (Teck at La Coipita, Aldebaran at Altar) contracts the drilling by campaign, directly —not through the company that manages the works—. The global drilling contractors bill this way today; they are among the best payers in the country.
On 10 September 2026 the operator published that it had selected two international drilling companies for some 55,500 metres of diamond drilling over twelve months, in Argentina and Chile, with up to eight simultaneous rigs at between 4,500 and 5,500 metres of altitude. The process assessed the technical and commercial aspects, safety and occupational health, sustainability and local development verif. Neither of the two is among the ten members of the San Juan drillers' chamber verif: they are the Argentine subsidiaries of a global driller headquartered in the United States and of the partnership of a Canadian driller with another drilling firm prob.
The project's technical report lists four roads, not one —the upgrade of the current access, the 220 new kilometres of the northern corridor, the interconnection road between the two deposits and the high-mountain road to Chile— plus camps of its own for the high-voltage line, the northern access road and the upper stretches of the two pipelines.
The model is a drilling contractor's contract with Golden Mining S.A. (Challenger Gold) at Hualilán: 24 months of blasthole drilling, with an explosives firm separately, and a start planned for November 2025 prob. The operator contracted the blastholes directly and for two years. That contract was for the phase of processing at a third-party plant prob, which the company is leaving to move to its own production in early 2029 verif. That this door becomes permanent when the big copper mines enter production, around 2029-2030, is our own reading thesis.
Which projects move this demand
The largest mining project in Argentine history by announced investment, and, according to the operator…
see the project →Leach-based copper cathode project in Calingasta (San Juan). Company/press figures (probable, outside the resolution)…
see the project →Phase 1 of one of Argentina's two largest undeveloped copper deposits, alongside Vicuña: a resource declared by Glencore of ~6,000 Mt @ 0.43% Cu, 2.2 g/t Ag and 130 g/t Mo…
see the project →When the window opens
Drilling demand is announced before the machines move: each season's metres are published months in advance, and the awards divide up the whole year. These four numbers give the warning.
See the evidence
See the evidence
Exploration is the first investment to be cut: NGEx/Aldebaran/AbraSilver budgets are discretionary year to year. Impact in 6-12 months on 40-50% of the TAM (juniors); Vicuña/Pachón (majors with RIGI) resist longer
It doesn't kill the exploration core but pushes the geotechnical and water-well wave 2027-2029. The 2026-2030 construction window is the part of the TAM with an expiry date
When a project moves to construction its exploration metres fall (Los Azules: 70,000 m prob provincial press in 2023-24 → just over 5,600 m, between geotechnical holes and condemnation drilling, in 2025-26 verif company report of 27-Aug-2026).
See the evidence
The update to Josemaría's environmental report admits an impact that is «moderate» during construction and «severe during operation in the well-field sector», which it expects to see fall when desalinated water from the Pacific arrives prob press on the provincial environmental file, August 2025.
See the evidence
See the remaining 2 risks
Less likely than in camps (a service intensive in crews and local logistics, and the 80/60 law disincentivises it), but Griffith (Chile) already operates on the Argentine side and the binational tender normalises contracting from Chile
Effective season 6-9 months; a hard winter cuts 20-30% of the year's meters. Operational variance, not structural
The opportunity in depth
The opportunity in depth
Team up to reach the scale the big campaigns ask for. It is the route that has just worked in this same province and with this same operator: the first 63.6 kilometres of the access road were awarded in September 2026 to a joint venture with a San Juan firm inside it, put together out of the operator's own business rounds. Section 14 of the provincial law gives it legal form: an association with at least 25 % local participation registers as a supplier, counting the proportional amount.
Take the niches the big players do not prioritise. The geotechnics of the early works —there are four roads, not one, plus camps and platforms—, the water wells and the piezometry each one requires, and the production blastholes, today held by a single firm on a 24-month contract.
Train the crew before it is needed. The sector's chamber trained 110 mining drilling assistants in a one-year programme launched in 2021 and in June 2026 stated that it has to be done again, because when the mine starts hiring skilled labour it will take it from the same place. Whoever has trained people when that happens does not compete on price.
When you get paid, and what blocks it
already in
split
Canada, based in Mendoza; 30 years in Argentina; clients such as Challenger and McEwen at Los Azules; with a directional-drilling firm it drilled the country's first directional mining hole (Pachón 2024, +1,000 m) prob. FY2026 record CAD 889.1 M globally, 688 drill rigs verif
France, based in Mendoza; a key supplier for Los Azules; named in the 35-machines article (DdC Jan-2025)
Global; won with another drilling firm Vicuña's 2026-2027 campaign of 55,500 m verif; it is mentioned as a contractor at Los Azules and with rigs at Josemaría unconf; McEwen bought 8 LF160 diamond rigs of its own (2022) — partial internalization that shrinks the contractable market
Chile; active in the province (DdC Jan-2025); through its Argentine subsidiary, it won with a global drilling firm Vicuña's binational 2026-2027 campaign verif
See the remaining 4 players
Argentina, with ten rigs in the country; it does diamond drilling, rotary and reverse circulation, and declares 70 % local labour. ⚠️ It is a member of the San Juan drillers' chamber, but the address the chamber itself publishes is in the province of Buenos Aires — it is the only member without an address in San Juan, and under section 12 of the Local Mining Development Law a legal and tax domicile in the province is a requirement to count as a local supplier. The difference is not cosmetic.
Salta (regional business group); surface/underground diamond drilling + geotechnics; +300 employees
Production blastholes at Hualilán (24 months, with the explosives firm, with a start scheduled for November 2025); the provincial press presents it as «la empresa sanjuanina» prob; dominates the production segment — which will be the perpetual core from 2029-30
The Cámara de Empresas Perforistas de San Juan publishes ten members with company name and address as at 14-Sep-2026 —there were twelve when it was set up in 2021—, and none of them publishes how many rigs it has. Its president states that 80 % of the market goes to firms from outside prob. In the last survey of the fleet, from January 2025, the San Juan firms had 11 of 35 active machines and some 15 rigs were idle. ⛔ That figure is twenty months old and its cause was published wrongly here for all that time: the chamber did not speak of a lack of certification: in that article it was asking for more contracts for San Juan firms in a season the same article calls strong, and it named the fall in exploration activity only in December 2025, for 2024. Since then the season has closed at a record.
The jobs it createsEach active rig employs 12-18 people on shifts [supuesto de industria], and the sector's chamber declares 2,000 direct jobs and 3,100 indirect ones in exploration in San Juan, out of 4,000 and 6,000 across the country prob. La lectura completa para el que busca trabajo, en la hoja de este nicho para la gente →
calculate it
The number is our own estimate. The calculation, step by step, is below.
The full calculation, step by step
Concentration High, and now with a number put on it by the sector itself: the president of the drillers' chamber states that 80 % of the market is in the hands of firms that are not from San Juan prob January 2026. There is a counterexample: Hualilán's 35,000 m programme, from mid-2026, was contracted to two local drilling firms, Eco Minera and Perforaciones Iglesianas prob mining press, August 2026. Vicuña's 2026-2027 campaign, of 55,500 metres across Argentina and Chile, was won by two international drilling companies after a process that also assessed local development verif Vicuña release. Neither of them appears among the ten members of the San Juan drillers' chamber verif the chamber's member roster: they are the Argentine subsidiaries of a global driller headquartered in the United States and of the partnership of a Canadian driller with another drilling firm prob national mining chamber profile and company websites. That an award of this size ends this way points in the same direction as that 80 % thesis. In the last survey of the fleet, the San Juan firms had 11 of 35 machines and an even smaller fraction of the value, because they drill shallower metres at lower rates thesis. On top of that comes partial internalisation: one operator bought eight rigs of its own, and every machine the mine buys for itself is a contract that ceases to exist for everybody.
The rule that moves it
This niche's driver is provincial: the Local Mining Development Law reserves part of mining procurement and employment for the local supplier, and turns registration in the provincial register into an advantage for the San Juan drilling firm — the day that register exists.
See the underlying reading
The underlying policy that opens up this demand. It is the same inference declared by the rules and the program pillars pushing in this direction.
lowers country risk + the RIGI promise is keptSee the full legal grounds
Where the number comes from
~USD 55-60 M/year in the exploration core (~USD 85 M adding geotechnics and blastholes)
See the calculation, the variables and how it was validated
The figure is built from the bottom up, with two live variables and a reference price, and cross-checked against a second method that gives the same result. Drilling has no public rate in San Juan: that's why we show the model, not a magic number.
The extended TAM adds two legs not calculated by exploration metre: the geotechnics and hydrogeology of the 2026-2030 construction wave (+USD 10-20 M/yr, every road and camp requires them) and the production blastholes (Thor's contract at Hualilán —24 months, with Orica— is the model, +USD 8-20 M/yr). This last one becomes the perpetual core when the copper open pits enter production from 2029-2030: 20+ years of blasting.
The number rests on a few variables. The formula shows how it moves when each one changes; and each variable carries its freshness seal — how often it is worth revisiting. estim
⛔ The cause circulating about the idle rigs is not the one the sector gives, and that is the place to start. It is said that some fifteen San Juan rigs are idle *«not for lack of demand but of altitude certification»*. Nobody in the sector said that. Both interviews with the president of the Cámara de Empresas Perforistas de San Juan were opened in full, along with seven other articles featuring the same figure: the word certification does not appear as a cause in any of them. What he says is the opposite — *«San Juan companies are a match for any international company»* and *«Today we can supply the market»*.And the figure being cited is old. The «35 machines, 15 idle» is from January 2025, and since then the cycle has turned twice:
| when | what it says, and who says it |
|---|---|
| January 2025 | 35 active machines in the province, 11 from San Juan, some 15 rigs idle prob provincial press citing the chamber |
| December 2025 | *«below 60 % rig utilisation»* and *«40-50 % —half the companies— are idle»*, because of the fall in exploration activity prob statement by the chamber's president |
| January 2026 | *«80 % of the drilling market is in the hands of companies that are not from San Juan»*, with 2,000 direct jobs and 3,100 indirect ones in provincial exploration prob provincial press |
| June 2026 | the season closed with more than 230,000 metres against some 150,000 the season before, and the problem became a different one: *«we find ourselves having to train drillers»* prob provincial press, June 2026 |
| 10 September 2026 | Vicuña awards 55,500 metres of the 2026-2027 campaign to Boart Longyear Argentina and Hy-Tech Griffith Drilling Argentina verif announcement by the operator itself |
Coverage: the entire registry of CAPERFO, San Juan's chamber of drilling companies —ten companies as of 14 September 2026, with company name and address— and CASEMI's 187 members, of which two declare drilling · Sep 14, 2026 · not reviewed: none of them publishes how many rigs it has and the operators do not publish who they award to except when they announce it themselves: that no single San Juan firm on its own reaches the eight simultaneous rigs of the latest large campaign is an inference of ours, not a count
How to cite this figure: Despegue (2026). Exploration drilling and core-drilling services (San Juan) · San Juan. despegueargentina.com/en/san-juan/perforacion-sondaje-minero · terms of use
Neighbouring markets3 markets in the same group, from USD 4,3 to USD 30 M a year
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