Worn tricone cones, PDC bits, DTH hammers and button bits, RC bits, rod strings, subs and adapters come off exploration and production drilling programs across WA. Every stream is separated at the Malaga yard and priced on what it actually contains.
Tricone and DTH bits, sorted · Malaga A drill bit is several materials bolted together. The tungsten carbide in the buttons or the PDC cutters, the drill steel in the body, and the alloy in a rod or sub all move at different values. A yard that takes the whole bin at one mixed rate prices the carbide as if it were the steel around it.
We separate every load into its material streams at Malaga before anything is priced, so the carbide content is assessed on its own and the drill steel and alloy are assessed on theirs. Since 2022 we have recycled over 1.3 million kilograms of material on that basis.
Drill Bits Recyclers is named for this work. See how we price used drill bits and drill rods, subs and adapters, and use our identification guide when a bin comes back off a rig with tooling nobody can put a name to.
Whether a bin goes out to a camp, a yard or a rig site is decided job by job, weighing the relationship, location, material and expected weight. Bins are generally set up for repeat customers, and a one-off drill bit bin normally needs more than 2,000 kg behind it. Smaller loads can still come to the Malaga depot by appointment, and a walk-through before a bigger clear-out is free but has to be booked, since the team isn’t always on site.
Collections are arranged individually with each contractor. Perth metro is normally same day or next day; Pilbara and Goldfields jobs are worked out case by case and are generally collected within the same week. Every quotation carries its own expiry, usually 24 or 72 hours depending on the material and the market, so it’s worth asking close to the demob rather than months out.
Tricone and DTH bits, sorted · Malaga Bits, rods, hammers and unidentified tooling are separated before any of it is weighed or priced.
One drum of bits and a whole demob clear-out follow the same path.
A drum off the rig floor and a full demob clear-out go through the same sorting, the same scales and the same paperwork at Malaga.
Every load is weighed on our floor scales before it’s priced, so the number you’re paid on matches the number on the docket.
Carbide, drill steel and alloy are separated and assessed apart, so each one is priced on its own content.
A batch record travels with every load, listing weight, grade and destination for your own reporting.
No cost for the bin, no cost for the freight. It travels back to us on your existing backload run, so we don’t run a truck out for it.
Furberg, Arvidsson and Molander, writing in the Journal of Cleaner Production 209 (2019), found that recycling metal cuts environmental impact by 22 to 100 percent depending on the category. Tungsten carbide recovered off a drilling program stays in circulation as tungsten.
Weight, grade and destination are logged for every load off your program, documentation that sits behind your own reporting without you building the audit trail yourself. We work around a contractor’s own demob timing and site access rather than asking the program to change how it runs.
Send photos of what has stacked up on the rig or in the yard and we’ll give you an indicative view of what it holds, including how the free bin works.
Malaga, WA · Free bin and freight, on backload · Priced by carbide and alloy content
