Managing Director of Jinshi Drilltech Co Ltd.
After studying finance and economics and attempting a few side projects, Boyuan found a real career path in the family business of Jinshi Drilltech. Founded by his father in 1996, today Jinshi is the largest manufacturer of core drilling tools in China. With the experience he accumulated while living and studying in Canada, Boyuan has since helped spearhead Jinshi’s expansion abroad.
Over the last years, several international branches of the company were established in South America and Asia, further strengthening their position among suppliers from China. In China, Jinshi Drilltech is a full drilling solutions provider and a domestic industry leader. And in his current role as Managing Director, Boyuan is aiming to build the Jinshi brand abroad—by leaning on the quality of their products, refined in real operations, and combining their local presence and logistics experience.
Grigor Topev: It is a pleasure to have you as our guest interviewee at Coring Magazine! I like to start every interview with the same question: What first drew you to the drilling industry, and how did you get your start?
Boyuan Tian: Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I’m honored to be here, as I feel I’m still early in my career compared to some of the interviewees before me.
Well, I had my options open and studied finance and economics, but I didn’t manage to find a real career path in the few side projects I attempted. Jinshi Drilltech is a family business that I am part of, so it was natural for me to get into it. Looking back, the choice worked out well for me, and today I feel much more comfortable and confident in this field.
GT: You spent some years in Canada. What are your general impressions of the drilling business there?
Boyuan Tian: I lived in Canada for 12 years for education and family reasons, and I moved back to China recently to achieve a better balance between work and family. Canadian drilling companies are well-equipped, technically sophisticated, and highly regulated. When it comes to manufacturers, I find the business environment to be stable and mature, but it tends to operate at a lower pace in some regards compared to my home country. Chinese companies were lucky to catch the golden period of China’s rapid economic growth and reap the benefits of the times. Now, as the drilling industry becomes more mature, we can learn a great deal from mature markets like Canada.
GT: Could you tell us more about the story of Jinshi Drilltech Co Ltd. and its line of products?
Boyuan Tian: My father, Tian Bo, had a humble start in a national geological institute. He worked his way up to shop manager before quitting his job and starting his own business in 1996, producing diamond core bits. In the years since, the company expanded the product line to include rods and casings, in-hole tools, and eventually hydraulic rigs—a major step that positioned Jinshi as a full drilling solutions provider rather than just a tool manufacturer. This growth happened at a time when China was investing billions in exploration both at home and overseas. Jinshi’s ability to meet the growing demand with high-quality products propelled the company to become a domestic industry leader. Last year, our company produced 1.4 million meters (4.59 million feet) of rods and 210 000 diamond tools, making Jinshi the largest manufacturer of core drilling tools in China and positioning the company among the leading producers worldwide.
GT: What is the structure of the company, and how is it connected with its international subsidiaries?
Boyuan Tian: Jinshi Drilltech has a team of more than 500 employees, with about 80% working in manufacturing and the rest in sales and management. Our headquarters are in Tangshan, just a two-hour drive northeast of Beijing, which gives us direct access to China’s capital for logistics, talent, and business connections. We operate three production facilities in Tangshan, covering a combined area of 93 000 m² (1 001 044 ft²). We keep our subsidiaries intentionally small, with a mix of employees dispatched from headquarters and local hires. Strategic decisions are made at the headquarters level, ensuring consistency across operations. To stay aligned, there is daily communication between subsidiaries and the operations management team, while senior management holds weekly meetings to review sales, inventory, customer feedback, and other key topics.
GT: What are your responsibilities within the global structure?
Boyuan Tian: My major role is in management now. Basically, my department empowers the sales department and coordinates with the manufacturing side. We have quite a big team, as I mentioned, and the responsibilities are subdivided across the department. Even though I had exposure to sales, marketing, and finance, I see myself more as a coordinator, making sure our teams stay aligned and work effectively together.
GT: The company has several international branches—in Peru, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Türkiye, and recently, Indonesia. What were some of the challenges the company faced when expanding to and working in these markets?
Boyuan Tian: It’s challenging to set foot in a mature market for the first time. Making the right choices, maintaining a positive mindset, and above all, having patience, as it can take years, are the keys to making a subsidiary successful. On an execution level, building a small yet resilient team is the dominant challenge. Compared with many big Chinese firms venturing overseas with big investments, Jinshi faces a unique challenge coming from the small and volatile nature of the drilling tool industry. The local team has to excel at being small, efficient, and team-oriented—a balance that is never easy to achieve. On top of that, mining and exploration cycles influence tool manufacturers directly. Ramping up capacity in an upturn is challenging and keeping the capacity utilized during an industry downturn is even harder. To avoid such issues, Jinshi started to invest and nurture the market in good times to live through the bad.
We started the Peruvian subsidiary in 2013, which was the end of our last boom. We brought some drill rods with couplings, quite common in China, to the Peruvian market in the hopes that we could talk drilling companies into switching from wireline to our standard. That didn’t go well, and we learned a lesson. Besides mistakes like this, we had setbacks like fraud and an armed robbery in our Peruvian branch. Those challenges are now behind us, and today our Peruvian branch enjoys a solid reputation and strong performance. With the experience from Peru, Jinshi ventured into more countries to establish footholds in major markets and build strong ties with the local drilling communities.
GT: Do your international branches help you differentiate as a manufacturer? Do they also provide local storage, or are products delivered directly from China?
Boyuan Tian: To be honest, I can hardly tell competing products apart on platforms like Temu or Alibaba, and I’m not willing to take risks experimenting when I’m the buyer. I can imagine how hard it must be for foreign companies to recognize which drilling brands are truly reliable and high quality when the market is flooded with a long list of Chinese manufacturers.
What really makes Jinshi stand out is that we are also a drilling company ourselves. This gives us a different perspective, personnel with hands-on drilling experience, and the ability to test and refine our products in real operations, which makes a huge difference in quality. In addition, becoming a locally operated entity at select locations further strengthens our position among suppliers from China.
All of our products are manufactured at our headquarters facility in China, ensuring strict control over quality. We do maintain local stocks, but the reality is that no company can keep every item on hand. What matters is that our local inventories are growing steadily, and products for regular customers are becoming more and more readily available, with stock managed directly at the subsidiary level. For new customers ordering directly from headquarters, it may sound complicated or time-consuming, but in practice it’s straightforward and efficient. Some of our largest customers have been purchasing this way for many years. We work with the world’s leading couriers and freight forwarders, and while bulky shipments naturally take longer, our logistics experience ensures they are handled smoothly and reliably. Consistently meeting lead times is one of the cornerstones of our logistics, so customers can rely on receiving their products exactly as promised.
GT: You were an International Business Development Manager for Jinshi Drilltech. Which one of these markets has been the hardest to establish a foothold in?
Boyuan Tian: So far, Mexico has been the hardest market for us to establish ourselves in. When I first visited Hermosillo, Sonora, in 2017 to investigate the market, we realized that simply finding a distributor would not be enough. Before taking that step, we had to penetrate the market directly and build recognition for the Jinshi brand. Mexico was attractive because it needed budget-friendly drilling tools, but long supply chains and trade barriers made it difficult for contractors to source directly from China. That was a gap Jinshi managed to fill with the help of our previous experience in Latin America, and today the branch is proud to have had a strong start in the market.
Globally, developed markets like Australia and Canada remain the most difficult markets for us to enter. From a strategic perspective, we focus on identifying gaps that we can fill with certainty, rather than chasing entry into developed markets without careful consideration. Nonetheless, I am confident Jinshi will be able to set a foothold in Canada and Australia under the Jinshi brand in the future.
GT: Will Jinshi consider building a factory outside China?
Boyuan Tian: As I see it, building a factory in a target market is something we are open to in the future, but we don’t have a clear plan in place yet. With global trade conditions fluctuating and many governments pushing for local manufacturing, we recognize that local production may become necessary in some regions. Of course, building a factory outside China would be far more challenging than setting up a sales office. That is why we are more open to potential joint ventures with investors from the global drilling community. Any country with mineral resources to explore can potentially support local manufacturing of drilling tools, and this is the direction many governments are encouraging.
GT: What are the short- and long-term goals of Jinshi Drilltech?
Boyuan Tian: I am sure many Coring readers are hearing about our brand for the first time, even though we have been in the business for many years. This shows that we have not marketed the Jinshi brand properly and consistently. A few years ago we went through a renaming and rebranding, which also had its impact. Now one of our short-term goals is to build stronger brand awareness, create trust, and improve our reputation.
Jinshi is deeply embedded in the Chinese market, a market I consider more volatile and more competitive than its developed counterparts. However, we want to diversify and reduce our reliance on a single market. Ideally, foreign sales should account for 50% or more of our total revenue. To achieve this, we are working to improve our overseas sales structure by engaging more distributors and key customers abroad, and by shifting away from a purely trade-oriented business.
As for the long term, our goal is straightforward: to stay in business and continually refine our products. There are countless improvements we can make at the operational level, but I believe chasing a ‘grand vision’ is not practical in today’s rapidly changing environment. At this stage, it is less about being ambitious and more about pursuing steady, sustainable progress.
GT: You are mentioning a strong presence in the Chinese market. Tell us more about that.
Boyuan Tian: In the domestic market, Jinshi does more than supply tools—we provide complete solutions built on years of drilling experience, technical know-how, on-site support, and subcontracting capabilities. Our service package is a unique advantage that strengthens customer loyalty and has been a key reason why Jinshi has become the largest supplier of core drilling tools in China.
GT: Personally, which Jinshi Drilltech product(s) are you the proudest of? What makes it or them unique?
Boyuan Tian: I am the proudest of our number one factory that houses a highly-automated production line for wireline drill rods. With an output of 2500 rods per day—an impressive figure for a single manufacturing plant, our number one factory stands for advanced manufacturing. The automation has also dramatically reduced the amount of manual labor and improved working conditions.
On the product side, we developed the HY-thread heavy-duty wireline drill rods, which have a depth capacity of 2500 m (8202 ft). Compared to standard wireline rods, they provide better reliability and safety when drilling at greater depths.
GT: Can you share the most impressive projects Jinshi Drilltech has been involved with?
Boyuan Tian: Something unique I can think of is the geotechnical drilling projects done for those mega infrastructure projects. One of the most recent is the soon-to-be-built Motuo hydropower dam in China, which began construction in July. Jinshi Drilltech is proud to supply tools and drilling consultation for the geotechnical drilling programs. One of the ongoing geological survey holes is horizontal with a designed depth of 2400 m (7875 ft) in H-size and 3000 m (9843 ft) in N-size.
Another project where Jinshi contributed is wireline drilling in sandstone-type uranium deposit ground conditions. For better context, some of China’s uranium reserves are hosted in sandstone strata. Limited by the poor cementation of the strata and poor fluid circulation, drillers traditionally used the conventional coring method. Productivity and core recovery were far from ideal, while standard wireline operations were difficult because the inner tubes and rods frequently got stuck. Jinshi designed and manufactured a new set of wireline tools for these strata to increase annular space and unstick the inner tube. Those very tools made wireline coring possible in similar strata.
GT: I’m sure many of our readers want to know, how is diamond drilling in China? What’s the reach and scale?
Boyuan Tian: I know there is curiosity about the drilling industry in China in general. I am honored to share my experience and opinion here, but I have to put out a disclaimer in advance: I represent Jinshi Drilltech only, not the Chinese drilling community or any official drilling organizations. China’s drilling industry is very diverse, and my perspective reflects only our company’s experience.
So, back to the question: we have lots of drilling companies out there. Many state-owned geological companies provide a broad mix of geological services, and diamond drilling is only a part of what they offer. We also have a few companies that focus solely on contract drilling. Unfortunately, I don’t have a reliable estimate of the total number of active drills or total volumes.
China, now a big player in mining, is investing billions in mineral exploration. However, in terms of contract drilling, I think our market is more fractured, with many small- and medium-sized companies compared to developed markets, where a few very large companies dominate. I don’t know of any domestic company that operates more than 50 drills like the major players. Over the past decade, we have also seen many Chinese drillers working overseas, primarily in Africa.
GT: What is the state of competition between Chinese manufacturing companies? Are they more oriented abroad, or do they focus on the local market?
Boyuan Tian: Like all manufacturing industries in China, the competition is fierce. The Chinese market is saturated with cheap products. For example, a very popular product is the 5 ft (1.52 m) NTW rod, which you can buy on the market for USD 20 apiece. Well, I think only the good manufacturers are able to do well in foreign markets. Focusing on the domestic market is usually more of an involuntary choice than an orientation. In the context of foreign trade, some peers had a good strategy in penetrating certain markets.
GT: When you mention good strategies, I have to bring this up. I constantly receive messages on LinkedIn, through email, and even WhatsApp from salespeople of Chinese companies. To me, that feels like spam, and honestly, it doesn’t work with me. What’s your take on that?
Boyuan Tian: That is a good question. I understand that you feel harassed; many people have complained to me about the same thing. Even I sometimes feel the same way. In China, some foreign trade salespeople are involved in selling a wide range of products. Mass marketing emails and unsolicited private messages, based on information gathering and reselling, are a low-cost, hit-or-miss sales tactic. For specialized products like core drilling tools, this kind of marketing approach is certainly not suitable. Many customers prefer salespeople to reach out in a more professional manner, and that is also what we aim to achieve. However, it’s not easy to shift away from this marketing strategy overnight, and sadly, some Chinese suppliers are sometimes dragged down by the poor impression left by their less professional peers.
GT: Is it difficult to find qualified experts in China, knowing that there are significant shortages globally?
Boyuan Tian: On the drilling side, recruiting drilling experts is challenging for Jinshi. Most foremen and project managers would prefer starting their own drilling business to doing the same job for just a paycheck. We operate ten drills and would like to run more. A shortage of skilled labor limits the size of our contract drilling department. Overall, I see an aging skilled workforce with no sign of reversing in the near future.
On the manufacturing and R&D side, it is less difficult to recruit candidates. Our managers and engineers have worked at Jinshi for many years and have become experts themselves. When we look for experts to fill positions, promoting good candidates within the team has proved to be more successful than hiring experts from within the industry.
GT: What are some of the differences you have found between Canadian and Chinese contractors?
Boyuan Tian: As I mentioned, Jinshi Drilltech has ten drills operating across China. As a for-profit entity, I think we behave much like Canadian contractors, although we do some things differently. Like any other contractor, we have to consider costs such as diesel, labor, and tools. The risk of downtime and HSE costs are also taken into account when preparing a tender price. What we can definitely learn from our Canadian peers is their approach to HSE, maintenance, and training.
GT: Can you tell us about the national R&D programs for exploration drilling? Do they attract the whole industry in China, and what are the benefits of such programs for diamond drilling and manufacturing?
Boyuan Tian: On the materials science side, the drilling R&D programs are concentrated in a few research institutions that we work closely with. I came from an economics and finance background, so I can’t really tell whether those R&D programs contributed to the industry directly or indirectly. On the application level, many researchers contributed to the industry by demonstrating borehole structure design, drilling fluid composition, and solutions to problems caused by certain geological conditions. Over time, we witnessed a great improvement in drilling speed, portability of equipment, and reliability of tools. The R&D on the application level contributes to the industry’s progress by sharing knowledge and giving guidance.
On the manufacturing side, Jinshi Drilltech surely benefited from better equipment and materials from our suppliers. Much of the progress is R&D- and competition-driven.
GT: Are there any significant Chinese drilling innovations the world has yet to catch up on? On the flipside, are there products/drilling technologies that are popular elsewhere but not so much in China?
Boyuan Tian: In terms of deep hole drilling, China is not limited by a set of exploration drilling tools and methods. Many boreholes—exploration, geological, hydrological, and geothermal—are designed to be deep and large in diameter. For example, core drilling a 2000 m (6562 ft) borehole with an end diameter of 216 mm (8.5 in) is impossible with a standard exploration drill and tools. Some tools are improvised from the oil and gas sector, and drillers have the flexibility to adjust any parameter on the tools. Overall, this approach provides flexiblity. As the industry inevitably drills deeper, many of the Chinese drilling projects and tools can serve as a reference for drilling in other countries.
In terms of contract exploration drilling, we have a lot to learn from the West in areas like management, HSE, training, and maintenance. Some big Western contractors manage over 50 drills, and this requires a different level of management. The speed is also something we can improve on. In China, most drillers aren’t allowed to and have no incentive to push the drill and tools to their limit to put more core in the box. I don’t know if anyone in China has pulled out even 100 m (328 ft) of core in a shift.
GT: More broadly, what do you think is the future of drilling? What developments are you keeping your eye on?
Boyuan Tian: I don’t see the core drilling business changing significantly in the future. In different markets, the drilling contractors face unique challenges. At the frontier of the drilling industry, some innovations focusing on automation and ESG take place to address the skill shortage and compliance pressure. Contractors in China face different challenges, and as a result, innovations in recent years have focused on cost-cutting. What we all have in common is that we’ll go deeper and deeper. I keep an eye on new developments that increase depth capacity in a cost-efficient manner. Also, I wonder if something will appear to make drillers’ jobs fun with instant feedback to attract the young generation.
GT: Without going into the politics, let’s discuss the Trade War. Have you felt its impact, and what do you expect to happen, particularly in terms of drill supplies manufacturing?
Boyuan Tian: In terms of direct impact on exports, I think the effect is little so far. The tariffs against Chinese steel were implemented over the years by almost all steel-producing countries. Unfortunately, some drilling tools fall into the tubing category, and we have to live with it. I find a reasonable percentage tariff with clear rules acceptable, and in most cases, what affected our business is permits, quotas, and uncertainty.
The global trade system underpinned by the WTO is undergoing significant changes. The growing prevalence of regional trade agreements suggests that, in the future, decentralized production will be of critical importance to manufacturers. On the drilling tool manufacturing side, the trade barriers are not what stopped a newcomer from operating globally. This market was quite segmented and will probably remain so. Jinshi Drilltech still has a shot to become a major international player despite these trade barriers.
GT: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions! Lastly, what do you do to relax? Do you have any hobbies and interests?
Boyuan Tian: Thanks for your invitation. I like to do some woodworking for entertainment. I practice sports like swimming and tennis to stay fit and happy.
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