Land and Barge Drilling Parker's international fleet includes 28 land rigs and two barge rigs in strategic markets, and its U.S. fleet includes 13 barge rigs in the coastal waters of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.  Our fleet is subject to a rigorous maintenance program for optimal performance. Guided by the Parker Drilling Quality Management System, our personnel strive for a cost-effective, efficient, safe operation.

Land Drilling

Parker’s land rig fleet is positioned in international markets, with rigs ranging from 900 to 3,000 horsepower with drilling depth capabilities of 9,000 to 35,000 feet.

Our AC variable frequency drive (VFD) land rigs are versatile, fast-moving rigs. The 2,800 horsepower series features a design enabling a smaller environmental footprint while delivering more power for deeper, more complex drilling programs in remote frontier locations. The 2,000 horsepower series land rigs feature intelligent driller controls and integrated Programmable Logic Controllers, dynamic braking systems, and a slingshot-design substructure enabling a safer, faster rigup and a reduced number of transport loads.

The legendary Parker Drilling OIME 3000-E series rigs are equipped with a powerful 3,000 horsepower drawworks and are rated to drill to depths in excess of 30,000 feet. OIME 3000-E rigs have drilled record-setting wells around the world, including a well drilled to a vertical depth of 29,312 feet in Oklahoma.

Parker’s land rig fleet also includes rigs in the 900 to 2,000 horsepower range.  Our fleet is suited to a variety of international locations, climates and drilling programs, including geothermal, directional, arctic, high-temperature, and high-pressure drilling.

Barge Drilling

Parker’s U.S. Gulf of Mexico barge rig fleet is the largest marketed barge fleet in the region, with rigs ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 horsepower with drilling depth capabilities of 13,000 to 30,000+ feet. Parker recently made significant investments in the upgrade of this fleet, resulting in increased efficiency and safety performance. These rigs are also equipped for zero-discharge operations and are suitable for a variety of drilling programs in coastal waters, particularly for deep drilling.

Parker Drilling introduced a step change in coastal drilling with Parker Barge Rig 77B, engineered for increased reliability and with a specification for deep gas drilling programs. 77B is the premier barge rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and one of very few capable of drilling deep, large-hole casing programs in excess of 25,000 feet.

In addition to the Gulf of Mexico fleet, the 3,000 horsepower Parker Barge Rig 257, or the Sunkar, operates in the Caspian Sea. Rig 257 is the world’s only arctic-class barge rig, designed to drill year-round in conditions such as extreme temperatures, arctic ice, and reservoir conditions with high-temperature, high-pressure wells. The rig operates with a strict zero-discharge policy, enabling it to drill with a reduced impact on the environment.

 

Worldoils Land Rigs Marketplace - Land Rigs for sale

     

Land drilling rig for sale : National 110 UE Drilling Rig for sale

   Worldoils Identity number    9000 - 299    Sub-category    Box or swing up rig

   Description    National 110 UE rig    Price    +/- 11.5 mil USD

   Country    USAIf you are interested in this rig, please send an email to rigs@worldoils.com with "National 110 UE Rig (9000-299) "in the subject line, or call +65 97768837 for more information.

      National 110 UE Drilling Rig

Draw Works  :National 110 UE draw works of 1,500 H.P. w/selectable D.C. Traction Motor Drive, (A and B & A or B) motors with high and low drum clutch plus 2 speed transmission usable with either high or low drum clutch.

Maximum pull with 12 lines strung is 850,000 pounds.

The Draw works is designed for 1 3/8” drilling line and is controlled by positive mechanical and pneumatic systems from the rig floor.

The draw works motors and rotary motor are controlled by electronic controls located at the drillers console.

Make and Type : National 110 UE with 1,500 input horsepower.

Input power to Draw Works : 2 each, 800 HP, D.C.Electric Traction Motors are installed as “A” or “B” or “A” and “B” selectable motors.

Primary Power :Three each 1,225 KW Cat generators driven by Three each 1,675 H.P. Caterpillar 3512 engines, providing 600 Volts, 60 cycle AC power to a 3x4 bay SCR house.

Three input slots on the AC Buss and 4 SCR drive cubicles for 750 volt DC power out plus an independent 600 volt AC Top Drive Variable Frequency Control power module facility.

SCR Modular Control House manufactured by AmeriMex of Houston Texas.. (Rotary DC motor is the “High Torque” model.)SCR to provide three inputs bays on the AC buss and four SCR drives on the 750 volt DC out put cubicles as well as an AC VFD module for an AC top drive if installed.Drives for :1. Draw works2. Mud pump “A”3. Mud Pump “B”4. Independent DC Rotary Drive

AC Transformers :

1. 1,000Kva 600:480 volt delta-delta, 3 phase copper wound, transformer for MCC service.2. 230 Kva 480/208/120 volt, 3 phase, copper wound, transformer for rig lighting service.

Draw works Brakes              Conventional Brand brakes on Draw works1. Band Brakes on drum         large Eaton WPT multi-disc brake, water cooled brake on the2. Eaton water cooled brake   drillers end of the draw works main drum left.

Draw works Speeds :High and low speed drum clutches as well as a two speed transmission with the transmission speeds available for either the high or low drum clutch.

Catheads :Two each Conventional catheads of the drum and cable type, capable of a single line pull of 15,000 pounds.

Drilco EZ-Torque :One Drilco EZ-Torque installed on the off-drillers side of the rig floor.

Crown Saver :MD-Tatco or Atlas

Basic Rig instrumentation :Remote mud pressure gauge for driller, Totco or comparable weight indicator, Rotary Torque indicator, tong torque indicator, 6 pen drilling recorder and Auto Driller as well as a Pason PVT system.

Re-manufactured to API 4-F :Sky Top Brewster Free Standing, triple derrick of 142 feet height from the top of rotary table to the bottom of crown water table beams-Re-manufactured and Re-certified to level-4.

Maximum wind load :100mph – no setback

Maximum wind load :85 mph with rated setback

Make and Type :Sky Top Brewster Cantilever Type

Dimensions :142’ ft x 25 ft’ (height x base width)

Capacity Statement for Mast :1,000,000 lbs static hook load + derrick wt + weight of block, hook and hanging drill line as calculated by the Manufacturer equal a Gross Nominal Capacity of 1,250,000 pounds.

Racking board, adjustable :Capacity 225 stands of 5” DP, 8 stands 8” DC and 10 stands of 61/2” DC.

Rotary :371/2” TFI rotary driven by a high torque D.C. Traction motor of 1,000 H.P. through a chain case and drive line.

Top Drive :500 Ton Can Rig, Varco, Tesco or Lewco AC driven top drive, powered by AC VFC unit located in the SCR House.

Substructure Re-Manufactured to API 4-FNote : Substructure is rated with 1,000,000-K rotary casing load while 650-K of pipe is stood back in the derrick as per API – Re-manufactured and Re-certified.

Make and type :Sky Top Brewster Box on Box type (2-10 ft boxes and 1-5 ft box)

Height under rotary beam :20 feet

Floor height :25 feet (26” with 12” mats under the substructure)

Clear height under rotary :

Length :33 feet 8 inches

Width :29’ 2” feet

Casing capacity :1,000,000 lbs

Max setback capacity :650,000 lbs minimum

Substructure support mats :Substructure supported by Dragline type mats of 4 feet in width and 16 feet in Length x 12” thick and compreised of 4 each 12 inch x 12 inch x 16 foot timbers bolted together.

Nominal Drilling Depth :20,000 feet

Mud Pumps :

Weatherford MP 16 Triplex mud pump of 1,600 input horsepower and driven by two each 800 HP DC Traction Motors, c/w a 50 HP 6” x 5” centrifugal suction charging pump-Unitized on and independent skid, with a suction strainer, discharge pulsation dampener and suction and discharge valves.

Weatherford MP 16 Triplex mud pump of 1,600 input horsepower and driven by two each 800 HP DC Traction Motors, c/w a 50 HP 6” x 5” centrifugal suction charging pump-Unitized on and independent skid, with a suction strainer, discharge pulsation dampener and suction and discharge valves.

Mechanics and Parts house :One each 10 foot wide x 45 foot long mechanics and parts house equipped with a full set of mechanics tools as required to maintain all rig equipment.

Electricians and parts house :One each 10 foot wide x 45 foot long mechanics and parts house equipped with a full set of mechanics tools as required to maintain all rig equipment.

Pump parts and rig parts house :One each 10 foot wide x 45 foot long pump parts and rig parts house with bins for all parts.

Mud and sack storage house :One each 10 foot wide by 45 foot long mud system sack storage house.

Junk Box Skid for rig floor tools :One each 10 foot wide x 45 foot long by 4 foot high wall junk box skid for rig tools and rig floor equipment during rig move for transport and storage.

Travelling AssemblyBlock Type Rating :National 500 ton Block and Hook with 6 sheaves and grooved for 1 3/8” drill line.

Drill Line Storage Reel :Air driven drill line storage reel stand capacble of storing and rotating a reel of 1 3/8” drill line of 7,500 feet in length.

Elevator Link Size, Rating :500 ton capacity, one set 168” long, weldless type350 ton capacity, one set 132” long, weldless type

Swivel :Make and Type : Ideco 650 TonRating (Dead Load) : 650 TonsRating (100 RPM’S) : 425 Tons

:

Make, Type and Size :One OMSCO 5 ¼” Hexagon x 2 13/16” ID Kelly with 40 feet of working length.

Connection :6 5/8” REG L.H. upper box x 4 ½” IF lower pin.

Kelly Cocks – Upper :OMSCO KV 800Two (2) 5,000 psi x 6 5/8” Reg L.H. (3” ID).

Kelly Cocks – Lower :

Two (2) 10,000 psi x 4 ½”IF

Kelly Saver Subs, Connection :Two with 4 ½” IF conections

Kelly Spinner :Power : Hydraulically DrivenModel : Varco, International or Oil Works type.

Rotary Driven System Drive :Driven by a High Torgue, D.C. Traction motor, through a chain and sprocket reduction drive.

Mater Bushings :VARCO or equal MSPC master bushing complete with bowl No. 1,2,3, lifting sling and bit breaker adapter plate for 37 ½” API rotary

High Pressure Mud LinesDischarge Line specifications :5” – Grade – 106-B, XXH pipe (10% random X-Ray)

Working Pressuare :1,000 psi w/FIG 1002 and 1003 x 5” Unions.

Rotary Hose and connections :Grade D” with 3 ¼” I.D., 85 ft long, w, 5,000 PSI working pressure and 5” Fig. 1002 WECO unions on each end.

Standpipe :Single 5” x 5,000 psi, FOG 1002, 70 ft high from rig floor to the gooseneck union to accommodate full reciprocation of a stand of pipe with the top drive during back reaming.

Standpipe Manifold :One 5” x 5000 psi with cross and two each 4” x 5” 5,000 pound valves, one below the cross and one above-Two each 2” x 5,000 pound valves, with one on each side of the cross.

Mud MixingHopper : One O’Drill-MCM venture style, 6” mud hopper unit.Location : On the end of the suction tank skid.Mixers : 9ea – 15HP Paddle style mixers.Lower Pressure Mixing Pumps : Four each Mission 6” x 5” x 12” centrifugal pumps.Drive : 75 HP Electrical motor at 1,750 RPM’s

Active Mud TanksTank 1 (shaker Tank) (Drawings to be supplied) :8’ 6” H x 10’ W x 36” L active mud volume or 500 active bbls of mud – built on a 45 foot long three runner skid.Complete with two each 8” x 6” x 12” centrifugal pumps driven by 75 HP AC motors @ 1,750 RPM’s to charge the de sander and the de silter system.

Tank 2 (Volume Tank) (Drawing to be supplied) :8’ 6” H x 10’ W x 36” L active mud volume or 500 active bbls of mud – built on a 45 foot long three runner skid.

Complete with one each 8” x 6” x 12” centrifugal pump driven by a 75 HP motor @ 1,750 RPM’s to circulate and mix the mud in the volume tank.

Tank 3 (Suction Tank) (Drawings to be supplied) :8’ 6” H x 10” W x 36” L active mud volume or 500 active bbls of mud – built on a 45 foot long three runner skid.Complete with two each 8” x 6” x 12” centrifugal pumps driven by 75 HP AC motors @ 1,750 RPM’s to charge the mud mixing hopper and circulate and mix the mud in the suction tank.

Total volume of the three tanks :1,500 Barrels Total active mud.

High pressure Mud Guns connected to Rig Pumps :Nine 3” swiveling mud guns with valves, target ell and fan bottom.

Sand Trap (capacity & location) :200 bbl sand trap located under the Shale Shakers c/w a 12” Sand Trap Dump valve.

Trip tank :One separate tank to be mounted under flow line.

Capacity :Two each 30 bbl’s compartments with independent pumps for each compartment.

Level indicator :Yes (see instrumentation)

Location :Incorporated into the choke manifold skid between the rig substructure and the rig Shale Shaker Mud Tank.

Trip tank Fill System :3” x 2” x 9” Mission Centrifugal Pump w/20 H.P. motor

Trip tank Empty System :3” x 2” x 9” Mission Centrifugal Pump w/20 H.P. motor

Shale ShakersMake and Type :Two Fluid Systems or equivalent 4 panel linear motion, high speed shale shakers.

Desilter :One, Fluid Systems De silter w/16 x 4” cones

Desander :One Fluid Systems De sander w/ 3 x 12” cones

Degasser :One Fluid Systems or equivalent Spherical vacuum degasser.

Mud Cleaner :

Fluid Systems 16 cone mud cleaner with cones over a high volume, 4 panel linear dryer.

Water Tank :One located between the substructure and the shaker tank 500 bbl capacity, measuring 30 feet long x 12 feet wide x 10 feet high.

Total Drill Water Capacity :500 bbls.

Water pumps :2 each 4” x 3” x 10” driven by 40 H.P. electric motors.

Main LightingDescription :Heavy duty, vapor tight, fluorescent lighting system, certified for use in division 1 or 2 areas as required by API.

Coverage of Lighting :All areas to be well lit including under the substructure as well as the back side of the mud pits and pipe rack area.

Air CompressorsNumber :Three Rotary and one cold start piston type.

Make and Type :Quincy model QSB 40 rotary compressors or equivalent.

Power Supply & Pressure :40 HPTEFC motors

Air Receivers (Volume) :400 gallons each (3) 190 PSI test pressure and 125 PSI working Pressure – (plus 2 ea. 200 gallon Air Receivers located under the rig floor).

Blow Out Preventer Stack12 5/8” Annular Type PreventerMake and Type :Shaffer Spherical style of Domestic Manufacture.Pressure Rating : 5,000 pounds.

Single Ram Type Preventers13 5/8” BoreNumber, Make and Type :One Cameron Type-U style, Single Ram type BOP of Domestic Manufacture.

Pressure Rating :10,000 psi WP

Type of Rams :5” Pipe Rams for DP

Number :

One set each.

Outlet number and size : Two each, 3 1/16” x 10,000psi

Double Ram Type Preventers :13 5/8” BoreNumber, Make and Type :One Cameron Type-U style, Double Ram type BOP of Domestic Manufacture.

Pressure Rating :10,000 psi WP

Type of Rams :5” Pipe Rams for DP and Blind Rams

Number :One set each

Outlet number and size :Four each, 3 1/16” x 10,000 psi

Drilling SpoolsNumber : One eachSize : 13 5/8” x 10,000 psiOutlet, Size, Pressure Rating : Two each, 3 1/16” x 10K

BOP Handling WinchesHydraulically Powered x 50 Ton :Two each 25 ton hydraulically powered BOP Hoists

Accumulator Unit and ControlMake and Type :Koomey, 7 station BOP accumulator

Capacity / Accumulator Pressure :220 gal, 3000 psi

Triplex Pump :One each with 1” diameter plungers powered by 40 HP electric motor

Air Pump Package : Two each

Hydraulic Fluid Control Manifold : 7 station control

Drillers Remote control :Full drillers remote control with 135 foot long umbilical.

Suitcase for 1” Hydraulic lines and one air line :

5 suitcases, 20 feet long, with Hammer unions each end c/w O-Ring seal and 12 each 1” sch-80 (open-close) hydraulic lines for the six station accumulator and one each 1 ½” air line for power to the accumulator air pumps.

Choke Manifold : CAMERON or equivalent.

Type and Pressure Rating :4 1/16” x 3 1/16” manifold spaced out for one Cameron10-K Hydraulic choke on one wing and a Thornhill Craver type adjustable choke on the other wing.

Manifold to have a 4” x 10-K line down the middle connecting to the buffer tank with a 4” x 10-K nozzle opposite to allow flow through the middle and directly out of the buffer tank.

Quantity of valves : Five x 4” and Nine z 3” valves.

Manual Adjustable Choke : One 3 1/16” 10K Thornhill Craver type.

H2S Service : Yes

Kill Line : Type : Coflexip armored hose 2 “ (6m long) 10,000 psi- Three manual valves 3 1/16” x 10,000 psi- One Check valve 3 1/16” x 10,000 psi

Choke Line : Make : Coflexip 1 x 4” (15 m long) 10,000 psi- One manual valve 4” x 10,000 psi- One hydraulic valve 4” x 10,000 psi

Atmospheric Mud/Gas SeperatorMake, Type and Size :DRECO or similar shop built, 48” Diameter by 20’ tall with internal gas busting baffles and a 19 foot “U” tube type mud/gas seal mud return line of 8” sch-80 pipe.

De-gasser to have an 8” sch-80 vent line at the top and is to be mounted on a skid that accommodates the choke manifold as well, Atmospheric Degasser to fold down above choke manifold in a horizontal position for transport.

Inside BOP : Gray Tool Co with 4 ½” IF connections

Air WinchesNumber :Two each on the rig floor and controlled from the rig floor with 5/8” wire rope and capacble of lifting 8,000 pounds as well as one being certified for use as a man riding hoist.

Make and Type : Thern

Capacity : 10,000 lbs

Mud Saver BoxMake and Type : OTECO, MG-600Size Range : Inserts for 3 ½” – 5” OD Pipe

Drill String5” Grade S-135 :18,000 ft of Premium Drill Pipe, internally plastic coated and with 3” of hard banding on each box.

Wt/ft : 19.50 lbs/ft.

Range : 2 (Two)  (31 feet + in average length)

Specifications :5” Gr. S-135 19.50 PPF with 95% wall thickness tubes, 4 ½” IF connections, Extended tool Joints, 2” longer than standard.Hard banded with Tungsten CarbideInternally plastic coatedTool joints “broken in” prior to inertia welding to tubesDrill CollarsSize 6 ½” O.D. :27 each 6 ½” drill collars with 2 ¼” bore and one Zip Groove only for slips.Drill collars to have thread roots cold rolled and copper coated as well as stress relief grooves on pins and bore back on boxes – 4 ½” XH Connections.

Lift nipples :12 each lift nipples with 4 ½” XH pins and 4 ½” bottlenecks for 4 ½” DP Elevators.

Size 8” O.D :Nine each 8” drill collars with 3” bore and one Zip Groove only for slips.Drill collars to have threat roots cold rolled and  copper coated as well as stress relief grooves on pins and bore back on boxes – 6 5/8” API Regular Connections.

Lift Nipples :5 each lift nipples with 6 5/8” Regular pins and 4 ½” bottlenecks for 4 ½” DP Elevators.

Rotary Drilling SubsFull complement of rotary drilling sub machined form traceable stock and to API specifications :4 ½” XH Box x 4 ½” API Regular bit sub bored for Baker Float, 6 5/8” Regular Box x Box bil sub bored for Baker Float, 4 ½” XH double box sub, 4 ½” XH Box x Pin sub, 4 ½” XH double pin sub, 4 ½” XH Box x 6 5/8” Reg pin sub, 4 ½” IF Box x 4 ½” IF Pin saver subs – 4 of each.

Handling ToolsType “B” Rotary Tongs & Type ‘DB’ Rotary Tongs, Long style drill pipe slips, Drill collar slips and safety clamps, 350 ton Varco BJ drill pipe elevators and other tools as required for the contract.

EZ TorqueOne each Drilco EZ Torque hydraulic make up and break out unit powered by and independent HPU.

Pipe Racks and CatwalkTen Pipe Racks, 18” high built with 3 each 5” pipe runners and a 1” triangular plate on each end and 4 further plates equally spaced over the 30 foot length of the pipe racks.

One catwalk 50 feet long, 5 feet wide and 18” high, built with two each 18” wide flange beams for runners, 8 inch wide flange beams as cross support beams on 4 foot centers and decked on top with 5/8” plate.

Pipe Inspection Pipe RacksFour each pipe racks made from 5” pipe with 3 each pipe runners of 28 feet in length and 6 sets of bracings – 42” Tall

Weight Indicator / Driller’s ConsoleOilwell Style console built by Applied Machinery Corp.

Weight indicator type :MD Totco or comparable hydraulic weight indicator rated for 1,000,000 lbs

Snubber Assembly :Telescoping back up snubbing post that will provide for snubbing of rotary tongs on the drill floor and also for the snubbing of casing tongs when telescoped up.

Mud pressure gauge : Remote mud pressure gauge in drillers console

Rotary Torque indicator : Rotary torque indicator in drillers console

Tong Torque Indicator : Tong torque gauge in drillers console

Manufacturer and type : One Totco Tong Torque Indicator

Drilling Recorder : Yes

Manufacturer and type :Seven (6) Channel Drilling Recorder Housing and Chart Drive Assembly. MD Totco / Geolograph.

Mud Testing EquipmentManufacturer and type : BAROID basic field kit and mud testing equipment.

Deviation Surveying EquipmentManufacturer and type : AOI Inclination unit with Azimuth on DemandRange : 0 8 degreesRange : 0 16 degreesSlick Line Unit for surveying with deviation tools :Five Star wireline survey unit powered by electric motor driving hydraulic pump and motor.  Unit to be equipped with 20,000 feet of .108 Halliburton type slick survey wire.

Derrick Man Escape DeviceMake and Type : Lewis – Geronimo Escape Line and buggy

Sala safety reel for climbing the derrick ladder :Sala block mounted on elevated arm above the level of the crown and on the centerline of the derrick ladder. Block to be equipped with 160 feet of wire.

Sala safety reel suspended from a Guice Crown mounted arm for providing safety to the derrick man while handling pipe in the derrick :Sala block mounted on a Guice Arm welded to the Crown water table beams and connected to the derrick mans racking platform by means of a 5/8 inch cable with a triplate 12 feet above the derrick mans head.

Two each Sala safety reels suspended from the rig floor for working on the BOP :One Sala safety block on each side of the BOP and suspended from the rig floor beams above in order to provide safety to the crew men servicing the BOP stack.

Rig Camp and quarters

Crew quarters : One each 12 man cabin of 12 feet x 50 feet in sizeTool pushers quarters : One each tool pushers office of 12 feet x 50 feet in sizeThis rig has been completely refurbed. What is not refurbed is new.Price is $12.9 Million USDTop Drive not included, but one can be added for additional charge.

 

If you are interested n this rig, please send an email to rigs@worldoils.com with "Nat 

Drilling rigFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For a detailed diagram of a Petroleum drilling rig, See: List of components of oil drilling rigs

Drilling rig preparing rock blasting

Drilling rig, reverse circulation in Western Australia

A drilling rig is a machine which creates holes (usually called boreholes) and/or shafts in the ground. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill water wells, oil wells, or natural gas extraction wells, or they can be small enough to be moved manually by one person.[citation needed] They sample sub-surface mineral deposits, test rock, soil and groundwater physical properties, and also can be used to install sub-surface fabrications, such as underground utilities, instrumentation, tunnels or wells. Drilling rigs can be mobile equipment mounted on trucks, tracks or trailers, or more permanent land or marine-based structures (such as oil platforms, commonly called 'offshore oil rigs' even if they don't contain a drilling rig). The term "rig" therefore generally refers to the complex of equipment that is used to penetrate the surface of the Earth's crust.

Drilling rigs can be:

Small and portable, such as those used in mineral exploration drilling, water wells and environmental investigations.

Huge, capable of drilling through thousands of meters of the Earth's crust. Large "mud pumps" circulate drilling mud (slurry) through the drill bit and up the casing annulus, for cooling and removing the "cuttings" while a well is drilled. Hoists in the rig can lift hundreds of tons of pipe. Other equipment can force acid or sand into reservoirs to facilitate extraction of the oil or natural gas; and in remote locations there can be permanent living accommodation and catering for crews (which may be more than a hundred). Marine rigs may operate many hundreds of miles or kilometres distant from the supply base with infrequent crew rotation.

Contents[hide]

1 Petroleum drilling industry 2 Water well drilling 3 History 4 Mobile drilling rigs 5 Drilling rig classification

o 5.1 By power used o 5.2 By pipe used o 5.3 By height o 5.4 By method of rotation or drilling method o 5.5 By position of derrick

6 Drill types o 6.1 Auger drilling o 6.2 Percussion rotary air blast drilling (RAB) o 6.3 Air core drilling o 6.4 Cable tool drilling o 6.5 Reverse circulation (RC) drilling o 6.6 Diamond core drilling o 6.7 Direct push rigs o 6.8 Hydraulic rotary drilling o 6.9 Sonic (vibratory) drilling

7 Limits of the technology 8 Research of new drilling technologies 9 Causes of deviation 10 Rig equipment 11 See also 12 References 13 External links

[edit] Petroleum drilling industry

A petroleum drilling rig capable of drilling thousands of feet

Modern oil driller, La Pampa Argentina

Oil and Natural Gas drilling rigs can be used not only to identify geologic reservoirs but also to create holes that allow the extraction of oil or natural gas from those reservoirs. Primarily in onshore oil and gas fields once a well has been drilled, the drilling rig will be moved off of the well and a service rig (a smaller rig) that is purpose-built for completions will be moved on to the well to get the well on line. This frees up the drilling rig to drill another hole and streamlines the operation as well as allowing for specialization of certain services, i.e., completions vs. drilling.[1]

[edit] Water well drilling

New technology uses smaller portable trailer mounted rigs with shorter 10 foot (3.0 m) drill pipe. DIY users and missionary groups use these to drill water wells as they can be operated by 1 or 2 people with a minimal skill level. The shorter drill pipe also allows a much smaller mast, which gives a smaller and lighter rig which is cheaper to ship overseas and can fit in a standard 20 foot (6.1 m) shipping container. Drillcat portable trailer mounted drilling rigs have drill ratings from 300 to 800 feet (91 to 240 m) depending on mud pump flow and pressure ratings.[2]

Other, heavier, truck rigs are more complicated, thus requiring more skill to run. They're also more difficult to handle safely due to the longer 20 to 30 foot (6.1 to 9.1 m) drill pipe. Large truck rigs also require a much higher over head clearance to operate. Large truck drills can use over 150 or more gallons of fuel per day, while the smaller portable drills use a mere 5 to 20 gallons of fuel per day. This makes smaller, more portable rigs preferable in remote or hard-to-reach places.[citation needed]

[edit] History

Antique drilling rig now on display at Western History Museum in Lingle, Wyoming. It was used to drill many water wells in that area—many of those wells are still in use.

Antique drilling Rigs in Zigong, China

Until internal combustion engines were developed in the late 19th century, the main method for drilling rock was muscle power of man or animal. Rods were turned by hand, using clamps attached to the rod. The rope and drop method invented in Zigong, China used a steel rod or piston raised and dropped vertically via a rope. Mechanised versions of this persisted until about 1970, using a cam to rapidly raise and drop what, by then, was a steel cable.

In the 1970s, outside of the oil and gas industry, roller bits using mud circulation were replaced by the first pneumatic reciprocating piston Reverse Circulation (RC) drills, and became essentially obsolete for most shallow drilling, and are now only used in certain situations where rocks preclude other methods. RC drilling proved much faster and more efficient, and continues to improve with better metallurgy, deriving harder, more durable bits, and compressors delivering higher air pressures at higher volumes, enabling deeper and faster penetration. Diamond drilling has remained essentially unchanged since its inception.

[edit] Mobile drilling rigs

In early oil exploration, drilling rigs were semi-permanent in nature and the derricks were often built on site and left in place after the completion of the well. In more recent times drilling rigs are expensive custom-built machines that can be moved from well to well. Some light duty drilling rigs are like a mobile crane and are more usually used to drill water wells. Larger land rigs must be broken apart into sections and loads to move to a new place, a process which can often take weeks.

Small mobile drilling rigs are also used to drill or bore piles. Rigs can range from 100 ton continuous flight auger (CFA) rigs to small air powered rigs used to drill holes in quarries, etc. These rigs use the same technology and equipment as the oil drilling rigs, just on a smaller scale.

The drilling mechanisms outlined below differ mechanically in terms of the machinery used, but also in terms of the method by which drill cuttings are removed from the cutting face of the drill and returned to surface.

[edit] Drilling rig classification

There are many types and designs of drilling rigs, with many drilling rigs capable of switching or combining different drilling technologies as needed. Drilling rigs can be described using any of the following attributes:

[edit] By power used

Mechanical — the rig uses torque converters, clutches, and transmissions powered by its own engines, often diesel

Electric — the major items of machinery are driven by electric motors, usually with power generated on-site using internal combustion engines

Hydraulic — the rig primarily uses hydraulic power Pneumatic — the rig is primarily powered by pressurized air Steam — the rig uses steam-powered engines and pumps (obsolete after middle of 20th

Century)

[edit] By pipe used

Cable — a cable is used to raise and drop the drill bit Conventional — uses metal or plastic drill pipe of varying types Coil tubing — uses a giant coil of tube and a downhole drilling motor

[edit] By height

(All rigs drill with only a single pipe. Rigs are differentiated by how many connected pipe they are able to "stand" in the derrick when needing to temporarily remove the drill pipe from the hole. Typically this is done when changing a drill bit or when "logging" the well.)

Single — can pull only single drill pipes. The presence or absence of vertical pipe racking "fingers" varies from rig to rig.

Double — can hold a stand of pipe in the derrick consisting of two connected drill pipes, called a "double stand".

Triple — can hold a stand of pipe in the derrick consisting of three connected drill pipes, called a "triple stand".

[edit] By method of rotation or drilling method

No-rotation includes direct push rigs and most service rigs Rotary table — rotation is achieved by turning a square or hexagonal pipe (the "Kelly") at

drill floor level.

Top drive — rotation and circulation is done at the top of the drill string, on a motor that moves in a track along the derrick.

Sonic — uses primarily vibratory energy to advance the drill string Hammer — uses rotation and percussive force (see Down-the-hole drill)

[edit] By position of derrick

Conventional — derrick is vertical Slant — derrick is slanted at a 45 degree angle to facilitate horizontal drilling

[edit] Drill types

There are a variety of drill mechanisms which can be used to sink a borehole into the ground. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, in terms of the depth to which it can drill, the type of sample returned, the costs involved and penetration rates achieved. There are two basic types of drills: drills which produce rock chips, and drills which produce core samples.

[edit] Auger drilling

Auger drilling is done with a helical screw which is driven into the ground with rotation; the earth is lifted up the borehole by the blade of the screw. Hollow stem auger drilling is used softer ground such as swamps where th hole will not stay open by itself for environmental drilling, geotechnical drilling, soil engineering and geochemistry reconnaissance work in exploration for mineral deposits. Solid flight augers/bucket augers are used inharder ground construction drilling. In some cases, mine shafts are dug with auger drills. Small augers can be mounted on the back of a utility truck, with large augers used for sinking piles for bridge foundations.

Auger drilling is restricted to generally soft unconsolidated material or weak weathered rock. It is cheap and fast.

Cable tool water well drilling rig in Kimball, West Virginia. These slow rigs have mostly been replaced by rotary drilling rigs in the U.S.

[edit] Percussion rotary air blast drilling (RAB)

RAB drilling is used most frequently in the mineral exploration industry. (This tool is also known as a Down-the-hole drill.) The drill uses a pneumatic reciprocating piston-driven "hammer" to energetically drive a heavy drill bit into the rock. The drill bit is hollow, solid steel and has ~20 mm thick tungsten rods protruding from the steel matrix as "buttons". The tungsten buttons are the cutting face of the bit.

The cuttings are blown up the outside of the rods and collected at surface. Air or a combination of air and foam lift the cuttings.

RAB drilling is used primarily for mineral exploration, water bore drilling and blast-hole drilling in mines, as well as for other applications such as engineering, etc. RAB produces lower quality samples because the cuttings are blown up the outside of the rods and can be contaminated from contact with other rocks. RAB drilling at extreme depth, if it encounters water, may rapidly clog the outside of the hole with debris, precluding removal of drill cuttings from the hole. This can be counteracted, however, with the use of "stabilisers" also known as "reamers", which are large cylindrical pieces of steel attached to the drill string, and made to perfectly fit the size of the hole being drilled. These have sets of rollers on the side, usually with tungsten buttons, that constantly break down cuttings being pushed upwards.

The use of high-powered air compressors, which push 900-1150 cfm of air at 300-350 psi down the hole also ensures drilling of a deeper hole up to ~1250 m due to higher air pressure which pushes all rock cuttings and any water to the surface. This, of course, is all dependent on the density and weight of the rock being drilled, and on how worn the drill bit is.

[edit] Air core drilling

Air core drilling and related methods use hardened steel or tungsten blades to bore a hole into unconsolidated ground. The drill bit has three blades arranged around the bit head, which cut the unconsolidated ground. The rods are hollow and contain an inner tube which sits inside the hollow outer rod barrel. The drill cuttings are removed by injection of compressed air into the hole via the annular area between the innertube and the drill rod. The cuttings are then blown back to surface up the inner tube where they pass through the sample separating system and are collected if needed. Drilling continues with the addition of rods to the top of the drill string. Air core drilling can occasionally produce small chunks of cored rock.

This method of drilling is used to drill the weathered regolith, as the drill rig and steel or tungsten blades cannot penetrate fresh rock. Where possible, air core drilling is preferred over RAB drilling as it provides a more representative sample. Air core drilling can achieve depths approaching 300 meters in good conditions. As the cuttings are removed inside the rods and are less prone to contamination compared to conventional drilling where the cuttings pass to the surface via outside return between the outside of the drill rod and the walls of the hole. This method is more costly and slower than RAB.

[edit] Cable tool drilling

SpeedStar cable tool drilling rig, Ballston Spa, New York

Cable tool rigs are a traditional way of drilling water wells. The majority of large diameter water supply wells, especially deep wells completed in bedrock aquifers, were completed using this drilling method. Although this drilling method has largely been supplanted in recent years by other, faster drilling techniques, it is still the most practicable drilling method for large diameter, deep bedrock wells, and in widespread use for small rural water supply wells. The impact of the drill bit fractures the rock and in many shale rock situations increases the water flow into a well over rotary.

Also known as ballistic well drilling and sometimes called "spudders", these rigs raise and drop a drill string with a heavy carbide tipped drilling bit that chisels through the rock by finely pulverizing the subsurface materials. The drill string is composed of the upper drill rods, a set of "jars" (inter-locking "sliders" that help transmit additional energy to the drill bit and assist in removing the bit if it is stuck) and the drill bit. During the drilling process, the drill string is periodically removed from the borehole and a bailer is lowered to collect the drill cuttings (rock fragments, soil, etc.). The bailer is a bucket-like tool with a trapdoor in the base. If the borehole is dry, water is added so that the drill cuttings will flow into the bailer. When lifted, the trapdoor closes and the cuttings are then raised and removed. Since the drill string must be raised and lowered to advance the boring, the casing (larger diameter outer piping) is typically used to hold back upper soil materials and stabilize the borehole.

Cable tool rigs are simpler and cheaper than similarly sized rotary rigs, although loud and very slow to operate. The world record cable tool well was drilled in New York to a depth of almost 12,000 feet. The common Bucyrus Erie 22 can drill down to about 1,100 feet. Since cable tool drilling does not use air to eject the drilling chips like a rotary, instead using a cable strung bailer, technically there is no limitation on depth.

Cable tool rigs now are nearly obsolete in the United States. They are mostly used in Africa or Third-World countries. Being slow, cable tool rig drilling means increased wages for drillers. In the United States drilling wages would average around US$200 per day per man, while in Africa it is only US$6 per day per man, so a slow drilling machine can still be used in undeveloped countries with depressed wages. A cable tool rig can drill 25 feet to 60 feet of hard rock a day. A newer rotary top head rig equipped with down-the-hole (DTH) hammer can drill 500 feet or more per day, depending on size and formation hardness.[2]

[edit] Reverse circulation (RC) drilling

Reverse Circulation (RC) rig, outside Newman, Western Australia

Track mounted Reverse Circulation rig (side view).

RC drilling is similar to air core drilling, in that the drill cuttings are returned to surface inside the rods. The drilling mechanism is a pneumatic reciprocating piston known as a "hammer" driving a tungsten-steel drill bit. RC drilling utilises much larger rigs and machinery and depths of up to 500 metres are routinely achieved. RC drilling ideally produces dry rock chips, as large air compressors dry the rock out ahead of the advancing drill bit. RC drilling is slower and costlier but achieves better penetration than RAB or air core drilling; it is cheaper than diamond coring and is thus preferred for most mineral exploration work.

Reverse circulation is achieved by blowing air down the rods, the differential pressure creating air lift of the water and cuttings up the "inner tube", which is inside each rod. It reaches the "bell" at the top of the hole, then moves through a sample hose which is attached to the top of the "cyclone". The drill cuttings travel around the inside of the cyclone until they fall through an opening at the bottom and are collected in a sample bag.

The most commonly used RC drill bits are 5-8 inches (13–20 cm) in diameter and have round metal 'buttons' that protrude from the bit, which are required to drill through shale and abrasive rock. As the buttons wear down, drilling becomes slower and the rod string can potentially become bogged in the hole. This is a problem as trying to recover the rods may take hours and in some cases weeks. The rods and drill bits themselves are very expensive, often resulting in great cost to drilling companies when equipment is lost down the bore hole. Most companies will regularly re-grind the buttons on their drill bits in order to prevent this,

and to speed up progress. Usually, when something is lost (breaks off) in the hole, it is not the drill string, but rather from the bit, hammer, or stabiliser to the bottom of the drill string (bit). This is usually caused by a blunt bit getting stuck in fresh rock, over-stressed metal, or a fresh drill bit getting stuck in a part of the hole that is too small, owing to having used a bit that has worn to smaller than the desired hole diameter.

Although RC drilling is air-powered, water is also used, to reduce dust, keep the drill bit cool, and assist in pushing cutting back upwards, but also when "collaring" a new hole. A mud called "Liqui-Pol" is mixed with water and pumped into the rod string, down the hole. This helps to bring up the sample to the surface by making the sand stick together. Occasionally, "Super-Foam" (a.k.a. "Quik-Foam") is also used, to bring all the very fine cuttings to the surface, and to clean the hole. When the drill reaches hard rock, a "collar" is put down the hole around the rods, which is normally PVC piping. Occasionally the collar may be made from metal casing. Collaring a hole is needed to stop the walls from caving in and bogging the rod string at the top of the hole. Collars may be up to 60 metres deep, depending on the ground, although if drilling through hard rock a collar may not be necessary.

Reverse circulation rig setups usually consist of a support vehicle, an auxiliary vehicle, as well as the rig itself. The support vehicle, normally a truck, holds diesel and water tanks for resupplying the rig. It also holds other supplies needed for maintenance on the rig. The auxiliary is a vehicle, carrying an auxiliary engine and a booster engine. These engines are connected to the rig by high pressure air hoses. Although RC rigs have their own booster and compressor to generate air pressure, extra power is needed which usually isn't supplied by the rig due to lack of space for these large engines. Instead, the engines are mounted on the auxiliary vehicle. Compressors on an RC rig have an output of around 1000 cfm at 500 psi (500 L·s−1 at 3.4 MPa). Alternatively, stand-alone air compressors which have an output of 900-1150cfm at 300-350 psi each are used in sets of 2, 3, or 4, which are all routed to the rig through a multi-valve manifold.

[edit] Diamond core drilling

Multi-combination drilling rig (capable of both diamond and reverse circulation drilling). Rig is currently set up for diamond drilling.

Diamond core drilling (exploration diamond drilling) utilizes an annular diamond-impregnated drill bit attached to the end of hollow drill rods to cut a cylindrical core of solid rock. The diamonds used are fine to microfine industrial grade diamonds. They are set within a matrix of varying hardness, from brass to high-grade steel. Matrix hardness, diamond size and dosing can be varied according to the rock which must be cut. Holes within the bit allow water to be delivered to the cutting face. This provides three essential functions — lubrication, cooling, and removal of drill cuttings from the hole.

Diamond drilling is much slower than reverse circulation (RC) drilling due to the hardness of the ground being drilled. Drilling of 1200 to 1800 metres is common and at these depths, ground is mainly hard rock. Diamond rigs need to drill slowly to lengthen the life of drill bits and rods, which are very expensive.

Core samples are retrieved via the use of a "lifter tube", a hollow tube lowered inside the rod string by a winch cable until it stops inside the core barrel. As the core is drilled, the core barrel slides over the core as it is cut. An "overshot" attached to the end of the winch cable is lowered inside the rod string and locks on to the "backend", located on the top end of the core barrel. The winch is retracted, pulling the core barrel to the surface. The core does not drop out of the inside of the core barrel when lifted because either a split ring core lifter or basket retainer allow the core to move into, but not back out of the tube.

Diamond core drill bits

Once the core barrel is removed from the hole, the core sample is then removed from the core barrel and catalogued. The Driller's offsider screws the rod apart using tube clamps, then each part of the rod is taken and the core is shaken out into core trays. The core is washed, measured and broken into smaller pieces using a hammer or sawn through to make it fit into the sample trays. Once catalogued, the core trays are retrieved by geologists who then analyse the core and determine if the drill site is a good location to expand future mining operations.

Diamond rigs can also be part of a multi-combination rig. Multi-combination rigs are a dual setup rig capable of operating in either a reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling role (though not at the same time). This is a common scenario where exploration drilling is being performed in a very isolated location. The rig is first set up to drill as an RC rig and once the desired metres are drilled, the rig is set up for diamond drilling. This way the deeper metres of the hole can be drilled without moving the rig and waiting for a diamond rig to set up on the pad.

[edit] Direct push rigs

Direct push technology includes several types of drilling rigs and drilling equipment which advances a drill string by pushing or hammering without rotating the drill string. While this does not meet the proper definition of drilling, it does achieve the same result — a borehole. Direct push rigs include both cone penetration testing (CPT) rigs and direct push sampling rigs such as a PowerProbe or Geoprobe. Direct push rigs typically are limited to drilling in unconsolidated soil materials and very soft rock.

CPT rigs advance specialized testing equipment (such as electronic cones), and soil samplers using large hydraulic rams. Most CPT rigs are heavily ballasted (20 metric tons is typical) as a counter force against the pushing force of the hydraulic rams which are often rated up to 20 kN. Alternatively, small, light CPT rigs and offshore CPT rigs will use anchors such as screwed-in ground anchors to create the reactive force. In ideal conditions, CPT rigs can achieve production rates of up to 250–300 meters per day.

Direct push drilling rigs use hydraulic cylinders and a hydraulic hammer in advancing a hollow core sampler to gather soil and groundwater samples. The speed and depth of penetration is largely dependent on the soil type, the size of the sampler, and the weight and power the rig. Direct push techniques are generally limited to shallow soil sample recovery in unconsolidated soil materials. The advantage of direct push technology is that in the right soil type it can produce a large number of high quality samples quickly and cheaply, generally from 50 to 75 meters per day. Rather than hammering, direct push can also be combined with sonic (vibratory) methods to increase drill efficiency.

[edit] Hydraulic rotary drilling

Oil well drilling utilises tri-cone roller, carbide embedded, fixed-cutter diamond, or diamond-impregnated drill bits to wear away at the cutting face. This is preferred because there is no need to return intact samples to surface for assay as the objective is to reach a formation containing oil or natural gas. Sizable machinery is used, enabling depths of several kilometres to be penetrated. Rotating hollow drill pipes carry down bentonite and barite infused drilling muds to lubricate, cool, and clean the drilling bit, control downhole pressures, stabilize the wall of the borehole and remove drill cuttings. The mud travels back to the surface around the outside of the drill pipe, called the annulus. Examining rock chips extracted from the mud is known as mud logging. Another form of well logging is electronic and is frequently employed to evaluate the existence of possible oil and gas deposits in the borehole. This can take place while the well is being drilled, using Measurement While Drilling tools, or after drilling, by lowering measurement tools into the newly drilled hole.

The rotary system of drilling was in general use in Texas in the early 1900s. It is a modification of one invented by Fauvelle in 1845, and used in the early years of the oil industry in some of the oil-producing countries in Europe. Originally pressurized water was used instead of mud, and was almost useless in hard rock before the diamond cutting bit.[3] The main breakthrough for rotary drilling came in 1901, when Anthony Francis Lucas combined the use of a steam-driven rig and of mud instead of water in the Spindletop discovery well.[4]

The drilling and production of oil and gas can pose a safety risk and a hazard to the environment from the ignition of the entrained gas causing dangerous fires and also from the

risk of oil leakage polluting water, land and groundwater. For these reasons, redundant safety systems and highly trained personnel are required by law in all countries with significant production.

[edit] Sonic (vibratory) drilling

A sonic drill head works by sending high frequency resonant vibrations down the drill string to the drill bit, while the operator controls these frequencies to suit the specific conditions of the soil/rock geology. Vibrations may also be generated within the drill head. The frequency is generally between 50 and 120 hertz (cycles per second) and can be varied by the operator.

Resonance magnifies the amplitude of the drill bit, which fluidizes the soil particles at the bit face, allowing for fast and easy penetration through most geological formations. An internal spring system isolates these vibrational forces from the rest of the drill rig.

[edit] Limits of the technology

An oil rig

Drill technology has advanced steadily since the 19th century. However, there are several basic limiting factors which will determine the depth to which a bore hole can be sunk.

All holes must maintain outer diameter; the diameter of the hole must remain wider than the diameter of the rods or the rods cannot turn in the hole and progress cannot continue. Friction caused by the drilling operation will tend to reduce the outside diameter of the drill bit. This applies to all drilling methods, except that in diamond core drilling the use of thinner rods and casing may permit the hole to continue. Casing is simply a hollow sheath which protects the hole against collapse during drilling, and is made of metal or PVC. Often diamond holes will start off at a large diameter and when outside diameter is lost, thinner rods put down inside casing to continue, until finally the hole becomes too narrow. Alternatively, the hole can be reamed; this is the usual practice in oil well drilling where the hole size is maintained down to the next casing point.

For percussion techniques, the main limitation is air pressure. Air must be delivered to the piston at sufficient pressure to activate the reciprocating action, and in turn drive the head into the rock with sufficient strength to fracture and pulverise it. With depth, volume is added to the in-rod string, requiring larger compressors to achieve operational pressures. Secondly, groundwater is ubiquitous, and increases in pressure with depth in the ground. The air inside the rod string must be pressurised enough to overcome this water pressure at the bit face. Then, the air must be able to carry the rock fragments to surface. This is why depths in excess of 500 m for reverse circulation drilling are rarely achieved, because the cost is prohibitive and approaches the threshold at which diamond core drilling is more economic.

Diamond drilling can routinely achieve depths in excess of 1200 m. In cases where money is no issue, extreme depths have been achieved, because there is no requirement to overcome water pressure. However, circulation must be maintained to return the drill cuttings to surface, and more importantly to maintain cooling and lubrication of the cutting surface.

Without sufficient lubrication and cooling, the matrix of the drill bit will soften. While diamond is the hardest substance known, at 10 on the Mohs hardness scale, it must remain firmly in the matrix to achieve cutting. Weight on bit, the force exerted on the cutting face of the bit by the drill rods in the hole above the bit, must also be monitored.

A unique drilling operation in deep ocean water was named Project Mohole.

[edit] Research of new drilling technologies

Limits of the conventional contact drilling technologies caused strengthen of the research of new non-contact effective drilling technologies. There were several attempts to achieve sufficient results of the research which would negate disadvantages of current contact technology. The best known are technologies based on the utilization of water jet, chemical plasma, hydrothermal spallation or laser. The research teams round the world have been developing these technologies for the long time.

Nowadays, utilization of high energetic electrical plasma shows very promising in deep drilling applications. This approach has potential to replace conventional drilling technologies because of several advantages. It would be able to produce boreholes with large constant diameter without frequent replacement of the drill bits. It would decrease time and money consumption. This technology is in the research phase and need a strong support, but it can bring a large shift in drilling segment.

[edit] Causes of deviation

Most drill holes deviate from the vertical. This is because of the torque of the turning bit working against the cutting face, because of the flexibility of the steel rods and especially the screw joints, because of reaction to foliation and structure within the rock, and because of refraction as the bit moves into different rock layers of varying resistance. Additionally, inclined holes will tend to deviate upwards because the drill rods will lie against the bottom of the bore, causing the drill bit to be slightly inclined from true. It is because of deviation that drill holes must be surveyed if deviation will impact the usefulness of the information returned. Sometimes the surface location can be offset laterally to take advantage of the expected deviation tendency, so the bottom of the hole will end up near the desired location.

Oil well drilling commonly uses a process of controlled deviation called directional drilling (e.g., when several wells are drilled from one surface location).

PDAC supplement

Specialist drilling rigs take centre stage

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By: Janice Healing

25th February 2011

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US drill rig specialist Schramm, which built some of the drilling rigs involved in the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners in late-2010, will exhibit its capabilities at this year’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) event.

Schramm sales manager John Little tells Mining Weekly that truck- and track-mounted hydraulic top-head drive, reverse-circulation drilling rigs will be showcased at booth 1324.

“After three years of applying, we were able to obtain a booth for the 2010 show. Many of our international customers also attended the show and we were able to network for new prospects,” says Little.

Schramm is a century-old Pennsylvania manufacturer and global supplier to the hydraulic drill industry, focusing on land-based applications.

Specialising in mobile, top-head hydraulic rotary drilling rigs, it supplies to companies in the mining, energy, geothermal and water sectors worldwide.

Currently, more than 75% of its revenues come from export sales, with its global reach including major market positions in China, Chile, Brazil, Australia, Russia and South Africa.

“However, we have had some success providing equipment for coring in the Canadian oil sands sector and we believe our expected growth in the Canadian market will be related to oil sands exploration and energy,” says Little.

The company’s drilling rigs played a pivotal role in the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners who, on August 5, were trapped some 700 m underground at the San Jose gold and copper mine in Chile’s northern Atacama desert.

The Chilean government called in drilling professionals to determine appropriate steps. Examination of the mine’s layout and emergency procedures suggested one possible area beneath the collapse where survivors (if any) might gather. A mechanics room was located about 700 m deep.

One of the obstacles of the rescue effort was a granite boulder weighing about 700 000 t, which had shifted and caused the collapse about 488 m from the surface.

High-speed exploration drilling rigs were called from neighboring mines to begin drilling. Of the nine exploration drilling rigs involved in the initial search for survivors, four were Schramm T685WS rigs, which are truck-mounted top-head drive rotary units and said to be one of the best reverse-circulation exploration drilling rigs in the world.

The T685WS is commonly used for angled penetration, enabling exploration drilling as great as 45˚ off vertical. This capability permits not just the initial discovery of a deposit, but also an estimation of its shape and size in subsequent (angled) borings. The T685WS can also drill to an approximate depth of 762 m, which placed the hopeful survival areas that were beneath the granite boulder (including the miners’ work area), well within the range of the rig.

Also very important, this rig type is capable of drilling with reverse-circulation down-the-hole hammers. For probe holes and boreholes through the high-density granite, they perform faster, better, and safer than any other configuration.

On August 22, a Schramm T685WS owned and operated by TerraService penetrated the target area. It was announced that all 33 miners who had been trapped underground were gathered there.

A second Schramm T685WS, owned and operated by Geotec Boyles Bros, reached the area five days later. In total, searchers drilled 30 probe holes looking for survivors. Two Schramm rigs hit the target and reached the miners.

With the search for survivors having succeeded, the rescue efforts began.

The rescue effort focused on one approach initially, called Plan A, which entailed the use of a Strata 950 raise borer to firstly drill a vertical pilot hole 381 mm in diameter into the chamber, and then to drill a second pass of 781 mm in diameter to permit raising and lowering of a rescue capsule.

The setup of the very large Strata 950, one of only five in operation in the world, was critical. Designed for near-true vertical or plumb drilling, the rig required placement directly above the miners, to prevent a near miss more than 610 m down. The initial positioning of the rig was critical and took time. Drilling began on August 30 and continued as rapidly as conditions and circumstances permitted.

The hope was that drilling would progress at about 20 m a day if uninterrupted, drilling would require about 40 days a pass, or 80 days in total, that is, unless the second pass could go faster.

By September 1, the 33 miners had been trapped underground for four weeks.

Meanwhile, a Schramm T130XD owned and operated by Geotec Boyles Bros had been drilling large-diameter boreholes for water extraction at another deep Chilean mine site about 1 000 km away.

At about 100 000 lb, the T130XD is larger than the T685W, but is also designed for rapid tear down and setup, and quick transport. Further, this particular rig was equipped with options that could contribute to the rescue effort.

Similar to the T685WS, the T130XD is suited for drilling with reverse-circulation down-the-hole hammers. When set up, it would drill much faster than the Strata 950, especially when drilling through Chilean granite.

Also, like the T685WS, the T130XD could drill well off a vertical axis. In effect, it could use one of the off-vertical probe holes already drilled as a pilot hole for the rescue portal. Doing so would eliminate the possibility of missing the miners’ chamber with an all-new pilot hole.

The particular T130XD in mind was equipped with Schramm’s highest-capacity top head, capable of drilling up to 711-mm diameter boreholes. The head also was equipped with a tilt-out feature for expedited and safer drill pipe and casing handling.

A large, but very mobile rig, the truck- mounted T130XD had an over-the-road weight of 100 000 lb or about one-half the weight of competitive rigs, and has a tele-scoping tower to improve road handling and manoeuvrability on streets and highways. Located at the Collahuasi mine, it was only a few days drive.

Geotec Boyles Bros and other professionals weighed possible advantages of bringing the T130XD on site.

Mine rescue officials decided to implement a Plan B to run simultaneously with Plan A. Upon arrival, the T130XD would enlarge the second 140-mm diameter probe hole with two passes. The first pass would increase its diameter to 305 mm and the second pass to 711 mm.

The T130XD arrived without incident on September 3, and setup commenced. Spare parts supplied through Schramm’s Chilean customer service centre Exploration Drill Masters arrived from Santiago to keep the rig and operation drilling 24/7. The T130XD, equipped with a pneumatic hammer low- profile canister drilling tool capable of 1 500 blows a minute provided by Center Rock, began its first pass to expand the borehole from 140 mm to 305 mm.

Meanwhile, Plan A continued, however, the Strata 950 was still making its initial pass for the 305-mm diameter pilot hole and had progressed only millimeters.

Plan B drilling proceeded quickly, but then on day 36 ran into a problem at 268 m deep, where the hammer bit struck what is believed to be a steel mine roofing bolt. The down-the-

hole hammer was damaged and detached from the rig, and needed to be extracted before drilling could resume.

As the world watched and the delay continued, Chilean officials opted to undertake a third plan, Plan C.

This plan called for use of a conventional triple oil derrick operated by Precision Drilling from Canada, which could drill a hole of adequate diameter to extract the miners in one pass. At 500 t, the RIG-422 was ten times the weight of the Schramm T130XD in use at the Plan B site. It could lift up to 350 000 lb, compared with 130 000 lb for the T130XD, and 2 090 000 lb for the Strata. It was also capable of drilling up to 3 219 m deep.

Arriving on September 10, in 42 truckloads, the Plan C rig was the largest drilling rig involved in the rescue. Setup began immediately and continued for more than a week. Drilling began eight days after arrival, on day 45.

However, the new rig encountered problems immediately upon reaching the extremely dense granite. Operators struggled and could not get the drill to bite. Officials concluded that the size of the rig did not equate to strength or effectiveness and the focus returned to Plan B. Efforts to extract the broken hammer continued at the Plan B site and after “four days” delay, drillers succeeded with an ingenious device called a “spider,” which mechanically wrapped itself around the tool and brought it to the surface.

Drilling resumed, but, like the Strata 950 involved in Plan A, which had not seen much progression, the Schramm T130XD was only 268 m deep, still on its first pass, but moving fast once again.

The T130XD completed its first pass on September 18, or day 45.

After only nine days of actual drilling, the rescuers had enlarged the probe hole from 140-mm diameter to 305-mm in diameter for its entire length (689 m). Meanwhile, Plan A’s Strata 950 had progressed further into its first (of two) passes.

Increasingly, it appeared that the Plan B borehole would become the actual rescue portal. If all went well, drillers were hopeful that their job might be completed by mid- October rather than mid-December,.

In preparation for its second pass, the T130XD was outfitted with a 305-mm to 711-mm expansion boring tool. The drilling would continue as quickly with this much larger down-the-hole hammer, which took full advantage of the rig’s high-capacity top head.

Drilling resumed on September 19. By September 28, drillers reached 301 m. By October 4, they reached 467 m.

Drillers and rescue officials proceeded with increasing caution as success appeared more imminent. The drillers worried because of a wrinkle in the final 30 m to the underground chamber, where the borehole took a change in direction. They continued drilling with the 711-mm diameter hammer, but were concerned that this could cause a twist, jam or break in the tooling.

As a precaution, the drillers chose to replace the 711-mm diameter hammer with a smaller, 660-mm hammer, delaying drilling efforts for ten hours.

Meanwhile, rescue officials grew concerned about the stability of the Plan B borehole itself. The rescue capsule that was planned to bring miners to the surface was 533 mm in diameter, and left little room for debris to pass between it and the walls of the borehole. A small rock could fall into the space, and jam the module midroute.

Officials decided to install 610-mm diameter steel casing in order to seal off the walls of the top 107 m of the borehole, where drillers had encountered loose rather than solid rock. The T130XD, with its optional tilt-out head, expedited handling of both the drill pipe and casing for this effort.

On October 9 (day 65), drillers completed the larger diameter boring. The T130XD rig, in combination with the reverse-circulation down-the-hole hammer drills, had completed two passes – 1 260 m in all – in a total of 33 days.

Efforts surrounding Plans A and C were discontinued.

The Plan B borehole, drilled by the Schramm rigs, was used to rescue the miners, who were all pulled from the entrapment area beginning on October 12 (day 69).

Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter

Alta. driller lends rig to Chile mine rescueLast Updated: Thursday, September 9, 2010 | 6:33 PM MT

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A rig owned by Calgary-based Precision Drilling Corporation will be used to help remove the 33 men trapped underground. (CBC)

A Calgary-based drilling company is aiding efforts to free Chilean miners trapped underground for nearly five weeks.

One of Precision Drilling Corporation's rigs has been transported by about 40 trucks to the site where 33 men have been trapped in a collapsed mine.

Rig 421, manufactured by Texas-based National Oilwell Varco, was already in storage in the South American nation.

Company president and CEO Kevin Neveu said the rescue operation is being led by the Chilean government, but that his company is pleased to be able to help with such an important job.

As part of the so-called Plan C rescue effort, the rig will bore down some 600 metres to try to reach the men, Chilean officials said.

Rig 421 is capable of drilling down about 20 to 40 metres a day.

The work could start in a little more than a week.

The miners have already been told they might not be freed until Christmas, but the rig could help speed up the rescue effort.

Precision Drilling is a 50-year-old company that claims to be one of the biggest oilfield services companies in North America. It owns and operates about 350 rigs.

From collapse to rescue: Inside the Chile mine disasterPublished On Sun Oct 10 2010

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Relatives of the trapped miners celebrate after one of the drills working to rescue the 33 finally reached their shelter in the San Jose mine, near Copiapo, Chile on October 9, 2010.

ARIEL MARINKOVIC/AFP/Getty Images

Jennifer Yang Staff Reporter

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SAN JOSE MINE, CHILE—In early August, 33 miners descended deep below the dusty surface of Chile’s Atacama Desert and did not come back out.

From the depths of a century-old gold and copper mine, the men — 32 Chileans and one Bolivian — have since celebrated birthdays, welcomed new babies into their lives, proposed to their lovers.

But on Saturday, more than two months after a rock collapse sealed the Mina San Jose, or San Jose Mine, a rescue hole was finally completed for the miners.

Their escape is now imminent, arriving weeks earlier than expected, and within days, the miners will once again breathe fresh air and feel the desert sun on their faces. They will be able to eat birthday cake, hold their children, kiss their women on the lips.

But these miners will not return to the lives they remember. When they descended down that hole, they were anonymous men, 33 out of thousands of miners trying to eke out a living chipping away at rock. This week, they will return to the world as celebrities.

Never before have so many men survived being trapped underground for so long — nor has the world ever witnessed a rescue operation of such complexity and depth — one that has had a Canadian presence from the start.

Half a century ago, trapped miners were considered lost causes. A caved-in mine would simply be sealed off and crosses would be hammered into the ground.

Shortly after the Mina San Jose collapse on Thursday, Aug. 5, miners in the area were already placing wooden crosses outside its entrance, some hung with helmets and miners’ lamps.

But for the rescue team, leaving those men to die in that hole was never an option.

In today’s Chile — an economic superpower in South America with a multi-billion-dollar mining industry — there is no shortage of technology or resources available, and experts from around the world have united in the rescue effort.

It has been a giant task, getting to the men trapped under 700 metres of granite. Hundreds have contributed, but one of the first to go after the miners was Raul Villegas.

Villegas, a grizzled 57-year-old truck driver with a missing finger, was the last miner to escape the Mina San Jose collapse. He was also nearly the only one killed.

About 2 p.m. on that fateful day, Villegas had just finished filling his truck with rock when he heard a loud crack. He was 600 metres below the surface and dust was filling the cavern but in that moment, Villegas was only faintly concerned — he was used to the sounds of crumbling rock and moaning earth. The mine, owned by a company called San Esteban, is notoriously dangerous in the mineral-rich region and, according to an official with the Chilean Safety Association, eight workers have died at the mine in 12 years.

As Villegas ascended the spiralling ramps of the mine, he passed Frank Lobos, an ex-soccer player who was heading down the mine to fetch some men for lunch, and Mario Gomez, one of his oldest friends. Villegas joked with Lobos and mentioned the strange disturbances to Gomez but both men continued down the mine, disappearing into the darkness.

Closer to the surface, a cloud of dust suddenly overtook Villegas’s truck, enveloping him in dirt and darkness. Just as he began to see the light at the surface, there was a massive collapse.

“I felt an expansive wave, like when there is a dynamite explosion,” Villegas recalled. “The truck’s engine almost went off.”

Villegas burst from the mine and into the glaring desert sun. Looking back, he saw a huge cloud of dust streaming from the mine’s opening. It looked as though a volcano had erupted.

Villegas reported the accident to his manager but it would be hours before they notified authorities. Villegas was sent down the mine along with some of the other mine workers but after descending about 400 metres, he realized the ramp was gone. Villegas could hear the hill groaning and he was frightened.

About 700,000 tonnes of rock — more than six times the volume of all the concrete in Toronto’s CN Tower — had collapsed in the mine, cutting off ramps and destroying the mine’s ventilation shaft. It was later revealed that a ladder was missing from this shaft, which might have allowed the miners to escape.

The Atacama region’s six-person special operations emergency squad was called in and entered the mine at 9 p.m., seven hours after the collapse. They would not emerge until 6 a.m. the next day — shaken, drenched in sweat and empty-handed.

By the next morning, relatives and reporters had begun arriving on the site, demanding answers. A handful of pirquineros, or independent miners, later showed up with shovels and machines, pledging to sacrifice their own lives to dig out the trapped men.

After the special operations squad failed a second time to enter the mine, the Chilean government began to assemble its own rescue team. It recruited the help of Codelco, the state-owned mining company and the largest copper producer in the world. One of Codelco’s operations, El Teniente, is the world’s biggest underground mining operation and has experts trained for such emergencies. Two of El Teniente’s best men — engineer Andre Sougarret and Rene Aguilar, a risk management expert — were lent to the rescue operation full-time. The miners’ lives were now in their hands.

The Codelco-led team would spend nearly a week trying to secure the mine for a final attempt at rescuing the men through the main opening. But rocks continued collapsing, at one

point sending rescuers running from the tunnels, and geotechnical instruments confirmed the earth was not finished moving.

That rescue strategy was abandoned. At the base of the mine, anguished relatives were distraught to see the fire trucks and ambulances on scene suddenly driving away.

But Codelco had a second plan hatching — there was another way to get the men out without using the mine’s main tunnel. Chile is a mining country and they would do what they always did when it came to extricating precious objects from deep inside the ground.

They would drill.

While few Chileans dared say it out loud, most of the country felt the miners were probably dead. But Fidel Báez believed in his heart they were alive.

Days after the collapse, Báez was reading emails in his office at Codelco’s headquarters in Santiago, about 800 kilometres south of the Mina San Jose. When news of the accident broke, mining and drilling companies from around the world began contacting the Chilean government with offers of help or ideas on how the rescue could be conducted. Báez, Codelco’s corporate manager for underground mines, was asked to sift through the emails and find the one that held the answer.

Báez estimates he received proposals from more than 25 companies in at least seven different countries. It was soon determined that there were nine drills available near the Mina San Jose that could be quickly mobilized and delivered to the site. They would punch 14-centimetre holes in the ground until one made contact with the miners.

Rescuers had topography plans for the mine but Báez says much of the information was inaccurate. The Mina San Jose, first exploited in 1889, is about 800 metres deep, the first 400 metres of it dug in the early 20th century. Much information has been lost along the way.

It was predicted the miners had probably made their way to a refuge chamber 700 metres below the surface — comparatively, the CN Tower is about 550 metres tall. The nine drill rigs were set up in an arc formation, most pointing their drill bits toward that target.

There was no real plan behind the drilling and 15 holes were ultimately pierced through the ground in a frantic, haphazard effort to reach the miners. Some drills encountered problems along the way; two were unable to dig deeper than 500 metres and another hit an unexpected cavern in the mine.

Kelvin Brown, an Australian drilling expert who flew to Chile to assist, recalls the chaos of having nine drills pounding into the rocky terrain in such close proximity.

“Everyone was trying very hard and very fast but it was a little bit hopeless in the early days,” Brown says. “It was just a real lot of people, too many people . . . they just drilled very fast.”

By that point, relatives of the miners had begun moving into a makeshift tent village at the entrance of the mine, dubbed Campamento Esperanza, or Camp Hope. As time wore on and

despair deepened, the families had a standoff with the local police, or carabineros, frustrated by the slow pace of the rescue and demanding to be allowed on the site.

“It was getting extremely tense outside the gates where the families were,” Brown says. “It became very heated and emotional and it was like a powder keg.”

But the next morning, between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., the rescue operation had its first breakthrough. Seventeen days after the collapse, one of the drills — a Schramm T685 operated by the Chilean company Terraservice — hit a cavernous space deep inside the mine.

They knew the drill had hit an opening because the air pressure disappeared. The drill was turned off and lowered into the hole.

Then, a distant tapping was felt on the end of the drill. As it was pulled back to the surface, rescuers were stunned to discover two notes tied to the probe.

They were both written by Mario Gomez, the oldest of the miners. One was addressed to his wife, Lilianett Ramirez; the other was a now infamous message that has been reproduced on T-shirts and billboards, written in red letters. It said: “Estamos bien en el refugio los 33,” or “we are fine in the refuge, all 33 of us.”

The entire country erupted in jubilant celebration at the stunning discovery and Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, was flown to the Mina San Jose, where he brandished the note before media and elated family members. The miners became instant national heroes and in the nearby town of Copiapó, where many of the miners live, the sound of honking horns filled the narrow streets.

The miners were alive, having survived on meagre rations of tuna and milk. But the question now was how they would be kept that way — and how they would get out. The initial drill holes — three of which ultimately reached the miners — were only 14 centimetres wide, just large enough to fit a grapefruit. Rescuers would need a hole of about 71 centimetres to hoist the men out.

Báez had been doing research and learned of past rescue operations that used drills to reach trapped miners, who were then lifted out in rescue cages.

This became the plan for the Mina San Jose miners, and rescuers decided they would need three drills working 24 hours a day. The drills were dubbed Plans A, B and C — if one failed, there would be two more keeping the rescue on track. The miners had access to about two kilometres of galleries inside the mine and three targets were chosen for the drilling — the refuge chamber, a workshop in the mine and a ramp about 600 metres below ground.

Each drill uses a different method. The Plan A drill, mainly used for creating ventilation shafts in underground mines, is known as a raise borer, meaning it drills a pilot hole first before using a reamer to widen the opening from the far end. The drill in Plan B is used for everything from mining to geothermal energy exploration and has a rotopercussion drilling system — one used in past rescue efforts. Plan C uses a massive drill rig from Alberta, designed primarily for oil and gas exploration.

Never before have three such different drills worked side-by-side toward the same purpose.

Ideally, once the rescue hole is drilled, the shaft will be encased with steel pipe, thus ensuring the safest possible journey back to the surface.

Three metal rescue capsules were also manufactured by the Chilean navy to lift out the miners. Painted in the blue, white and red colours of the Chilean flag, the 419-kilogram capsules were dubbed “Phoenix.”

It was an ambitious undertaking and there was plenty of room for mistakes. The real challenge, rescuers knew, was only just beginning.

Plan A

Perched on the side of a mountain at the Mina San Jose is a white drill rig flying a Chilean flag. On the front, there is a brass plaque, the words “Strata 950” stamped across in red lettering. This is the drill for Plan A. Although set against the seemingly Martian landscape of the Atacama Desert, it resembles a small spaceship.

The Strata 950 was the first drill recruited to assist with the rescue efforts. Shortly after the miners were discovered alive, a company called Terracem — a joint-venture between the Chilean-based drilling company Terraservice and an international engineering group named Cementation — presented rescuers with an idea. They had a powerful little machine capable of drilling in a perfectly straight line, reaming holes up to 1,000 metres deep and six metres wide.

There are only five Strata 950s in the world, and this one happened to be in Chile already. It is owned by a Canadian company, Cementation Canada Inc., but at the time of the mine collapse, it was working for a Codelco-owned copper mine called Andina, located some 80 kilometres northeast of Santiago.

The drill was quickly mobilized and moved to the Mina San Jose. The team needed a site supervisor, someone familiar with this particular type of directional drill, and the man they wanted was Glen Fallon, a Cementation driller from North Bay, Ont.

Fallon, a giant of a man who wears size 15 construction boots, was sitting in an underground mine in Timmins when he received the call from his boss.

“Get your ass back to North Bay. You’re flying to Chile tomorrow,” he was told.

Fallon arrived in Chile about a week after the miners were discovered alive. His crew, consisting of some South Africans and local Chileans, hit the ground running and hustled to set up the 28.5-tonne machine as quickly as possible.

“It was very hectic when we first got here,” Fallon recalls. “It was, ‘Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.’ ”

Fallon found himself grappling with several challenges unique to this particular operation. For one, the rig requires about 105 cubic metres of water to operate, both to lubricate the drilling process and to flush the rock cuttings back up to the surface. And water is not exactly easy to come by in the middle of a desert.

Among the Strata’s biggest virtues is its ability to drill a perfectly straight hole. Because of this, the Plan A rig was placed directly over the miners’ refuge chamber — a spot that also happens to be on the side of a mountain.

As the drill bores downwards, data is fed up to Fallon’s laptop every two minutes. He watches his screen intently and looks for zeroes — that means the drill is staying on track. Every so often the numbers deviate to 0.05 or 0.07, which indicates the drill has begun to wander off track. When this happens, a special apparatus behind the drill bit — called a rotary vertical drilling system — senses the deviation and pushes the drill bit back on track. The numbers always return to zero.

The Strata is a raise borer, which means it must drill twice — three drill bits are used create an initial pilot hole, about 38 centimetres in diameter, then that hole is widened to 72 centimetres by reaming from the bottom up.

But of the three drill rigs, Plan A has had the farthest distance to dig, just under 702 metres. It has also been the slowest. When Plan B began the final widening of its 628-metre hole, Plan A was only at 320 metres of its initial pilot hole.

“It works in a constant process, every day it’s going well,” said Rene Aguilar, the second-in-command of the rescue operation.

“But the disadvantage is the time,” he adds. “We call it the turtle plan.”

Another complication with the Strata is that it typically reams from the bottom to the top — after the pilot is drilled, the reaming head is brought to the bottom and attached to the end of a drill string so the loose rock falls down as the drill works its way up.

But of course, it is impossible to get a full-sized reaming head down to the bottom of the Mina San Jose. To solve this problem, a special reaming head was manufactured for the operation by Mining Technologies International in Sudbury, Ont. The custom tool’s components can be lowered down the pilot hole and assembled by the trapped miners below.

Fallon has not been overly concerned by the pace of his drill. Slow and steady is the only way to go — his target, the refuge chamber, is not very large, about two metres by two and a half metres. Missing was not an option.

“We will hit the target,” he said confidently a few weeks ago, lifting up a finger and moving it downwards in one swift, straight line. “Guaranteed we will hit the target. We will.”

The self-professed control freak — nicknamed the Crazy Canuck at the Mina San Jose — runs a tight ship, and when he hears a strange rattling in one of the water pumps, he stops talking mid-sentence and briskly walks over, running a hand along one of the pipes like a concerned rancher checking a horse’s leg. When a cameraman from one of the many documentary crews covering the rescue operation stuck his head inside a piece of machinery, Fallon had him kicked out and restricted future access to media.

“I’ve been told I’m a bit intimidating,” he says with a wry grin.

Fallon insists there has been no competition between Plan A and the other two drills. At the end of the day, there are 33 beating hearts at the bottom of his hole.

“The first people to get these people out, I’ll be the first to shake their hand,” he said. “It’s very humbling to be involved in this.”

PLAN B

After initial contact was made with the miners in August, two of the three small drill holes were converted into lifelines for the trapped men. For the past two months, two of these those holes have been used to send materials and food down to the miners in plastic tubes nicknamed palomas, or doves. Everything the miners need to survive has had to fit through those 14-centimetre openings.

One of the palomas is used for piping water and oxygen into the mine; it has also been threaded with telephone lines and a fibre-optic cable for video conferencing. According to the lead psychologist, Alberto Iturra, some 250 psychiatric experts have contributed to keeping the miners sane, and a doctor from the Chilean army has also been training the men for their final rescue, playing them exercise videos that demonstrate squats and lunges. The miners are also building their pulmonary resistance, singing as they exercise, so doctors will know when they are running short on breath.

The second paloma hole is being used to send down food. The meals have been carefully planned by a nutritionist with the Chilean health ministry in Santiago and the miners are maintaining a diet of about 2,500 calories per day to keep them trim enough for the final rescue.

The third hole that reached the miners in August has become the basis for the Plan B drill, a Schramm T-130.

This drill, owned by the Chilean mining company GeoTech, has been typically used for drilling deep-water wells. It arrived at the Mina San Jose from Collahuasi, one of the biggest copper mines in Chile.

If Plan A has been the turtle, Plan B has been the hare. A special drill system has been brought in for the Schramm T-130, one that uses a cluster of five pistons and bits in a single drill head, all working together to pulverize the ground at 1,500 blows per minute.

The drill is like a “glorified jackhammer,” according to Brandon Fisher, founder and president of Pennsylvania-based Center Rock Inc., which manufactures the system.

This is not the first rescue mission Fisher has been involved with. When he first heard that the Chilean rescue operation might take until Christmas, Fisher got on the Internet and began researching — what were the depths, the rock type, the geological conditions of the Mina San Jose?

Fisher was convinced his company could help the rescue move quicker. In 2002, Centre Rock was involved in a mission to rescue nine miners who were trapped underground for more than 77 hours at the Quecreek mine in Pennsylvania.

In some ways, the Quecreek mission was similar to the Mina San Jose operation — drills were used to create rescue holes for the trapped miners, who were ultimately pulled from the ground in rescue cages.

But at Quecreek, the trapped miners were only about 60 metres below the surface. At the Mina San Jose, Plan B is aiming for a workshop in the mine that is 628 metres below ground.

Still, Fisher felt he could pull the rescue off and cobbled together a PowerPoint presentation explaining his drilling system. Rescue organizers were sold and Fisher arrived in Chile on Sept. 4.

Plan B had an automatic advantage because its pilot hole was already in place by the time it started work. But because the final diameter must be so large, the hole had to be widened in two steps; first to 30 centimetres and then again to 71.

When Plan B finished its initial widening on Sept. 17, the miners — who have organized themselves into three work shifts — began contributing to the operation by using a front-end loader underground to remove the rock cuttings that drop to the bottom.

For all its speed, however, Plan B has also encountered the most problems of the three drills. It has the curviest trajectory — the hole is shaped like a rainbow near the top and becomes progressively more vertical as it deepens.

Because of the angles, the first 300 metres of drilling were riddled with problems. In the second week of September, Plan B’s drill also hit a reinforcement beam in the mine and shattered its bit. The chunk had to be fished out before drilling could continue — a process that involved estimating the angle of the drill bit and then designing the necessary tools to grab it out.

In the United States, fishing out that broken piece would have taken one or two days, Fisher says. In Chile, it required five, mainly because equipment had to be sent in from the States.

Fisher has been working around the clock at the Plan B site, sometimes going three days without returning to his hotel for a shower.

He says the Chilean government is paying for his time and equipment — “that’s the plan anyway.” But he is not at the Mina San Jose for the money. He is there for the miners.

“I don’t know that there’s 10 minutes that you’re out here that you don’t look down there and think, ‘There’s 33 guys 600 feet below our feet,’ ” he said. “Whenever you’re tired, it’s real easy to think, ‘Hey, I’m out here seeing sunlight and breathing fresh air. It’s time to suck it up and get these guys out of here.’ ”

PLAN C

In the mining town of Copiapó, about 45 minutes from the Mina San Jose, is a hotel called Las Pircas. For the past several weeks, its dining room has been transformed into something that resembles a northern Alberta pub.

Every day, for breakfast and supper, a few dozen men trickle into the dining room wearing Oilers caps or Calgary Flames sweatshirts. They smoke and drink coffee and talk with distinctly Canadian accents.

This is the Plan C crew, a team of about a dozen Canadians working on an oil and gas exploration rig owned by Calgary-based Precision Drilling Corp. The machine, called a Rig 421, was the third and final drill to arrive for the rescue dig.

A Chilean company, ENAP, is spearheading the Plan C operation and Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services provider, was contracted to design the well.

But Precision has supplied the equipment and the men, all of whom were hand-selected by Shaun Robstad, a Precision field superintendent from Okotoks, Alta., just outside of Calgary.

Robstad first caught wind of the fact that Precision might be assisting with the Chilean rescue three days before the miners were discovered alive. A week later, he was en route to South America.

This is not Robstad’s first trip to Chile. In 2007, Precision shipped a 39-metre-high rig from Sundre, Alta., to Iquique, a port city in northern Chile. Robstad accompanied the drill rig, which was brought down to explore for gas. After two unsuccessful attempts, the rig was packed up and placed in storage.

“That’s where it sat until I got the call to come here,” Robstad says.

But when Robstad arrived in northern Chile to retrieve the rig, he discovered several parts had been stolen. All of the electrical cables were missing, as well as some beams. Most of the copper — Chile’s most precious commodity — had been stripped.

In any case, Robstad and his men packed up the massive rig and drove it 1,102 kilometres to the Mina San Jose. The journey required two days and 46 trucks.

To get on the work site, the caravan of trucks first had to pass through Camp Hope, the tent village that has sprung up at the base of the mine. The makeshift camp has amassed a startling amount of infrastructure, complete with a cafeteria, a school and even free Wi-Fi Internet service. It is a bizarre little universe where local mining families commingle with international journalists from as far away as Germany and Japan.

Every time a new piece of rescue equipment is delivered to the Mina San Jose, it is received with great fanfare. But the Precision Drill was perhaps the most anticipated addition to the ongoing rescue efforts, and when it arrived on site, people rushed from their tents and greeted the rig with applause and cheers. The Chilean president also attended the unveiling of the Precision drill, shaking Robstad’s hand and asking, “Who’s going to get there first?”

“It received a lot of hype, that’s for sure,” Robstad says. “The locals had a nickname for it, the Transformer. It comes here in pieces and then you put it together and the next thing you know, you see the giant mast going up in the air.”

The machine is indeed the largest of the three drills, requiring an area the size of a soccer field, about 70 metres by 110 metres — though even that is far too small a workspace, Robstad says.

The diesel-electric drill rig is powered by three generators and referred to as a “triple,” both because of its mast height and the drill’s ability to lift three joints of nine-metre-long pipe onto the drilling floor at a time. The drill is spun by a 95-centimetre rotary table and can hit depths of about 3,200 metres — though usually it doesn’t drill holes as wide as those required for this rescue.

Nonetheless, Plan C had a speed advantage because it didn’t need a pilot hole — it could drill the final diameter in just one go. The Precision drill’s challenge, however, has been to manoeuvre around an underground gallery before heading toward its target, a ramp 598 metres below the ground. This means Plan C had to drill vertically for the first 40 metres, after which it began boring at a seven degree angle.

Like the other drills, Plan C is staffed by two full crews 24 hours a day. An electrician and mechanic are always on site, standing by in case something goes wrong.

Like the other two drills, Plan C has had its good and bad moments. Some days, it can drill 50 metres; on others, it only clears 12.

“We’re getting lots of criticism saying we’re slow . . . but you have to remember it’s a big hole,” Robstad said. “You’re trying to steer it, you’re trying to get it the right way. People thought we were going to come in here and drill 100 metres, 1,000 metres a day.”

Robstad is mindful of the fact that the entire country — and much of the world — has been scrutinizing his work on the drill. Every so often, his men take a break and go out in Copiapó but Robstad has imposed a strict no-drinking rule. “I don’t want my guys showing up on the front page of the paper,” he said.

Robstad insists the only pressure he feels is from himself. And when he calls home to his 11-year-old girl, McKenzie, she always asks: “When are you going to get them out?”

Every morning, the Plan C crew meets inside its office on site to discuss the progress overnight and the plan for the new day. Inevitably, someone will mention the miners.

“It comes up every day: ‘I wonder what it’s like down there,’ ” Robstad said. “I don’t think they went to work that day thinking they wouldn’t be getting out.”

On Saturday morning, the sound of bells and truck horns suddenly filled the air at the Mina San Jose. It was a message of triumph — Plan B had completed drilling its rescue hole.

In Camp Hope, family members cheered, cried and waved Chilean flags. On the drill site, Champagne was sprayed and hard hats tumbled off as rescue workers hugged each other and shouted for joy.

It will still be days before the miners can be lifted out, however, and rescue planners are now determining whether the hole will be cased with steel pipe.

Plan B was always going to be the most difficult hole to encase, thanks to its winding trajectory. Seventy-two sections of steel pipe have been shipped to the Mina San Jose but according to a source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, GeoTech will likely bring in its own steel piping, which is manufactured slightly thinner and is easier to bend. The tentative plan is to encase the top 70 metres of the hole only, the source said.

When it comes time to hoist the 33 men up, a medic will descend into the hole to assess their condition. It has not been revealed yet in what order they will be rescued, but the likely scenario is that the strongest miner will go first, followed by the weakest, and then the rest will follow. The shift leader at the time of the collapse, foreman Luis Urzua, is expected to come up last.

The men will be hoisted up wearing Oakley sunglasses to protect their eyes from the blazing sunlight. After stepping foot on the surface, they will be treated initially in a field hospital, reuniting briefly with up to three relatives, and then flying by helicopter to a hospital in Copiapó, where they will remain for at least 48 hours.

Industry insiders say the disaster at the Mina San Jose will change the mining industry in Chile forever. Since the collapse, top officials with the country’s mining regulating body have been sacked and dozens of small mines have been shut down.

The sensational rescue operation has also captured Chile’s imagination and united the country behind a common cause. The country’s president and its mining minister, Laurence Golborne, have both seen their approval ratings skyrocket since the disaster.

Ongoing investigations continue to examine what caused the collapse at the Mina San Jose but early reports suggest support structures were weakened by overzealous mining. Families have already launched lawsuits against the company, as well as the government.

Nobody knows what will become of the mine after everything is over, but rescue planner Rene Aguilar thinks it should be shut down permanently. The gigantic piece of rock that caused the collapse is still perched in the mine at a precarious angle and could fall again.

“It could happen in the next five minutes or the next two years, nobody knows,” he said.

Like the hundreds of others who have been involved in the rescue on this dusty stretch of desert, Aguilar has put his life on hold for these 33 men. He has not left the mine area since he arrived after the collapse and Aguilar has had little time to tend to his full-time work at El Teniente or to his wife, who is pregnant with their fourth child.

But the significance of what they are on the cusp of accomplishing is not lost on him.

“We feel we’re doing the job for those miners, their families, our country,” Aguilar says quietly. “I think we are making history here.”

With files from Associated Press

Shining Stars of the Chilean Miners’ RescueOn October 23, 2010, in Commentary, by Juliet Bonnay

Jeff Hart, left, and Matt Staffel embrace Elizabeth Segovia, sister of trapped miner Dario Segovia Rojo at the San Jose mine.

An email arrived from an American friend asking if I knew who the driller was who broke through to the miners. He went on, “They seemed to forget that story on the nightly news the last couple of days when the president of Chile is saying how great Chile is and what they have accomplished… Sometimes it ticks me off that we only get bad press, but when things turn to sh*t in this world, who’s phone rings?”

He had a point about the bad press. There was so much of it after the BP oil spill that I went in search of more information about the driller in question. And my interest was piqued by a story that hadn’t emerged during the reality TV-like coverage of the rescue saga. Dramas, as we see in the movies, allow many stars to shine that might not otherwise get that chance. And this was true in this real life drama as well.

The first star I discovered was topographer, Macarena Valdes, a thirty-year-old woman in a profession dominated by men. She helped set the direction of the drilling rigs that sent probes deep into the rock to try to locate surviving miners. During the 17 days it took to find the miners alive, she put up with teasing and the Chilean miners’ superstition that having a woman there would bring bad luck.

But Ms. Valdes followed a hunch. She always shifted the angle of the drill about one degree lower than recommended by geologists to adjust for vibration in the drilling rig. Drilling to over 2000 feet, one degree could mean a difference of several feet. Ms. Valdes likened the difficulty of the task to “using a shotgun to hit a mosquito at 700 meters.” And it took over thirty probes before the miners’ note told them they were alive. “It was 75 percent engineering and 25 percent a miracle,” Ms. Valdes said. Perhaps her courage to follow a hunch will now become an omen of luck for the miners.

With drills working overtime to provide lifelines to keep the miners alive, experts were called in to monitor the miners’ health and well-being for what would surely be a lengthy rescue operation. Long tubes, or palomas (Spanish for carrier pigeons), stuffed with essentials and the latest technology to keep the men comfortable and connected with the rest of the world, went endlessly back and forth through these narrow holes. One even carried wigs – a bizarre request from Mario Sepúlveda Espina, the second miner pulled from the shaft who came bearing gifts of rock and ran around doing high fives. He wore one of the wigs in front of a video monitor, joking about what shampoo did to his hair.

Next came the tricky part of drilling a hole wide enough for the men to get through, and finding a way to pull them nearly half a mile (about 600 meters) to the surface.  Clinton

Cragg, part of NASA’s four man team dispatched to Chile after a request for assistance, worked with Chilean Navy Cmdr. Renato Navarro, who directed the team of Chilean naval engineers charged with creating the rescue vehicle. After assessing the situation, Cragg returned to his office and enlisted the help of 20 NASA engineers to come up with a design. After three days they had compiled a list of 75 elements needed, including the wheels to prevent metal scraping on rock, an escape hatch, communication, and an oxygen tank.

The Chileans incorporated most of these elements into a final design based on modified versions of the Dahlbusch Bomb, a 1955 German designed capsule used in the 1963 Wunder von Lengede (Miracle of Lengede) mine rescue of 11 men. Then they set about building three rescue capsules while drilling began on the escape route for “Plan A”. South African construction giant Murray & Roberts had supplied a drilling rig, along with six engineers. The prediction was that it would probably take until Christmas to rescue the miners.

However on one of the billboards used during President Sebastian Pinera’s campaign earlier in the year, was the message “Small businesses, Big opportunities.” After reading about the driller who broke through, I discovered that his becoming a hero hinged on a small business making a big difference to the miners’ early rescue.

That small business was a specialist drilling firm called Center Rock Inc., situated in Berlin, Pennsylvania, and founded by Brandon Fisher when he was just twenty-six years old. Fisher was convinced he could do the job quicker with the low profile drill his company had developed. Its four air powered hammers could fracture rock faster than conventional rotary tools, making it ideal to use on the hard volcanic rock in the San Hose mine.

Fisher had used a similar drill head to rescue nine miners trapped for over 78 hours in Pennsylvania in 2002. But despite his experience, he couldn’t get anyone to listen to him. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think anyone had a whole lot of faith in us,” he said.

Valuable time was lost. It seemed that no one understood the technology. But Greg Hall did. The South American arm of his own small Texas firm, Drillers Supply International, was already involved in the rescue using one of his drills for the probes. It put him in a good position to convince the Chilean government and rescue co-ordinators that Fisher’s plan was a good one: to sacrifice one of the miners’ supply holes to guide Hall’s Schramm T130 drilling pipe (made by Pennsylvanian company, Schramm, Inc.), with Fisher’s air-powered drill heads, to punch a 12 inch hole through 2,050 feet of granite, and then widen it to 26 inches to accommodate the rescue capsule. Using this plan, Fisher estimated that the miners could be out before November.

When the rescue co-ordinators finally gave the plan the go-ahead, the call went out for Jeff Hart (who was drilling wells for American troops in Afghanistan) to lead the drill team. He had the reputation for being the “best in the world” at drilling large holes with the T130 drill.

This then, became “Plan B”. But just in case it didn’t work, “Plan C” was on the way. A convoy of forty trucks was bringing a massive Canadian built oil drilling rig that could drill a wide enough escape shaft in a single pass without needing to drill a pilot hole.

But Fisher believed in his drills so much that he delivered them personally and stayed at the site for the entire drilling operation, which began on September 05. It was tough going. A steel roofing bolt heavily damaged the drill hammers part way through drilling the 12 inch

hole. Drilling stopped for four days to remove pieces with powerful magnets. Fisher’s employees worked around the clock back home to manufacture and ship replacement parts. Work that normally took two weeks to complete was finished in a couple of days, Fisher said. Although the drill hammers could cut through 40 meters (131 feet) of rock a day, Fisher gave his workers full credit for the speed at which “Plan B” progressed.

And this was the strong foundation upon which lead driller, Jeff Hart, was able to stand tall. Like a sailor at the helm of a yacht who feels through his hands the right pressure to apply to keep the yacht on course, Jeff felt the drill’s vibrations through his feet, enabling him to guide it through hard rock and broken sections that tried to pull the drill off course. This is a special talent, for what slowed the rigs down on Plans A and B was that they kept going off course. True to his name, Jeff Hart also had the heart and a strong will to break through to the miners because, as he said, “There is nothing more important than saving, possibly saving 33 lives.”

It was tense in the “Plan B” camp the day before they broke through. Hart admitted that he was nervous. “I didn’t want anything to go wrong,” he said. He wasn’t the only one. Anxiously waiting families were disappointed when drilling stopped to change to smaller drill bits to give Hart greater control over the drill. His focus was on risk reduction rather than racing ahead to get through to the miners, conscious that the walls could collapse around them when the drill broke through. Thus began a 10-hour operation to remove the drilling pipes from the hole and then feed them back down.

Greg Hall was also nervous watching his drill tower shudder during the operation. He told a television news reporter that it wasn’t a good sign and began to fear that Plan B might fail if they didn’t get the pipes down the hole again, which is how they can ‘lose’ a hole.

But Jeff Hart managed the feed and resumed drilling late at night while the miners’ families kept a midnight vigil with prayer, song and contemplation. Finally at 8:02 the following morning, Hart felt the drill break through.

For Hart and his team, 33 gruelling days were over. Quietly spoken and unassuming, the man who seemed more comfortable behind the scenes than in the spotlight said, “You put an overwhelming stress on yourself because there are lives at stake.” Not only was it hard to stay on course, it was hard on the drill bits, he said. “We fought forever it seemed like, trying to get this hole down. And it fought back.”

But if Greg Hall hadn’t taken Fisher’s ideas seriously and convince the rescue operation’s manager to give Fisher’s drill bits a go, Jeff Hart would not have been the hero who punched through to the miners, winning the three-way race. And “little” would not have become “big”.

It is interesting how things turn out. One choice…one decision, can change the whole course of events – regardless of the expertise and ingenuity offered in such a rescue bid. Hopes were pinned on “big” – Plan C’s massive Canadian rig – to break through to the men first. But as one of Center Rock’s employees, Tom Foy said, “We proved that Center Rock is a little company, but they do big things.” Foy, incidentally, was one of the miners Fisher helped to rescue from the collapsed Pennsylvanian mine.

From this it is plain to see there are many heroes. Though Hart was the lead driller, a cast of hundreds supported him and the whole rescue operation. Matt Staffel, who had also been

drilling water wells in Afghanistan, worked on the drill with Hart, along with Doug Reeves and Jorge Herrera, who told his wife that his knees wobbled when he arrived at the mine. It was a huge team effort with a very long list of credits.

But of all the stories I read that came out of this remarkable rescue, Hart’s and Fisher’s appeal to me the most because they turned “little” into “big”. And what is even more impressive to me is that they didn’t hang around like glamorous movie stars on the ‘red carpet’ of media attention. Brandon Fisher and his team returned home to watch the rest of the rescue on television. And while Hart told a TV reporter he felt “on top of the world” after he broke through, he returned with his team to Santiago to also watch the rescue mission from afar. Simply, he wanted this to become the miners’ and their families’ story.

However, if we must have just one star, to me it is Brandon Fisher, who so believed he could speed up the rescue with his drill bits that ‘Plan B’s escape route reached the miners in just thirty-three days. The motto on his Center Rock Inc. website is: Drill Faster. Run Harder. Work Smarter. For a man who didn’t finish college, he certainly showed how his love for what he does won a precious early release for the miners trapped in a mine that government officials allowed to re-open in 2008 – even though it still failed to meet safety regulations. As the miners found out, there was no ladder in the ventilation shaft they first turned to as their escape route. Perhaps a few mining companies could learn a thing or two from Brandon Fisher’s philosophy: get the job done as safely and efficiently as possible.

Footnote:

Greg Hall contacted me to ask if I would acknowledge that personnel from his company (Drillers Supply) were at the job site with Brandon Fisher and his crew the entire 33 days. He especially wants to acknowledge the important roles his General Manager, Mijali Proestakis and Technical Manager, Igor, played in the rescue.

An edited version of this post was published at Scoop, an on-line New Zealand news web site.

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Chile drilling rig halts miners' rescue for repairs

From: AFP September 10, 2010 8:44AM

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ONE of the drilling machines being used in the effort to free 33 trapped Chilean miners halted for two days of repairs as a third machine arrived at the site, rescue officials said overnight.

The Schramm T-130 shut down late on Wednesday after digging some 268 metres, according to lead engineer Andres Sougarret.

The shutdown was planned to replace a bolt, and Mr Sougarret said it would take 48 hours to get the rig back in operation.

The T-130 is one of three machines being used in the all-out effort that could take months to rescue the miners trapped at a depth of 700 meters since August 5.

Heading the "Plan B" effort, it had in just three days dug deeper than the first rig in operation.

The first machine used, a Strata 950, had progressed some 141 meters in 10 days.

Trucks bearing the third drilling machine began arriving at Chile's San Jose mine near Copiapo overnight.

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Forty-two trucks travelled from Iquique, a coastal town some 1000 kilometres away, and began arriving at the mine in groups carrying the enormous disassembled drill, which will be used to tunnel through layers of rock to reach the trapped miners.

Officials have dubbed the effort their "Plan C" to reach the men, which will be carried out alongside the two other rescue operations.

"We can now begin to assemble the separate pieces of the machine," said Mr Sougarret.

If all goes according to schedule, Plan C will drill down just 597 metres, shortening the rescue time to perhaps two months.

Once each piece of the drill has been unloaded later on Thursday, workers will begin assembling the massive machine.

The drill requires a football-pitch size base to set up and is expected to begin drilling down toward the trapped miners around September 18, the bicentennial of Chile's independence from Spain, President Sebastian Pinera said over the weekend.

The new gear, operated by the Canadian company Precision Drilling, can drill up to 2000 metres below the surface at a speed - depending on the density of the ground - of between 20 and 40 metres a day, according to Chilean officials.

The workers have become national heroes since being discovered on August 22, 17 days after a mine cave-in in the remote Atacama desert.

Euphoria at their discovery was dampened by the grim news they might have to remain underground for months, possibly until Christmas, before being rescued.

Food and water is being dropped down narrow shafts to the miners to keep them alive as well as medicines and games to keep them occupied.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/chile-drilling-rig-halts-miners-rescue-for-repairs/story-e6frfkur-1225917028563#ixzz1Gpm3efJk