Tight Pipe Supplies Pinch Drillers

And a train was actually hit! Fortunately it was stationary on the tracks, but it crushed the side panel of the driver’s carriage. Neither the driver nor any passengers were injured in the incident. The […]

As 33 trapped miners waited more than 2,000-ft underground for their rescue, a whole team of Chilean government officials, mining engineers, equipment manufacturers and of course drillers came together get the job done.  Jeff Hart, a driller from Denver, Colorado was one of the stars of the day.  Hart was in Afghanistan drilling deep water wells when he got the call and hopped on a plane.  He works for Kansas-based Layne Christensen, and along with 3 other Layne employees, he manned the Schramm T130 drill rig that was part of “Plan B” that eventually became the shaft from which the trapped miners were rescued.

On the drilling platform overseeing the drilling was James Stefanic of Layne, and crew members Matt Staffel, Doug Reeves and Jorge Herrera.  The rig and I presume some of the support equipment was owned by Layne’s Latin America affiliate, Geotec Boyles Bros, SA.  The drill bits were from Center Rock, Inc. of Berlin, Pennsylvania.  The Center Rock CEO, Brandon Fisher, was on site throughout the operation as well.

Read on for more info, photos, video and links on the drilling, drillers and geology of the Chile Mine rescue.

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Congratulations to Crux Subsurface, Inc. on winning the Deep Foundation Institute’s (DFI) 2014 Outstanding Project Award (OPA) and the 2014 C. William Bermingham Innovation Award for their Sunrise Powerlink Project in California. The project involved […]