NEW AND INNOVATIVE DRILLING TECHNOLOGIES

The LM-300 was a "purpose built" drilling system specifically designed to accomplish demanding geoscientific and hydrologic studies associated with Site Characterization of the vadose zone at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The system had to be able to reach a depth of approximately 2,000’, core the entire interval, leave a 12-1/4" borehole suitable for hydrologic testing, and introduce no contaminants, such as drilling mud, into the environment. Air was also considered a contaminant since its water content was different than that in the in situ hydrologic system. To achieve this "first of a kind" level of minimum drilling impact, a dual-wall drilling system was utilized that allowed high pressure air injection and a vacuum return up the center of the drill-pipe to pull cuttings and air to the surface. Another mitigation feature included cooling of the compressed air for coring and sending it through a separator in order to ensure the core did not become saturated from condensed water. The manufacturer, Lang Exploratory Drilling, built and commercialized a rig similar to the LM-300 for rapidly drilling dewatering holes for the mining industry. With the advent of the "Unconventional Era" in oil and gas, exploration success is now all about site characterization. Further commercialization efforts have been successful using the same "purpose built" approach to rig design as the LM-300. DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) funded the first demonstration of hybrid coiled tubing drilling systems in the lower 48 U.S. The result of that demonstration was the commercialization of over 1 Tcf of shallow tight gas in the Niobrara formation of western Kansas and eastern Colorado. Coiled tubing drilling is now rapidly penetrating gas shale markets in the U.S. The use of small "purpose built" coiled tubing drilling rigs also continues to be a key enabler to the future of high resolution seismic, permanently installed state-of-art geophones for micro-seismic monitoring and active seismic using "downward looking VSP" technology also demonstrated by NETL.