Joe Bradfield is senior writer for Ellenbecker
Communications, an international communications firm specializing in the
drilling, mining and construction industries.
It’s almost as if someone set out to make Marshall Eye Jr. Drilling Co. Inc. an example of the pitfalls of the water well drilling business. Only the most resilient survive.
The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD) is upgrading its storm and wastewater infrastructure in a 23-year-long, $4.7 billion initiative called “Project Clear.”
Of the half dozen water well contractors around Royall Pump & Well’s Powhatan, Va., service area, owner Robert Royall could think of maybe only one other that enjoyed similar prosperity even during bust times in the water well market.
During a discussion of the great value that top hole specialists like Transcend Drilling of Odessa, Texas, bring to today’s major oil and gas operators, Transcend’s Vice President Mark Franklin said, “Spudder services used to be the first to get cut when prices dropped, companies hoping to save money by doing it themselves.
Pneumatic hammer drilling gives drillers an advantage in all but the most extreme soft ground conditions says Josh Marcus, senior product specialist of Atlas Copco Secoroc down-hole tools. And when weighted drilling fluid is not required to control the formations, hammer drilling should be the favored technique.
Originally a pile driving company, Hub Foundation Company of Harvard, Mass., first added wide-diameter bore drilling to its operations 23 years ago. Most of the region’s ground conditions generally call for augers. Greg Maxwell, grandson of company founder Frank Maxwell, said Hub has always persevered through each hard rock socket, but they have continually sought easier, faster ways to drill out hard rock.
