WorldWide Drilling Resource

Fraste’s MITO 100 is a multipurpose rig for groundwork in civil engineering, such as micropiles, anchoring, and jet grouting. Thanks to new, innovative design techniques and the special Fraste articulation system, the MITO 100 has exceptional maneuverability, reliability, and productivity. Variable- width undercarriage options provide improved stability; and the fully radio-controlled rig can easily be configured for single or double rotary, top hammer, or vibro-rotary, as well as direct circulation, reverse circulation, down-the-hole hammer, or single cycle jet grouting. The MITO 100 is so powerful, it can simultaneously handle a dual rotary system, pumps, and carousel casing/rods. FRASTE S.p.A. is a Valued WWDR Advertiser New Drill Ship Offers Unique System Design Adapted from a press release by Geo Earlier this year, Denmark-based Geo and NCT Offshore launched their new drill ship - Freja. Freja is an S-Class ROV Support DP2 vessel, and is the only drill ship of its type in the Nordic countries. Department Director in Geo’s Marine Survey, Jens Brink Clausen, explained the vessel’s unique system design. “The system is built up around a specially designed active heave compensated working platform (HCP). The principle of the system is that the entire drilling floor, including drill rig and [drilling professionals], is heave compensated to move with the movement of the ship. This means that the working deck is stationary, while the vessel follows the movements of the waves. Being able to work offshore from a stationary deck means that we are able to apply drilling techniques usually limited to onshore drilling. On conventional vessels, only the drill string itself is usually heave compensated.” The setup was designed to assist with offshore wind projects, geotechnical, and high-quality core drilling (GeoBor-S). The results offer higher quality samples than those with traditional drill ship solutions. The quality of a geotechnical investigation, including the samples and cores collected from the seabed, is crucial for the design of the foundation for planned offshore wind farms. One of the most innovative features of the setup on the vessel is it has the flexibility to perform a wide range of technical services from high-quality geotechnical drilling in soil and rock using the Geobor-S system, to CPT (cone penetration tests), and vibrocore (or vibracore) rigs. It can also be used for a geophysical spread including side scan sonar, sub bottom profiler, mag- netometer, and hull-mounted multibeam echo sounder. The scopes can range from large offshore drilling campaigns with core drilling or sampling, handled on the ves- sel ’s onboard laboratory, to projects requiring shallow CPT and vibrocore. Jens Brink Clausen views the new partnership as a strong match saying, “The newly established alliance between Geo and NCT Offshore will strengthen both parties, as the companies’ services complement each other well. Geo has one of the indust ry’s longest t rack records in relation to geotechnical site investigations for offshore wind projects. NCT Offshore on the other hand has the right DP2 vessel to operate as platform for Geo’s geotechnical drilling and seabed equipment.” Virginia Water Well Association 2018 Winter Conference Double Tree by Hilton - Koger Center Midlothian/Richmond, Virginia Office: (804) 387-8395 Info@VAWaterWellAssociation.org www.VAWaterWellAssociation.org 64 DECEMBER 2017 WorldWide Drilling Resource ®