WorldWide Drilling Resource

WorldWide Drilling Resource ® A Perfectly Straight Hole, Part 2 by Art Beatty Antofagasta, Chile When we had drilled down a little ways, we hit some- thing extremely hard. This was a surprise for me, and also for the geologist at Ray Mines. If I remember right, we were doing that part of the hole by the hour. We tried everything. We even used cement, but after hardening, it would just kick it off again. So we ended up going around it. The quartzite was really hard and abrasive. I had some experience with it using a down- the-hole hammer. It would take a bit like it was running on a grinding machine. The hammer bit wouldn’t last any time at all. The geologist suggested they get one of their hammer drills they used for blasthole drilling. You know, the type that stays on the rig and you just drive on the drill pipe for small-diameter holes in construction or whatever. He also suggested putting a half a stick of powder in it to blow the corner off, then we’d have it made. I thought it might be an idea, so we moved the rig over and got the other one in there on an angle. The guys were really good to work with and we were able to use the ham- mer bit to drill a little, put in some dynamite, and sure enough blew the corner off. Then we went down and finished the hole. When we reached the bedrock, I called the people we were getting the casing from and told them we were ready for it, but they said they couldn’t locate it. They said it would take quite awhile to find the aluminum and put the threads on it like we needed. He asked if I could try PVC. Oh boy! So I called the office and told them the situation. They said to go ahead and give it a try. Each morning, a survey crew would come out to see if the rig was perfectly straight and that the kelly was exactly where it was supposed to be. We hung it in the hole and got it exactly straight and we would put on enough extra square drill pipe to go ahead and, when we were satisfied it was perfectly straight, we poured cement around it. The mine had a little cement truck, which they brought out. I forget now how many days we let it set, but when we went to take it out, it wouldn’t pull. We were cemented in the hole. I thought it was really going to be fun now! So I contacted Christensen Diamond Products, which Boyles Bros. was a part of at the time, and told them what was going on and how urgent it was. I also called my boss in Phoenix to tell him we would have to work through the holiday (I think it was Labor Day) since we only needed a few pieces in short length. We managed to get it done, anyway. So we drilled over with this stuff and we pulled it all out of the hole. When it was cleaned up, we had a good cemented hole. Then we started drilling from there. It wasn’t like coming out of a rifle barrel or anything like I wanted it to, but we barely let the bit touch the sur-face and we got down and sur- veyed it again, and low and behold, it stayed on good enough. We were off and run- ning. We surveyed it every 50 feet and it’s about all we put on one of those bits. With the rock, it was just getting started - it wasn’t hard at all. It was very good rock to drill. We would pull up if I thought it was taking too much weight - not holding most of the drill collar weight back. We would survey it a little early. One time it got off just a little bit, so I slacked off and surveyed it again, and it seemed to be right on. Well, we carried that part of it down to a mine opening where an old wooden flume was. It was there they wanted to get the water out. They were afraid it was going to cave in, so they wanted the hole. When we were within 15 feet of getting through, the superintendent of the mine told us to put the rig on standby so he could get an oriented survey run. They brought in an oilfield setup and they went inside of our drill pipe and took a survey of the hole. Afterward, we all went to the office to interpret the deviation of the hole. He told me he had been surveying holes for 20 years and always thought it was impossible to drill a straight hole, but he had learned something on this job. He said it was about the straightest hole he had ever seen. He knew it wasn’t very deep, and said it was like a post hole to those in the oilfield, but at that, it was the best he had seen. & $ & & !' & "$!(! & ! % "$ & $ ( & % & #' % % ) & +!' ) $ ( ! !$,% ( %& *" $ % & !& ( & ! % % & $% " %" $ !( $ "$ % & & ! % !' &$ % " '% ) " +!'$ ' " !+ % &!& + 26 DECEMBER 2016 +9 &8 ,&6"4/23 *,'*&,% "4&2 &,, /.6&.4*/.", ".% &6&23& *2$5,"4*/. 2*,, *0& 15*0-&.4 +9 &8 ,&6"4/23 2& 3&% /2,%7*%& ! 2&8 2&8-$'"%%&. $/- /"% 4&34 $&24*'*$"4&3 "6"*,"#,& $ ( # * $ "% * " # % ! ! $% " ! ! # " ' $ # )" ! )" "# ) % # ) ! "# ) ' & # ) $ ( "# ) $" % % !# ) " ## & " % # ) $# ) ' # &7 3&% 15*0-&.4 6"*,"#,& 777 2&8-$'"%%&. $/- ,&6"4/23 * $ "% * & )"6& &,&6"4/23 /' ",, 3*:&3 490&3 ".% 7&*()43 ".% $". #5*,% 4/ ".9 30&$*", "00,*$"4*/.3 Beatty cont’d on page 78.