Right Rig for Challenging Drill Rig Work

With a "safety-first" attitude, Allstar Drilling & Probing accepts challenging drill rig work many might turn down.

“We focus on being safe first and then using our skills to make production,” Joe Neri, president, said. “We’ve completed more than 2,000 Exxon projects safely, and we’re working for them on a daily basis since 2009.”

But being safe doesn’t necessarily mean playing it safe when it comes to calls for unique drill rig work.

“We would rather have a challenging job,” Neri said. “We do cool things most people would shy away from.”

So when he got the call to lower a rig into a 75-foot round, 45-foot deep pit, he didn’t hesitate.

“I received the call, did a site visit, and within 48 hours had secured the contract. I saw the urgency of the situation, and as an owner, third generation well driller, and operator of heavy equipment, I’m more involved in determining projects accepted,” Neri said. “Having to be lowered into a pit by a 100-foot crane, the 7822DT seemed like the right rig to achieve all the different kinds of sampling. I could do mud rotary and direct push where a full-size rig wouldn’t give me all those methods.

The Two Rivers Water Reclamation Project in Monmouth Beach, New Jersey — valued at more than $100 million scoped to dig a 100-foot hole down 40-feet — had halted until they could learn more about the soil conditions. They had hit soils which were not clay as expected and became concerned about sand seams.

“I loaded up the 7822DT for mud rotary, solid stem auger, geotechnical samples, and dual tube samples to pull soil cores,” Neri said. “I wasn’t sure what I would come up against while down in the pit, so I came prepared. I used it all to collect split spoon samples and macro core samples to get soil descriptions. I got them blow counts to calculate N-value for lithology.”

While in the pit they used solid stem augers with split spoon sampling and used the 3.25 dual tube system. They drilled to 45-65 feet below grade. The 7822DT provided them the versatility to run those different drilling methods, especially at a time when it wasn’t possible to mobilize another rig.

“When we go to a site that’s challenging and show up with a rig that can do multiple methods in the same day, it’s cost effective for the client,” Neri said. “A job that might need mud or augers or direct push, there’s only one right rig for the job and that’s our 7822DT.”

The client’s project was at a stand still until the soil information could be gathered, so time was of the essence.

“It was a total of 72 hours from contract to completion. At the conclusion of the project they invited me over into the trailer to acknowledge they were thrilled with our ability to get them the soil information required to continue working,” Neri said. “I’ve been running Geoprobe^® since early 2000 and couldn’t be happier with the opportunities and capabilities it’s brought us.”