deep hole driller 1 2013 14 This Atlas Copco fle photo shows the ease of pipe handling with the RD20 XC The RD20 gives them a respecta ble ad vantage with their oil feld customers es pecially for its modernized safety features Foreha nd sa id T oday s oi l fe l d c us tomers are all about safety They don t want to see 70sstyle rigs with spin chains and all that manual labor Retroftting those with pipe spinners trying to reduce manual la bor they are still more cumbersome haz ardous Forehand said the RD20 works with a smaller crew and there s no climbing no derrick man so there s lower labor and overall operating costs The RD20 of fers safety Other water well drilling companies can t compete Carizzo sand W ater W ell Services broke in its RD20 on a job drilli ng and casing a 450footdeep wa ter well near Poteet T exas about 30 miles south of San Antonio Here they were set up on the CarizzoW ilcox aquifer a part of the lar ger T exas Coastal Uplands Aquifer Syst e m T he syst e m s out c r op i s a r e l a t i ve l y narrow topographic feature running paral l e l t o t he Gul f Coa st from t he Ri o Gra nde a t the Mexican border northeast to Louisiana The Carrizo portion starts as a beach l ike sand Richa rd Ba rt osh W ate r W e ll Services drilling superintendent said they used a bulldozer to tow everything into po sition Y ou can t walk in this big sand bowl let alone drive in it The RD 20 is almos t completely self contained Once the fveman crew towed in pipe and casing trailers a water truck and big pumpsthey were ready to drill F rom the outcrop the 800footthick Carizzo downdips beneath the surface to ward the coast at 100 feet per mile on aver age though it ranges from 24 feet to more than 400 feet at points Most wells we drill here the customer wants about 1000 gpm but a well can yield up to 3000 gpm de pending on how it s developed Bartos h said The loose ground conditions here make the area ideal for peanut and strawber ry farmers Poteet is known for its annual strawberry festival But it s not conducive to drillin g This well required a 175inch hole for 1275in s teel cas ing w ith a 12inch IO steel screen Bartosh said they reall y had to hold back The weight of the string was enough to drive the hole A verage ROP was kept to less than 45 feet per hour with ben tonite at 10 barrels a minute to adequately cake the sides Chips were coming out at 10 feet per minute In this case it is not desirable to drill with air which would quickly blow out gi ant voids And since they will sometimes drill to 1200 feet the deeper wells can run i n t o m e t h a n e p oc ke t s T h e re fo r e m u d d r i l l ing is the metho d of choice But Forehand a nd Ba rt osh wa rn e d t ha t dri l l i ng t oo f a st with mud especiall y the size bores that they make risks collapsing the hole It took three days to set up and drill the well Bartosh said I was OK with going slow on the frst one because we had a new crew on an unfamiliar rig in a sand bowl you can hardly walk in He was pleased with the rig and anx ious for its next job The connections are fast He said he sees where tim es will im prove as the crew gets used to working on the littl e rig the baby of the W ater W ell Services feet in a region with a busy 10 year forecast