Eight things, and we do not drill any of them.
Technical HDD is retained at four points in a project's life: before it is priced, before it is drilled, while it is drilled, and afterwards when something has to be explained. Everything below sits at one of those four points.
Feasibility and route selection
Can this be done trenchless, in this ground, at this length? Where should the entry and exit actually sit? What does the geotechnical record have to say, and what is missing from it?
02Choosing a method
HDD, horizontal bore, compaction reaming, pipe ramming or open cut — chosen on geology and profile, not on what the available contractor happens to own.
03Equipment and spread advisory
What class of rig the job actually needs, what the spread should include, and whether the machine being offered can do what the method statement says it will.
Bore design
Entry and exit angles, design radius, depth of cover, hole sizing, and pull-force calculation against the pipe's own allowables with a safety factor that is written down.
05Means and methods review
Reading a contractor's method statement the way someone who has run that rig reads it — and saying plainly which parts of it will not happen.
06Drilling fluids and returns
The fluid programme for the formation, the annular pressure limit, and a written inadvertent-return response that someone can actually follow at two in the morning.
07Execution plans
The construction execution plan, the emergency response plan and the drill plan — assembled as one document set that the regulator, the owner and the crew all read.
08Quality and inspection
The inspection and test plan, the hold points, the forms, and what has to be recorded for the as-built to be worth anything in five years.
Owner's representative
Our engineer in the field on your behalf: witnessing calibration, watching annular pressure and returns, signing the hold points, and holding the authority to stop a pull.
10Claims and expert evidence
Frac-outs, line strikes, stuck pipe, abandoned bores and disputed change orders. What the drill record actually shows, written so that a tribunal can follow it.
We do not bid the work we advise on, and we do not take a commission from any contractor. If you need that kind of firm, we are the wrong one. Why that matters →
Owners and operators
You are paying for it, you hold the permit, and the inadvertent return is reportable in your name.
Engineers and EPC
You are stamping a crossing design and want a constructability read from someone who has built them.
Contractors
You are drilling it and want a second set of eyes on the plan, or help with a bore that is not going to plan.
Insurers and counsel
It has already gone wrong and you need someone who can read a drill log and stand behind the reading.