DRD'S Commitment to Energy Treasure of Pakistan The Thar Coal Resource

I take this opportunity to introduce DRD Private Limited, a private sector drilling company which was established in 1994 with a view to serve the mining industry as a professionally competent, economically viable, socially significant working platform which can under take high-tech drilling operations focused on coal and mineral exploration and groundwater resource development.
It has since its inception enthusiastically pursed every opportunity to establish the distinction to excel local and offshore outfits in its field by way of highly trained human resources and availability of high-tech plant/equipment/machinery/tools for all its operation; it can now provide a cost effective and efficient, quality and time conscious alternative at the national level for a methodical growth of local resources leading to achievement of the National goal of self sufficiency in Pakistan.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that DRD's name is now synonymous with the Thar Coal Field mining industry; almost all the stakeholders of the mining industry have recognised the role of DRD in exploration activities. Exploration of Thar coal was started in 1992 by Geological Survey of Pakistan, along with USAID, and initially it explored an are a approximately 450 sq km only. In 2005 DRD under took it first coal exploration project and since then it has to its credit over more than 650 sq km of exploration area.
The urgent need of a quality mineral exploration drilling, operators and constructor of dewatering wells and mining support Facility Company for the mining industry has been fulfilled by DRD. Dedicated to the customer's needs with professional knowledge and high standard services DRD specialises in hydrogeological studies, mineral exploration through diamond core drilling techniques. Presently DRD is operating with ten wire-linecore drilling rigs including-top head drive, skid mount, crawler and truck mounted rigs. Recently two brand new top head drive drilling rig for angular and deep core holes to a depth of 2000 meters have been procured from DESCO, Korea. These are customised and are being put to work on a major core drilling project in mineral ore areas. Currently following drilling rigs are under umbrella of DRD:
---- 8x Wire Line Rigs
---- 2x Top Head Drive
---- 4 x Conventional Drilling Non-core rigs
---- 1 x Percussion Drilling Rig
---- 2x Geotechnical Rigs
DRD is extremely proud to have some of the most experienced crews in the drilling industry of Pakistan. DRD personnel are experienced have worked for more than 100,000 meters core-drilling work. Drilling team have capacity to drill-core boreholes to a depth of up to 1000 meters with NQ.
To remain harmonious to it social responsibility, DRD has on it human resource rosters geologist belonging to Thar District and native localities. DRD Sin house training programmes have allowed these intelligent and hardworking personals to become experts of their own fields and contribute to the development of their own home towns and areas.
In order to keep developing the human resources, DRD has regularly hired internee geologist and geo-physicist from the universities to train them for field geologist and acquire other related skills.
THAR GEOLOGY & DRILLING SETUP Regardless of size and commercial benefits, DRD has always assigned best of its equipment, manpower and accessories to ensure achievement of target set by the client in terms quality of work, time, core recovery and field data gathering.
Apart from wire-linerigs, diamond core drilling is heavily dependent on the associated system of drilling. DRD has standardised HQ size core-drilling to obtain larger diameter sample to allow detailed chemical analysis. The drilling system consists of Core Barrels (double core barrels) with the combination of high quality core bits (surface/ impregnated), core lifter, core case and etc. Accurate core barrel assemblies consisting more than 50 items to ensure smooth core lifting from holebottom. Special care is taken for selecting the drilling rods for its straightness and ovality. DRD has placed many sets of core-drilling accessories in the field for uninterrupted operations. Generally, at all-time a backup of drilling rods with additional core barrel and accessories are always available at site.
MINERAL EXPLORATION DRILLING Mineral exploration drilling is DRD's main domain. Accordingly, DRD is using diamond core drilling for determining mineral body and chemical analysis. Borehole drilling activities are being undertaken with the non-core drilling for over burden to obtain a faster pace before drilling a deeper exploration core holes. In some boreholes top to bottom core drilling is performed to obtain a profile and measure geotechnical and geological details. DRD has been constantly achieving above 95% core recovery rate with drilling technological improvements that increases chances of accuracy of resource estimation. We have been able to perform drilling works at reduced cost, which accounts for a significant portion of pre-feasibility studies.
DRILLING IN THAR COAL FIELD Drilling is always a challenge because of loose formation, multi-layer formation and basement rocks formation. Moreover, these formations containing lowand high water bearing formations, fractured formations and other abnormities normally requires high proficiency of drilling practices, thus usually requires casing and other techniques for encountering. DRD has drilled hundreds of borehole in the Thar Coal Field for over 650sq km(approx.) area in seven different Blocks. DRD has performed drilling in Block VII and VIII, Block IX and X, Block III-B and Block XI and XII (under progress) and finally reported on USGS & JORC based resource estimation and all of them were vetted by third party consultants except Block III-B.
Every project drilling objectives were to drill vertical boreholes to a depth of upto 300 meters. Drilling operations were performed with a water-based hi-gel mud system using bentonite mud and partially mixing polymers. The geology was soft, medium hard to hard (granite) with a past history of several loss of cores in coal zones specially. Clay swelling and collapsing have always been one of the major issues in drilling past history.
It was important to complete the core barrel run as planned to establish recovery rate of above 95% (JORC compliance for resource estimation) and successfully complete the borehole drilling. This challenge was met using combination of various types of diamond core bits to get maximum core recovery. The other parameters would also be controlled during designing of core bit possible combinations are ie surface set /impregnated/cross profiled with AA grade natural diamond selection or synthetic/crown material for matching the litho logy for fastest rate of penetration (ROP).
DRILLING RECORDS Over the period, DRD has acquired a data-base and knowledge for appropriate drilling technologies and completed recent block drilling at an average of 250meter/day. This in itself is an excellent record and clearly indicates that completion on fast track basis is our forte. When drilling vertical holes, through double core barrel, in soft formation core recovery rate drops upto 50%. By using high-end technologies and designing proper drilling system ensures timely completion with high quality results. It is worth mentioning that DRD has introduced Triple Core Barrel (HQ3) by using see through plastic liner to recover core samples upto 95% (overall) for mine designing in geo-technical boreholes drilling in the Thar Coal Field.
DRD CONTRIBUTION DRD has used technologies in core drilling to meet the schedule successfully in setting where harder rock formations, saline water aquifers and under-pressurised formations encounters lead to frequent loss of cores and time. Limitations have not prevented DRD's achievements & developments, however, the use of tailored Core Bits and mud engineering improved the drilling success rate thus helped reduce the cost.
By putting latest technologies and state of art equipment with complete accessories, high drilling costs has been reduced to 50% compared to international level. The best practices are maintained in dewatering wells, geo-technical boreholes and water well drilling and construction. DRD's objective with regards to the client satisfaction is twofold:
---- To deliver the best INTERNATIONAL service in the mining industry.
---- To be the First Choice of Mining Industry.
THE FUTURE Keeping high standards and maintaining the impetuous in the development and delivery of excellent services is corner stone of our future endeavours. Timely and Cost effective solutions are two principles that are very highly regarded by DRD team. Our short-to-medium term planning is to expand drilling operations across the Country as well as internationally. As CEO of DRD, I sincerely assure the Mining Industry/Sector of our professional dedication and high quality services to all stake holders in Thar Coal Field, the Energy Treasure of Pakistan.