Explore your own wealth

About the author

Ismail Hasan has been in drilling activities since last 15 years and is CEO of Deep Rock Drilling. He specializes in the field of wire line core drilling and has participated in various exploration activities with cement and coal industry.

He has worked with Geological Survey of Pakistan for Thar coal exploration program. Private lease owners and stake holders in mine and mineral sector appreciate his contribution in the field.

Unlike Oil and Gas, Minerals exploration has never been on the priority of the government and private sector. However, recently the fuel cost escalated and thinker are compelled to develop the other fuel like coal. Worthy heavy metals, salts and other raw materials for processing are yet to take any momentum to contribute in exchequer. Nowadays international companies has targeted south of Pakistan to explore and export minerals from Pakistan . Gold, Chrome and Copper are being tapped to some extent and has gained pace in business in future.

Resources from the subsurface of earth are not tapped due to insufficient infra structure to conduct exploration activities, obsolete methods of mining and access and other regional matters.

Detailed information from target formations is essential for the successful evaluation of underground soil characteristics; core samples can yield this critical subsurface information. With quality cores, experts can better understand formation characteristics and more efficiently achieve production objectives. High quality cores provide the most accurate lithology, porosity and permeability information for planning the geologic model of the reserves.

Core quality is the key. The samples must be obtained without altering its native (or in-situ) properties. Informed application of specialized tools and techniques can produce quality core samples.

Wireline core drilling is a special type of core drilling, most commonly used for minerals exploration. Unlike some types of drilling, the aim of core drilling is not to make a hole, but to retrieve a core sample - a long solid cylinder of rock that can explore rock under the ground. A core drill string is a series of connected long hollow tubes, with a barrel at the end connected to a special cutting bit at the bottom of the hole. As the drill moves further into the earth, the driller adds rods onto the end, lengthening the drill string.

When the driller wants to remove core from a conventional core drill, the entire core barrel has to be removed from the hole. This is time-consuming and less core recovery percentage as each rod has to be removed one at a time. With wireline drilling, a barrel of core can be removed from the bottom of the hole without removing the rod string. Ratio of cost to sample recovery is very high and thus leads to non-efficient system of sample drawing with very high probability of loosing targeted minerals. Conventional core drilling activity would diminish the possibility for exploring any mineable mineral deposit thus ruined the chances of getting benefit for stakeholders.

In wireline core drilling method when the driller wants to remove the core, an overshot is lowered on the end of a wireline. The overshot attaches to the back of the core barrel inner tube and the wireline is pulled back and the inner tube disengages itself from the barre1. For wireline drilling, the rods are made of fine high-tensile steel. This makes them thin, so that the core can be as large as possible. The major quality specification in core drilling is recovery percentage, which is in wireline core drilling is highest and Deep Rock Drilling has frequently achieved 99.5% to 95% at Lakhra.

DRD provides wireline core drilling services for geological assessment and mineral exploration. In Pakistan , these services are used primarily by major Coal and Cement producers and to a lesser extent mineral exploration companies. Importance of the mineral resources has led to the company's expansion into acquiring technology for efficient mineral exploration methods. In 1994, the company commenced mineral exploration drilling operations in Thar, on behalf of Geological Survey of Pakistan.

Drilling services of Deep Rock Drilling together with its affiliates, offers a complete range of mineral exploration drilling technologies and methods from the traditional to the most advanced, including core and non-core drill to meet the challenges of difficult subsurface conditions at exploration sites. The company's mineral exploration drilling consists of exploratory drilling and definitional drilling.

Exploratory drilling conducted to determine if there is a minable mineral deposit (orebody) on the site.

Definitional drilling typically conducted at a site to assess whether it would be economical to mine.

Drilling and sampling methods are selected to meet each site's characteristics.

Diamond core drilling used to obtain a solid rock, semi solid or soft strata sample to evaluate for mining and mineral exploration purposes.

Direct circulation drilling offers the advantages of speed and easiness.

DRD welcomes all private lease owners, multinationals, semi government and government organization to explore or define the minerals they possess by using state of art services in wireline core drilling. The samples of HQ sizes are available to review the performance and site visits would be managed to review and understand the drilling activities and excellent core recovery.