Perhaps this was the thought on the minds of representatives from the German-Russian joint venture VIS-MOS, Bohlen & Doyen (German) and Stroytransgaz (Russian) when they decided, after long negotiations, to go for the new horizontal directional drilling unit from Prime Drilling in Germany.
Managing Director Frank Auringer said, “We are proud to receive this order from Russia again after a very hard fight. This is a new increase for us, after the 320 t drilling rig, and we can extend our leading position in the Russian market.”
In the workshops of Prime Drilling a PD 450/150 AM, on crawler, with a maximum pull force of 4,500 kN (450 t) and a maximum torque of 150,000 Nm is currently being made. The unit is equipped with three separate Caterpillar engines with a total output of 1,170 kW (1,590 hp).
Feeding is direct via two hydraulic cylinders; the key is that the cylinders and the exit flange are levelled at the same height. The advantage is that there are no “overturning moments” at the power rotary head. In short, this is a horizontal directional drilling rig of the highest order, which should set new standards.
Managing Director Werner Wurm said, “This is probably the biggest drilling unit of this type ever manufactured in Europe.”
Planned projects include drills up to 2 km in length, with a pipe diameter of 48 in. Even larger diameters such as 52 in. and 70 in. can be done with adequate reaming tools.
In consideration of Russian street conditions as well as the Russian traffic regulations the drilling rig will be disassembled into modules which makes transport and handling easy.
How does it work? Prime Drilling has a proven strategy, which has an easy formula: take the established quality as the foundation, go back to the existing component systems as the solid base and develop the new concepts from there.