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New player in coal drilling

A LEADING supplier of horizontal directional drilling services in the civil and telecommunications markets has entered Australia’s coal seam drilling business.

Staff Reporter

AJ Lucas Group has established a new division, Lucas Coal Technologies (LCT), to perform coal seam drilling for underground de-gasification and mine exploration. Andy Lukas, the group’s managing director, is enthusiastic about the new enterprise.

“Coal drilling has been on our agenda for several years, and we were confident we could apply our experience to this field,” he said. “But we knew we had to put together a team with detailed industry knowledge and credentials for it to work.

“We’re very proud to launch this new business, which we believe adds an experienced team and first﷓class equipment to our group resources.”

The management and drilling teams at LCT have many years of experience in underground coal work, according to Lukas. They include Todd Herbert, Chris Hill and former AMT group general manager, Scott Thomson. Thomson has been associated with directional drilling in coal since 1989, and is also excited about the prospects for the LCT venture.

“Underground drilling in coal has been largely derived from original 1980s USBM research with minimal technology development over the past decade,” he said. “The Lucas initiative offers an opportunity to look at systems and methods from a fresh perspective.”

Conventional underground in-seam directional drilling will be a large part of the company’s business, but LCT also intends to develop special expertise in perceived growth markets such as surface to in-seam degasification and coal bed methane extraction. The company has bought a fleet of Boart Longyear LMC75 underground drills and the latest industry-standard electronic survey tools and downhole motors. For surface to in-seam work, the company will have access to its fleet of 15 large surface drilling rigs.

Lukas said industry response to the launch of LCT had been positive and the company was in the process of establishing its first contract drilling operation at a New South Wales colliery.

The Lucas group was founded in the 1950s and operates in a variety of infrastructure areas: water, oil, gas, electricity, water and telecommunications. According to Lukas, it pioneered horizontal directional drilling in Australia and now operates internationally with the world’s largest fleet of heavy (more than 50 tonnes) HDD rigs. The company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1999.

* This article originally appeared in the September 2000 edition of Australia's Longwalls.

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