Exciting new contract goes to British drilling rig builder.
The UK's longest established drilling rig manufacturer, Dando Drilling International has received a resounding endorsement from possibly Europe's most exacting customer.
On May 26th, following intensive testing of a prototype model, Dando's Managing director, Martin Fitch-Roy signed a contract to supply and support five Waterwell drilling rigs for use by the 521 water development team of the British Army's Royal engineers.
The contract with ALC vehicles, a PFI joint venture between AMEY and VT LAND, is for five specially developed Watertec 12.8 rigs. Not only are these machines capable of sinking boreholes to 300m at a diameter of 12 ¼" in a wide range of geological conditions but they are fully air-portable. Part of the design brief demanded a specially modified mast construction to allow the rigs to be carried in Boeing C17 and the proposed Airbus A400M military transport aircraft enabling worldwide theatre deployment.
"It is extremely gratifying to have earned this contract in a very competitive marketplace. This is proof, if it were needed, that British drilling rig manufacture is not only alive and well but leading the world in rigs custom built for the toughest operational environments imaginable.
Creating the unique features of this plant was something that our collaborative design approach is ideally suited to. The end users can be confident that the every element of the new rigs has been devised make their job as easy as possible."
The Watertec 12.8s for this contract will be built in the Dando factory near Arundel, West Sussex alongside rigs for the Mining, Geotechical and Waterwell sectors bound for Africa, SE Asia, Central America, Greenland, Eastern Europe and the UK.
