HDD Bloemfontein (Soft to Rock)

Our first Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) project for the year kicked off in Bloemfontein, the initial scope of work was drilling and HDPE Butt-Welding for 200mm, 315mm, and 450mm sewer lines.

We established our Astec 40-45 HDD rig with our rock hammer.

We faced many challenges, from community protests, heavy rains which made access to the site a nightmare, and machinery breakdowns to hard rock conditions that completely destroyed our rock hammer.

As the new HDPE pipe was to service sewer lines, we removed the internal beads with our inhouse built bead cutter. We completed five crossings in varying ground conditions from clay to hard rock, and at various depths with the deepest line being at 4 meters below NGL.

The sixth crossing was abandoned due to the rock ground conditions which the client opted to open-trench as our rock hammer was out of service and the time constraints did not allow us to was for an imported head which at the time was going to take around 4 weeks.

HDD for these particular lines was the only solution as there were houses built on top of the servitude and open excavations were not possible, there were also areas where the ground was clay and the excavations for the launch and reception pits kept collapsing together with overhead powerline poles on top of the servitude making it impossible to open trench.