New coring technology for oil sands

Cold weather has finally arrived, and Lexcor Services of Vancouver has sent drill rigs featuring innovative technology to the oil sands projects of the Athabasca basin. These rigs use wireline retrieval of the core, making the system faster and more efficient than conventional methods that require pulling the entire drill pipe back to the surface to retrieve the sample.

Each of Lexcore’s drilling rigs has a 10-m drill pipe that can retrieve a 75-mm wide core from as deep as 700 m. Each rig is accompanied by a core van for the initial evaluation and storage of core samples. The advantages of small rig size and fewer, smaller auxiliary vehicles add up to increased mobility and cost savings, particularly fuel costs. Additionally, there is a smaller environmental footprint.

Learn more at www.LexingtonEnergyServices.com.