Decommissioning drilling

Decommissioning means getting redundant piles and foundations out of the ground, often below the seabed or below grade, where they can’t simply be pulled. We have developed a decommissioning configuration of our large-diameter drilling machine to drill out and cut redundant piles for removal, with pile-cutting tooling engineered into the drill bit so a single machine can drill down a pile and sever it for extraction. It’s the decommissioning configuration of the same large-diameter drilling platform behind our pile-top and shaft-sinking work, a different market from surgical mining, but built on the same machine.

How it works

• Integrated cutting in the bit – pile-cutting tooling built into the drill so it can drill out a redundant pile and cut it below the seabed or ground line for removal, without a separate cutting spread.
• Full diameter range – from smaller redundant piles up to XXL monopiles, matched to what’s being removed.
• Designed with the handling – integrated with the internal lifting tools and gripping that recover the cut section.

It targets the growing decommissioning market, ageing offshore wind, oil & gas and marine structures that have to be removed cleanly and accountably at end of life.