Drilling

Engineering Resilience below ground: Lessons from the Oil and Gas Sector

When the traditional way of doing things no longer works, what happens?

Anil Tokcan

Drilling Engineer

anil.tokcan@respec.com

Today’s mining teams face growing complexity, tighter regulations, deeper targets, and rising costs—all with less margin for error. In this environment, businesses need more than solid plans. They need the agility to adapt as conditions change.

One powerful way to adapt is to adopt. Technologies, methods, and tools from other industries can be valuable resources. This practice is nothing new. Human progress has always involved borrowing and sharing smart solutions to holistically advance. For the mining sector, a natural source of innovation is the oil and gas industry, particularly in the realm of subsurface drilling.

The oil and gas sector has already drawn from unexpected places, such as the aerospace and medical industries. From high-precision sensors to advanced telemetry, several of the tools used in modern drilling originated in another field of exploration. Directional and horizontal drilling, once novel, are now standard practice. Over the past few decades, oil and gas operators have refined these technologies to unlock shale-bound resources, revolutionizing production capabilities.

“Looking back, the drilling industry has made tremendous gains since I started my career nearly two decades ago,” says Anil Tokcan, Drilling Engineer. “A 10,000‑foot vertical well that once took weeks or even months to complete can now be drilled horizontally—10,000 feet down and another 10,000 feet laterally—in just a handful of days, without compromising safety.”

Today’s commercial directional drilling tools, once only used in oil and gas, go far beyond basic steering. These instruments gather real-time subsurface data, like downhole pressure and temperature, drill bit torque and weight, and wellbore orientation, and transmit them to the surface. This instantaneous information allows operators to assess conditions and adapt their strategies on the fly. Now, mining and geothermal projects are using these innovations to improve accuracy, reduce delays, and boost resilience across operations.

Designing around constraints: Directional drilling in action

One of the most impactful uses of directional drilling is accessing subsurface resources that are unreachable with traditional vertical wells. For one notable project, a client operating under a Bureau of Land Management license wanted to harness a high-temperature geothermal resource by following a fractured fault zone with exceptional permeability. This deeper target had the potential to increase production tenfold.

However, the ideal surface location directly above the target area was off-limits because of land use by another business. Using directional drilling tools, RESPEC was able to engineer and plan a directional well that reached the resource from an alternative location, completing the design in just 5 weeks. The well was successfully drilled and ready for the production equipment to be installed within a few months of the client’s initial request.

"Without the directional drilling solution we implemented, our client would have faced a costly and time-consuming process to secure surface access, one that could have rendered the entire project economically unfeasible," expresses Anil.

Right place, right layer: Smart drilling with real-time data

Directional and horizontal drilling gained popularity in the oil and gas industry largely because of their ability to track thin, hydrocarbon-bearing formations.

“Placing a well through a narrow productive zone allows only a small part of the reservoir to be tapped. But a horizontal wellbore can follow that formation for thousands of feet, dramatically increasing output,” explains Anil.

This method recently proved successful for US Salt, a solution mining operation in New York that produces high-grade salt for industrial and commercial use. US Salt’s process extracts salt from the Salina Formation by drilling wells and injecting freshwater from nearby Seneca Lake to dissolve the sodium chloride.

However, the terrain—shaped by ancient glaciers—creates complications. Some reserves lie beneath steep ravines or inaccessible surfaces, making vertical drilling impossible. In 2023, RESPEC overcame one such challenge for US Salt by using directional drilling and logging-while-drilling (LWD) technologies.

“The challenge was multifaceted. In addition to drilling two wells from a single pad to reach different zones, we had to precisely place the horizontal well at the base of the salt formation,” Anil describes. “Drilling too high would exit the salt and hit insoluble layers, reducing leaching efficiency. Worse, penetrating the Vernon Shale beneath the formation could destabilize the well, risking collapse and endangering the project.”

RESPEC drilled two wellbores from the same surface location, steering them in different directions. The laterals ultimately diverged by more than 750 feet, intersecting the salt formation nearly 3,000 feet below the surface and approximately 1,000 feet away from the starting point. Using LWD, the team guided the horizontal bore precisely along the base of the Salina Formation, maximizing salt contact and boosting leaching efficiency.

This approach allowed US Salt to access previously unreachable reserves and significantly expanded the mine’s productive capacity, which is a direct example of technology creating new opportunities underground.

Why adaptability is the new competitive edge

Success in today’s mining and drilling landscape isn’t just about hitting the target, it’s about doing so with precision, adaptability, and long-term value in mind. By integrating proven technologies from adjacent industries, operators can navigate constraints that once stalled or stopped development. These cross-industry innovations don’t just solve technical problems; they expand what’s possible underground.