Geofluid 2021 – The Future of Drilling

Buongiorno!

Last week, some of the Alucast team had the privilege of traveling to Piacenza, Italy to attend Geofluid 2021 – one of the worlds biggest Geotechnical Drilling shows. 

Let us tell you – it didn’t disappoint. There were hundreds of vendors and some crazy new drilling technology… and that was just the inside of the show. 

As you walk outside to the parking lot – the real show begins. And to be brutally honest, Geofluid blows North American shows out of the water. 

MASSIVE booths featuring entire lineups of new drill rigs with hundreds of rigs all in one large parking lot.  All three days were buzzing with attendees from all over the world, and the majority of the booths had no shortage of champagne and fine Italian cuisine. 

But enough of the fancy stuff – let’s get into the drilling.  Here are some of our biggest takeaways from Geofluid 2021 

Partnerships Might be the Future of Drill Manufacturing

One of the first things we noticed was how many of the huge European drilling manufacturers are combining strengths to gain an edge on competitors through strategic partnerships and mergers. 

• Massenza and Terrasonic
• Eijkelkamp and Fraste
• Nordmeyer Geotool and Massenza 

These collaborations allow drilling manufacturers to compliment each other’s strengths and produce a rig that can be finely tailored to a specific drilling company’s needs.

Take Nordmeyer Geotool for example; a relatively small European manufacturer that just partnered up with Massenza.  Massenza already sells mid-range to large drilling rigs worldwide.

So instead of putting the Massenza engineers to work on designing smaller compact soil investigation rigs, it made more sense to team up with an existing, specialized rig manufacturer. 

Massenza needed a new line of smaller drills and Nordmeyer Geotool wanted their products to be seen on a worldwide scale.

This was a great match.

This partnership allows for…. 

1. Massenza add smaller drills to their fleet
2. Nordmeyer rigs now on the world stage
3. Saves both companies time and money on engineering
4. Combined knowledge will lead to more advanced drills in the future and a higher potential for growth.

Will we begin to see this from the North American market? Which American manufacturers do you think could partner together for a mutually beneficial new rig?

Some of The Best Drill Rigs from the Show 

The show featured some of the biggest advancements in drilling technology we’ve ever seen.

Here’s a few that stood out to us:

Massenza 

MI1, MI2, MI3 and MI4 are compact drilling rigs from Massenza that pack a great punch and that price offered brings a lot of value . The Massenza line of drills are very versatile and high quality for soil investigation.

Fraste

Fraste MD ML Max by Fraste- This is a great all around rig, built really tough and highly popular with drillers worldwide. 

You can drill in many different kinds of industries such as: Geotech/Environmental, geothermal, micropyles and waterfalls.

Eijkelkamp 

Eijkelkamp CRS XL 140 DUO- This rig and looked at all the safety factors necessary to drill a safe hole. From the ManipAll 200 to their rod handler, it ensures there is no lifting of rods. This drill is equipped with a CompactRotoSonic drill head and a 4 speed rotation head that lives up to the sonic hype.

What about Alucast?

Glad you asked – we didn’t just travel to Italy to look at all the drill rigs.

We’re thrilled to announce that Alucast well protection products will now be available in Italy through GTS Well Components.  GTS are well known distributors, and we couldn’t be happier about having such a great organization selling our products to the italian market.

You can check out their website here: www.gtssnc.com

To Wrap Things Up 

All things considered, drill manufacturers and distributors are still very hungry to introduce new products to their customers. The global drilling industry continues to scale at a rapid speed, and these companies are continuously pushing the envelope to develop technologic solutions to support the needs of drillers. 

As the industry evolves to become smarter, more efficient, and safer for drillers, the technology is obviously being created to allow drilling companies to keep up with the demands of their clients. 

The European market is advancing fast – can the North American market keep up?

The answer to that will become readily apparent over the next few years. 

Thanks for reading – we hope to see some of you again at Geofluid in 2022!

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