When did they start directional drilling?

No Wikipedia entry exists for Martin Cherrington describing his role in developing the initial equipment and technique that ultimately transformed a whole area of the building industry. It is, however, fair to begin with those who have come to be known as the "fathers" of horizontal directional drilling in the industry. This was way before Vermeer, Ditch Witch, DigiTrak or Subsite. This was the birth and infancy of the Horizontal Directional Drilling.

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Who Invented Horizontal Drilling

As a utility installer in Los Angeles in the early s, Cherrington came up with the concept of horizontal directional drilling. While on the job, he saw another business installing a gas line nearby using a hand-held air drill. When Cherrington learned about guided drilling, he was inspired to research the subject. He ended up going a long way beyond what he started with.

According to Cherrington, "my father was a general contractor and I had an incredibly wide foundation in civil construction.". "Because of my diverse educational background, I felt at ease with welding, fabrication, and other mechanical-type tasks."

To create his own business with Titan Contractors Inc. in , Cherrington quit the utility company and constructed his drill rig, which allowed him to operate under various agreements with SMU under his contract (SMUD).

As he described it, his drilling apparatus was built around a simple carriage that revolved around the drill pipe. His words: "It looked a lot like many of the HDD devices you see now, but significantly downsized, incredibly light and skeleton-like.

While working for utility firms in the Sacramento region, Cherrington's team was renowned as a top contractor for road digging. Since the industry had not yet developed computerized tracking, Cherrington's team employed a technology he acquired from the Los Angeles gas company, which used a hand-held air drill. They would excavate " potholes " at different points along the boring route; they would excavate "potholes" to evaluate the drill head's angle and direction.

The First HDD River Crossing

Even in Cherrington, road boring for the installation of essential utilities was the first step. A new era in the history of drilling would begin with his next mission. Cherrington was working for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in Watsonville, Calif., in , drilling for gas lines (PG&E). PG&E was fascinated by Cherrington's innovative tactics and requested him to check into another minor issue they were having while he was in town. If Cherrington could dig beneath the Pajaro River, PG&E would be happy to have a 4-inch gas pipe installed across the river.

According to Cherrington, it was considered "no man's land" at the time since no one had ever undertaken this task before. Remember that back then, there were no DigiTrak or Subsite locators on the market or even in development. At one time, Cherrington even sought the assistance of oil drilling techniques. After about a month of working on the project, they eventually broke through to the other side after essentially trying several ways.

According to him, "everyone thinks it was the first river crossing ever done." When I looked at it that way, I believed it was plenty since we were always doing various things." Because it was a one-time occurrence, I thought it wouldn't happen again.

As it turned out, word of Cherrington's successful river bridge spread quickly, and he was soon hired to do an even larger river crossing in Louisiana. Titan Contractors installed a 40-inch diameter pipeline in Houston in , which was the most excellent diameter crossing ever undertaken.

According to him, HDD didn't become a household name until around 10 years after the initial river crossing. Cherrington returned to Sacramento in , when he created Cherrington Corp., a company that specialized in HDD for fibre-optic installations, and he remained there until . Horizontal directional drilling was born because of this.

Drilling Technology and Innovation

Even though the industry's roots may be traced back to Cherrington's early work, it has grown and modernized throughout time thanks to several advances. The use of technology has had a profound impact on this business, as it has on almost every other one. Tracking and steering have been two of the most significant developments in HDD technology.

Horizontal Technology Inc. president John English says that advancements in directional drilling have been directly linked to the ability of drill rigs to steer themselves.

As an oil and gas industry veteran who founded Horizontal Technology, Inc. in , English emphasized the need of working in rural locations where there was minimal traffic. Surface monitoring systems must be developed for these approaches to be used in metropolitan areas where the bulk of work is taking place, he added. HDD's upgrading is primarily credited to the invention of magnetic steering tools.

In the late s, Tensor, a business developing magnetic steering tools, formed a steering technique employing an artificial magnetic field that enabled a steering tool's location to be established about a source, such as a drill head. A contractor could now see exactly where a drill was drilled into the earth for the first time. This steering equipment over the next 40 years will become an industry of its own with major players like DigiTrak, Subsite and Underground Magnetics.

English said that having the ability to locate a drill head's position was a game-changer. "You're essentially digging with a compass under the surface. " Drilling directional holes has become a huge business. After then, the industry grew, and more people wanted to work in that field. Due to the lack of awareness about HDD, not many individuals could work with it."

The environmental advantages of HDD were also addressed in English, which said that in contrast to today, environmentalists were a significant supporter, mainly because they praised the usage of HDD. Because environmentalists prefer not to damage rivers by trenching over them, the drilling technique is known as horizontal directional drilling, or HDD is used in ecologically sensitive places.

It's hard to think of a more environmentally friendly instrument than HDD. HDD for specific applications is sometimes confused with the oil and gas sector by the new environmentalists, who fail to see its environmental advantages.

English discussed the changes in the bidding process and the dynamic between owners and contractors from a commercial perspective.

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"Older bids would include in everything that would need to be done in a specific task and would also take into consideration everything that may go wrong," he said. "At this point, everyone is basically bidding against each other to get the lowest price."

It was also brought out that the link between a pipeline owner and the drilling contractor made it possible for that owner to get first-hand knowledge of horizontal directional drilling (HDD). This was a good thing for those unfamiliar with directional drilling at the time since it helped spread the word about it.

At some point in the industry's rapid growth, "consultants communicate with the owner," he stated. 'In some respects, the industry's structure has regressed. In terms of HDD's general progress, improved procedures, more extensive drills, and better-trained personnel may be found.

Pushing the Directional Drilling Market

Since the first HDD projects were completed, numerous large corporations have joined the market, bringing the technology to a new level of efficiency and scope. Cherrington pioneered the procedure, but it wasn't until many years later that other corporations began to adopt it.

For the last 40 years, Eric Skonberg has provided project management and advising to HDD owners, engineers and contractors. He spoke about the significant players that have pushed the business forward and how its applications have changed over that period. According to Skonberg, firms like American Augers and InRock were instrumental early on in advancing the sector to offer a wide range of services and tools.

He also noted that HDD was first used in the oil and gas business in the late s, and bore lengths and river crossings had to be at least 1,000 ft. to begin.

When Vermeer and Ditch Witch entered the HDD market in the late s and early s, "the tiny end of the HDD business took off" as a result, he added. "Installations of fibre-optic cable started at this time. It's incredible to see how the industry's installation size has shrunk.

"The HDD market has also gotten more localized," he said. A few high-end firms will travel anywhere for any job: Laney, Michels, Southeast, and Mears, for example.

Both Skonberg and English agreed that today's engineers and owners are much more informed than they were even a few decades ago.

I believe it's becoming an even more competitive arena," he remarked. In the past, owners relied only on HDD contractors for engineering and had little idea of the complications that may arise. Their knowledge of engineering and planning for the project has improved significantly since they first started. Preparation of projects before a contractor becomes engaged has expanded as technology has advanced."

13 patents covered the industry's technique and equipment Cherrington developed by the early s. There are still several HDD design patents held by the company, even if some have been sold and others have been acquired. The trenchless industry has flourished tremendously because of how many HDD methods have developed from Martin Cherrington's initial technology.

He remarked that there isn't a lot of time to think about stuff like that when you're on the job. "However, now that I'm older, I'm able to dwell on the past and the events that have occurred." When it comes to surveying and equipment, I've seen a lot of advancements throughout the years. "

Likewise, Cherrington lauded today's HDD manufacturers and their impressive technological advancements. As a result, he claimed, he has been able to work on far more significant projects that were previously impossible.

He noted that several specialty firms are producing incredibly efficient technologies to assist make this task feasible. 500 feet of 4- or 5-inch pipe was the first task we tackled." I just heard of a project to install a 5,400-foot-long 56-inch pipe.

"Take a look at the big difference between then and today, and consider how technology and tooling have enabled the industry to make such a significant rise. And in the next ten or twenty years, what do you think it will be?"

Martin Cherrington does not have a Wikipedia page explaining how he is an inventor of the original equipment and process that eventually revolutionized an entire facet of construction. But when trying to encompass the history of horizontal directional drilling, it's only appropriate to start with the man who many veterans of the trade have come to recognize as the father of HDD.

The Beginning

Horizontal directional drilling is an idea Cherrington first conjured up in the early s when he was working for a utility installation company in Los Angeles. While out on a job, he witnessed another company doing some work nearby, using a hand-held air drill for a gas line installation. From that, Cherrington became familiar with the concept of guided drilling and wanted to take it a step further. He ended up taking it several steps further.

'My father was a contractor and I had an extremely broad background in civil construction,' Cherrington said. 'I had wonderful education in different disciplines, so I was comfortable with welding, fabricating and mechanical-type things.'

By Cherrington had left the utility company and built his own drill rig to start his own gig with Titan Contractors Inc., where he began working under several contracts with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).

He described his drill rig as having a very basic, spindly, lightweight framework that supported the carriage that rotated the drill pipe. 'It actually looked a lot like many of the HDD machines you see today, but slightly miniaturized, very light and skeleton-like,' he said.

Cherrington's crew performed road boring for various utility companies in the Sacramento area and became known as a leading contractor for that type of work. Since the industry was nowhere near the development of electronic tracking, Cherrington's crew used a technique he learned from the gas utility that used the hand-held air drill in Los Angeles. During the drilling, they would dig 'potholes' at various intervals along the bore path, using depth to check the angle and direction of the drill head.

The River Crossing

As far as road boring for basic utility installations, that was the beginning, even for Cherrington. His next task would mark another milestone in the drilling industry. In , Cherrington was in Watsonville, Calif., doing some drilling for gas lines for the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E). While he was in town, PG&E was intrigued by Cherrington's new methods and asked him if he would take a look at another small problem they were facing. PG&E needed to cross the Pajaro River, approximately 500 ft, to install a 4-in. gas line and was wondering if Cherrington would be capable of drilling underneath the river.

According to Cherrington, this was 'no man's land' at the time because nobody had ever attempted this work. Cherrington faced several problems and at one point, even enlisting the help of some oil drilling methods. After basically experimenting with different approaches, they finally broke through to the other side, having worked on the project for nearly a month.

'Everyone claims that was the first river crossing ever done,' he said. 'As far as I was concerned, because we were doing different kinds of jobs all the time, I thought that was it. It was just an odd job and I thought we'd never do that sort of thing again.'

Sure enough, news of Cherrington's successful river crossing caught wind and he was soon contracted to do an even bigger river crossing in Louisiana. By , Titan Contractors had completed a river crossing in Houston to install a 40-in. diameter pipeline ' a job that, at the time, was considered the largest diameter crossing ever attempted.

'It took about 10 years after that first river crossing for [HDD] to really become a household name,' he said. Cherrington would eventually make his way back to Sacramento on a permanent basis, where he founded Cherrington Corp. in , focusing on HDD for fiber-optic installations. But ultimately, that's how horizontal directional drilling began.

Technology and Modernization

While its beginnings can be traced to Cherrington's early work, the growth and modernization of the industry over the years is equally important and can be attributed to several developments. Similar to just about every other industry, technology has changed things considerably. With regards to HDD, some of the most important advancements have been in the areas of tracking and steering.

According to John English, president of Horizontal Technology Inc., developments in directional drilling have been directly related to the steering capabilities of drill rigs.

English, who started his career in the oil and gas industry and eventually started Horizontal Technology Inc. in , said techniques in HDD advanced most when early work was done in rural areas with little congestion. He said in order for these methods to be applied in urban areas where the majority of construction was taking place, the industry needed to develop methods of surface tracking. He credits the introduction of magnetic steering tools as a turning point in the modernization of HDD.

In the late s, Tensor, a company working to develop magnetic steering tools, created a steering technology using an artificial magnetic field that allowed a steering tool position to be determined in relation to a source, such as the drill head. For the first time, a contractor could verify the location of a drill below the ground.

'Once you could verify the location of a drill head, that changed everything,' English said. 'You're basically drilling with a compass below the ground. This opened up a big market for directional drilling. After that, it was a matter of the industry growing and wanting to get into that kind of work. The problem was that not a lot of people knew how to work in HDD because the process wasn't well-known.'

English also addressed the environmental benefits HDD provided and said contrary to today, environmentalists were a big ally, mainly because they commended the use of HDD. He explained that environmentalists for example, preferred the method of drilling underneath a river rather than damaging it to trench across and so because of HDD, environmentally sensitive areas generally go undisturbed during a drilling project.

'There probably aren't any tools in the world that have done more to save the environment than HDD,' he said. 'The new generation of environmentalists tends to get HDD for certain applications mixed up with the oil and gas industry and don't take into account the environmental benefits it actually has.'

The Bidding Process

On the business end, English talked about how the bidding process and the relationship between owners and contractors has shifted.

'Older bids would factor in everything that would need to be done in a given job and would also take into account everything that could go wrong,' he said. 'Now everyone is just trying for the lowest bid.'

He also mentioned that because the owner of a pipeline, for instance, had such a close relationship with the drilling contractor, it allowed the owner to learn about HDD firsthand. English said that at the time, this was a great thing because it helped to educate people on directional drilling since it was still relatively unknown.

'At some point the industry grew so fast and you now have consultants communicating with the owner,' he said. 'In some ways, the structure of the industry has taken a step backward. But in terms of overall improvements in HDD, methods are getting better, drills are larger and crews are trained better.'

Driving the Market

Since the initial HDD projects, many big companies have entered the market and taken directional drilling to a new level, both in terms of efficiency in the process and the size of projects. It wasn't until several years after Cherrington's first river crossing that other companies started to embrace the process.

Eric Skonberg, whose company Trenchless Engineering Corp. provides project management and consulting to HDD owners, engineers and contractors, discussed several of the major players who have driven the industry over the last 40 years and how the applications have shifted. Skonberg said early on, companies such as American Augers and InRock helped progress the industry in terms of providing a variety of services and equipment.

He also explained how many applications of HDD before the late s were mostly in the oil and gas industry and that bore lengths and river crossings started with distances of at least 1,000 ft.

'The late s and early s was really when the small end of the HDD industry took off as Vermeer and Ditch Witch were coming into the market,' he said. 'This was when fiber-optic cable installations began. It's kind of interesting that the industry ended up growing down in installation size.

'The HDD market has also become more regional,' he said. 'At the top end, companies like Laney, Michels, Southeast and Mears will pretty much go anywhere and take on any job.'

On the bidding side, Skonberg agreed with English that the majority of engineers and owners are much more knowledgeable about the process now than 20 or 30 years ago.

'I think it's a much more competitive environment now,' he said. 'Owners looked to the HDD contractor for all the engineering in the past, and didn't have an appreciation for the difficulties that could occur. Now, they are fairly educated on the importance of ground conditions and other things related to engineering and planning for the work. As the technology has grown, so has the preparation of the projects before a contractor even gets involved.'

Cherrington's Legacy

By the early s, Cherrington held 13 patents on process and equipment he developed for the industry. While some of those have been sold and others have been acquired, Cherrington Corp. today still holds numerous patents on HDD design. Martin Cherrington reflected on how the trenchless industry has grown considering how most HDD practices evolved out of his original method.

'Along the way, as you're out there working, you don't really have a lot of time to dwell on things like that,' he said. 'But I do reflect back now and look at the past and what has happened. I've seen a lot of changes and now, I see tremendous improvement in things like surveying and equipment.'

Cherrington also expressed his admiration of companies doing HDD today and the great strides that have been made with regards to the equipment. He said it has allowed for the completion of big jobs that are on a much different level than the early drilling jobs he was involved in.

'I think today, there are a lot of specialty companies out there making very efficient tools to help make this work possible,' he said. 'That first job we did was to install 500 ft of 4- or 5-in. pipe. I just heard about a job that was to install 56-in. pipe that was 5,400 ft long.

'Look at the difference in size from what we did to now and look at how the equipment and tooling collectively, has allowed the industry to take a major jump like that. And what's it going to be in the next 10 or 20 years?'

 

 

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Martin Cherrington does not have a Wikipedia page explaining how he is an inventor of the original equipment and process that eventually revolutionized an entire facet of construction. But when trying to encompass the history of horizontal directional drilling, it's only appropriate to start with the man who many veterans of the trade have come to recognize as the father of HDD.Horizontal directional drilling is an idea Cherrington first conjured up in the early s when he was working for a utility installation company in Los Angeles. While out on a job, he witnessed another company doing some work nearby, using a hand-held air drill for a gas line installation. From that, Cherrington became familiar with the concept of guided drilling and wanted to take it a step further. He ended up taking it several steps further.'My father was a contractor and I had an extremely broad background in civil construction,' Cherrington said. 'I had wonderful education in different disciplines, so I was comfortable with welding, fabricating and mechanical-type things.'By Cherrington had left the utility company and built his own drill rig to start his own gig with Titan Contractors Inc., where he began working under several contracts with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).He described his drill rig as having a very basic, spindly, lightweight framework that supported the carriage that rotated the drill pipe. 'It actually looked a lot like many of the HDD machines you see today, but slightly miniaturized, very light and skeleton-like,' he said.Cherrington's crew performed road boring for various utility companies in the Sacramento area and became known as a leading contractor for that type of work. Since the industry was nowhere near the development of electronic tracking, Cherrington's crew used a technique he learned from the gas utility that used the hand-held air drill in Los Angeles. During the drilling, they would dig 'potholes' at various intervals along the bore path, using depth to check the angle and direction of the drill head.As far as road boring for basic utility installations, that was the beginning, even for Cherrington. His next task would mark another milestone in the drilling industry. In , Cherrington was in Watsonville, Calif., doing some drilling for gas lines for the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E). While he was in town, PG&E was intrigued by Cherrington's new methods and asked him if he would take a look at another small problem they were facing. PG&E needed to cross the Pajaro River, approximately 500 ft, to install a 4-in. gas line and was wondering if Cherrington would be capable of drilling underneath the river.According to Cherrington, this was 'no man's land' at the time because nobody had ever attempted this work. Cherrington faced several problems and at one point, even enlisting the help of some oil drilling methods. After basically experimenting with different approaches, they finally broke through to the other side, having worked on the project for nearly a month.'Everyone claims that was the first river crossing ever done,' he said. 'As far as I was concerned, because we were doing different kinds of jobs all the time, I thought that was it. It was just an odd job and I thought we'd never do that sort of thing again.'Sure enough, news of Cherrington's successful river crossing caught wind and he was soon contracted to do an even bigger river crossing in Louisiana. By , Titan Contractors had completed a river crossing in Houston to install a 40-in. diameter pipeline ' a job that, at the time, was considered the largest diameter crossing ever attempted.'It took about 10 years after that first river crossing for [HDD] to really become a household name,' he said. Cherrington would eventually make his way back to Sacramento on a permanent basis, where he founded Cherrington Corp. in , focusing on HDD for fiber-optic installations. But ultimately, that's how horizontal directional drilling began.While its beginnings can be traced to Cherrington's early work, the growth and modernization of the industry over the years is equally important and can be attributed to several developments. Similar to just about every other industry, technology has changed things considerably. With regards to HDD, some of the most important advancements have been in the areas of tracking and steering.According to John English, president of Horizontal Technology Inc., developments in directional drilling have been directly related to the steering capabilities of drill rigs.English, who started his career in the oil and gas industry and eventually started Horizontal Technology Inc. in , said techniques in HDD advanced most when early work was done in rural areas with little congestion. He said in order for these methods to be applied in urban areas where the majority of construction was taking place, the industry needed to develop methods of surface tracking. He credits the introduction of magnetic steering tools as a turning point in the modernization of HDD.In the late s, Tensor, a company working to develop magnetic steering tools, created a steering technology using an artificial magnetic field that allowed a steering tool position to be determined in relation to a source, such as the drill head. For the first time, a contractor could verify the location of a drill below the ground.'Once you could verify the location of a drill head, that changed everything,' English said. 'You're basically drilling with a compass below the ground. This opened up a big market for directional drilling. After that, it was a matter of the industry growing and wanting to get into that kind of work. The problem was that not a lot of people knew how to work in HDD because the process wasn't well-known.'English also addressed the environmental benefits HDD provided and said contrary to today, environmentalists were a big ally, mainly because they commended the use of HDD. He explained that environmentalists for example, preferred the method of drilling underneath a river rather than damaging it to trench across and so because of HDD, environmentally sensitive areas generally go undisturbed during a drilling project.'There probably aren't any tools in the world that have done more to save the environment than HDD,' he said. 'The new generation of environmentalists tends to get HDD for certain applications mixed up with the oil and gas industry and don't take into account the environmental benefits it actually has.'On the business end, English talked about how the bidding process and the relationship between owners and contractors has shifted.'Older bids would factor in everything that would need to be done in a given job and would also take into account everything that could go wrong,' he said. 'Now everyone is just trying for the lowest bid.'He also mentioned that because the owner of a pipeline, for instance, had such a close relationship with the drilling contractor, it allowed the owner to learn about HDD firsthand. English said that at the time, this was a great thing because it helped to educate people on directional drilling since it was still relatively unknown.'At some point the industry grew so fast and you now have consultants communicating with the owner,' he said. 'In some ways, the structure of the industry has taken a step backward. But in terms of overall improvements in HDD, methods are getting better, drills are larger and crews are trained better.'Since the initial HDD projects, many big companies have entered the market and taken directional drilling to a new level, both in terms of efficiency in the process and the size of projects. It wasn't until several years after Cherrington's first river crossing that other companies started to embrace the process.Eric Skonberg, whose company Trenchless Engineering Corp. provides project management and consulting to HDD owners, engineers and contractors, discussed several of the major players who have driven the industry over the last 40 years and how the applications have shifted. Skonberg said early on, companies such as American Augers and InRock helped progress the industry in terms of providing a variety of services and equipment.He also explained how many applications of HDD before the late s were mostly in the oil and gas industry and that bore lengths and river crossings started with distances of at least 1,000 ft.'The late s and early s was really when the small end of the HDD industry took off as Vermeer and Ditch Witch were coming into the market,' he said. 'This was when fiber-optic cable installations began. It's kind of interesting that the industry ended up growing down in installation size.'The HDD market has also become more regional,' he said. 'At the top end, companies like Laney, Michels, Southeast and Mears will pretty much go anywhere and take on any job.'On the bidding side, Skonberg agreed with English that the majority of engineers and owners are much more knowledgeable about the process now than 20 or 30 years ago.'I think it's a much more competitive environment now,' he said. 'Owners looked to the HDD contractor for all the engineering in the past, and didn't have an appreciation for the difficulties that could occur. Now, they are fairly educated on the importance of ground conditions and other things related to engineering and planning for the work. As the technology has grown, so has the preparation of the projects before a contractor even gets involved.'By the early s, Cherrington held 13 patents on process and equipment he developed for the industry. While some of those have been sold and others have been acquired, Cherrington Corp. today still holds numerous patents on HDD design. Martin Cherrington reflected on how the trenchless industry has grown considering how most HDD practices evolved out of his original method.'Along the way, as you're out there working, you don't really have a lot of time to dwell on things like that,' he said. 'But I do reflect back now and look at the past and what has happened. I've seen a lot of changes and now, I see tremendous improvement in things like surveying and equipment.'Cherrington also expressed his admiration of companies doing HDD today and the great strides that have been made with regards to the equipment. He said it has allowed for the completion of big jobs that are on a much different level than the early drilling jobs he was involved in.'I think today, there are a lot of specialty companies out there making very efficient tools to help make this work possible,' he said. 'That first job we did was to install 500 ft of 4- or 5-in. pipe. I just heard about a job that was to install 56-in. pipe that was 5,400 ft long.'Look at the difference in size from what we did to now and look at how the equipment and tooling collectively, has allowed the industry to take a major jump like that. And what's it going to be in the next 10 or 20 years?'

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