The demand for drilling companies capable of production drilling has climbed an all-time high. From East Coast to West Coast, you hear the same, significant theme at conventions: How do we to recruit water well drillers into production drilling for geothermal and other industrial applications?
As a young mud engineer at the beginning of my career, I had the opportunity to work and collaborate with a team of water well drilling companies from central Indiana. Ortman Drilling, Moss Well Drilling, and Dilden Bros. Well Drilling joined to create Triton Geothermal. Together they drilled the south field of Phase 1 for Ball State University’s 2009 geothermal project. That year, it was one of the largest ground-source heat loop projects in the United States. Phase 1 consisted of roughly 1,800 holes, with the south field alone totaling 573 holes. I recently reread my field notebook from 12 years ago, and it made me smile to think about all the great lessons learned with the team at Triton.