Guided, Horizontal Drilling Saves Time and Money
When an underground natural gas line has to go from point A to point B, traditionally that has meant bringing in heavy equipment to dig up streets and rights-of-way, resulting in trenches that later need to be backfilled and restored.
At Banks Gas Services, Inc, our approach is more state-of-the-art. We use a Vermeer D24x40 Series II Navigator HDD rig. This directional drill allows us to bore the needed path under busy thoroughfares or residential streets, keeping our on-site presence small and less disruptive to the communities we serve.
At Banks Gas, our mission is to lead the Pittsburgh region in the use of directional drilling to improve performance and minimize overall costs when it comes to gas line replacement and repair.
Want to learn more about our directional boring capabilities? Call us today at 412-829-5000.
Pittsburgh’s Bigelow Boulevard Project
One of the most challenging projects undertaken by Banks Gas was to drill a horizontal bore 6 ft under Pittsburgh’s busy Bigelow Boulevard.
Starting on the north side of the road, our directional drill had to do more than make its way under an active 4 lane highway, it required negotiating a severe elevation change up a 100-ft tall rock shelf, creating a total 400-ft bore to install a 4 inch gas line.
Complicating the job was the fact that the roadway was built on steel-slag from Pittsburgh’s glory days of steel production. It proved one of the hardest substances our drills ever had to contend with.
You can learn more on our Projects & Press page, including a link to the North American Oil & Gas Pipelines magazine article about the project.
Non-invasive Drilling, the Surgical Approach
The analogy is simple, through our use of advanced methods like GPS Line & Utility Location, Vacuum Excavation, and Directional Drilling, Banks Gas has taken gas line installation and repair from the days of “open surgery” to minimally invasive, precision arthroscopy.
We can do our jobs with minimal disruption to the communities we serve.