EXPERT NAVIGATION – Trenchless Works
A long distance horizontal directional drilling (HDD) project on its own is a big undertaking. Add in bore-path complications like two heavily vegetated ravines, a road, two restrictive railroad rights of way and a reinforced concrete parking lot, and there is the recipe for a jobsite that contractors are begging to leave. Not to mention, the path runs between two abandoned underground gasoline storage tanks that had been filled and alongside a mismarked fibre optic line that had to remain up and running.
This was the situation for a Greenville, South Carolina, USA fibre optic installation project. Magnetic field anomalies confounded utility locators and HDD guidance systems. Several regional contractors had either failed to complete the installation or refused to take the job altogether. The project was now more than a year overdue. Luckily for the customer, this is exactly the type of job Atlas Group’s HDD division pursues. “We are called in to finish jobs other contractors cannot finish. You could say that is our niche, drilling in hard rock, doing the most difficult jobs.” said Atlas Group President KJ Woody.
Founded in 2001 in Buckhannon, West Virginia, USA by KJ and his brother, Kyler, Atlas Group is a family-owned, family-operated company serving the needs of underground utility and construction customers throughout the East Coast region. HDD applications
typically involve fibre, natural gas and waterline installations.