GWI engineers, contractors to benefit from well drilling training

May 04, 2017 News

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Employees of Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) inclusive of engineers along with two private contractors will benefit from a one-week training seminar in Oklahoma City, United States of America.

The event, which is the 20th Annual Resource Drilling Fundamentals Training Seminar will begin on May 8, 2017 and end on May 12. Representing the GWI are Executive Director, Design, Infrastructure, Supply and Demand and Water Resources, Aubrey Roberts, Executive Director of Operations, Dwayne Shako, Water Resources Manager, Orin Browne and Engineers, Ajay Bissessar and Cleon French.
The two contractors who will be benefitting are Courtney Benn Jr. and Lionel Wordsworth of Jagmohan Contracting Services.
The seminar will be led by GEFCO Inc. in collaboration with the Sir Sandford Fleming College. This is the second time that GWI will be participating in the event which is focused on water well development, maintenance and well drilling techniques.
The participants were presented to the media yesterday at the company’s Vlissengen Road branch. According to GWI’s Managing Director, Dr. Richard Van West-Charles, the company would have sent five employees in 2016 and decided this year to repeat its quota and include contractors.
He said that this move signals the intent of the company to work in a collaborative way with the contractors. Dr Van West-Charles said that during the 1980’s the organisation which preceded GWI – GUYWA – had an install capacity, however, these days the company uses a lot of contractors. He said that this is not a practice which he is against, but he believes that GWI as a company should have capability to drill its own wells and use the contracting community to assist in drilling a large number of wells.
“Why this is necessary? Guyana doesn’t have enough redundancy with respect to wells throughout its length and breadth of the country. So you will see in most communities, a single well. (If) that well goes the community suffers.”
Dr Van West-Charles said that having visited places such as Holland, the company has been able to observe the use of ‘Well Fields’ and as a result, is moving in that direction to look at a series of wells and move from the dependency on a single well.
Further, he said that the company has to think about the ‘Aquifer’. The aquifer is a block of porous rock from which groundwater can be obtained or passed through. He said that efforts must be made to ensure that the aquifer can be recharged so that the water supply does not deplete.
He said that despite the fact that the company can use contractors, the company itself needs to do its work. According to him, based on previous visits to Holland, GWI employees would have seen different approaches to drilling wells and bringing water to communities, particularly along the banks of rivers.
The CEO added there are considerable challenges being faced in the hinterland areas of Guyana where there is a lot of rock formation. “Right now, we are hoping to complete drilling a well in Bartica…but that has presented a challenge. We will overcome the challenge, but because of the rock formation, we have to ensure that we have the capability and that the contractors have the capabilities to assist in this process, and if the contractors are involved they need to have the requisite equipment to be able to drill through rock to get to the fissures where we can have access to water.”
Giving an overview of the training was Dwayne Shako, who said that the training focuses on the principles of well drilling. He said that during the week, participants will be exposed to both theory and practical.
“It looks at all the different components of drilling; the mud pit, for those persons who are familiar with drilling, you look at your mud pit, calculate the viscosity of your mud; you learn how to know how fast you are drilling, what depth you are at, considering that you are going through clay foundation.”
Shako said that participants will be exposed to different types of rigs, including those which are used for drilling through clay as well as rocks. The Executive Director was a part of the 2016 team. He said that the event allows persons to interact with veteran professionals who would have been involved in drilling for 45 years. “These guys are drilling wells at 8000 feet. We are drilling wells at 600 feet.”
Meanwhile, Water Resources Manager, Orin Browne, said that as it relates to well drilling in Guyana, there have been several challenges such as the performance of the well at the end of construction.
He said that based on the recent wells which were built using knowledge learnt through exchange programmes, the company has seen improvement. The GWI employees participating in the event will be funded by the company while the two contractors will be financed by their respective entities.
When asked by this newspaper how the two contractors were chosen, Browne said that a number of contractors who usually bid for GWI projects were invited, however, many would have signalled their inability and only two accepted the invitation.

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