In April this year, MND DS successfully completed a project to drill two brine wells in France for chemical giant KEM ONE, a European leader in PVC production.

KEM ONE produces over 1 million tonnes of PVC per year, mainly for the construction and automotive industries. One of the key raw materials for PVC production is brine leached from salt beds near Vauvert in the south of France.

After a tender process last autumn, KEM ONE chose our company with the Bentec 250 for this project. For MND DS, this was the culmination of several years of efforts to win the contract for this important client in France.

The actual start of the project was preceded by an accelerated process of preparation for re-entry into this market, which is one of the most demanding due to its requirements. Moreover, there was very little time to do everything, as only two months elapsed between the award of the contract and the mobilisation of the 1,500 kilometres. Fortunately, the implementation team managed to get everything in place in time and before Christmas 2023, our rig and crew were able to successfully move to the new site in the south of France and start drilling the first of two wells.

Near the small town of Vauvert, dozens of wells have been drilled over the past decades, a production centre with a huge gathering tank has been built, and the necessary technology for extraction and partial processing of the product has been established. From here, the brine is pumped via pumps and 80 kilometres of pipeline to a chemical plant for further processing, which involves the extraction of chlorine by electrolysis for subsequent use.

In the past, the wells were drilled as stand-alone probes and leached to create underground caverns with a cubic capacity of 600,000 to 1 million^m3, but recently KEM ONE has found it difficult to obtain permits to drill new wells, so they have decided to use old, mined wells and drill new directional wells from existing areas. Permits for such wells can be processed in a much shorter time.

In such a well, a new well is drilled using deviated wedges set at a depth of approximately 1,700 m, which is guided through the salt layers into the cavern of an adjacent well, thereby gaining access to additional salt reserves.

Despite the customer's failure to drill the adjacent cavern or establish communication between the well and the cavern as intended, the KEM ONE operator expressed great satisfaction with the work of our crew and the performance of the Bentec 250 drilling rig and announced further joint projects in the near future.

Upon completion of the project, the Bentec 250 rig was moved back to Lusatia in April this year where it was stored prior to the next project. Further attempts are currently underway in France to gain communication with the caverns through long-term injection tests and KEM ONE is already preparing for the next drilling campaign in 2025, which they would like to carry out again in collaboration with MND DS.

The entire team involved in this project deserves great praise for their work, professionalism and commitment. We are delighted to have returned to this exciting market again, and to have won a new customer.

Petr Kopečný and Radovan Jedlička

MND DS