The Lužice complex following renovation

During the first quarter of 2025, the Bentec 450 is undergoing a five-year inspection. The rig had to interrupt its drilling campaign in Hungary, where it has been operating since last year, to carry out this important part of its regular maintenance. The inspection itself is mainly carried out in Lusatia and partly in Bad Bentheim and Hungary. Once completed, the BT450 is expected to be recommissioned and the project will resume during April.

The year 2025 brings many new challenges and projects for our companies MND Drilling & Services and MND Germany, both domestically and abroad. The current strategy is focused on strengthening our position in the industry and achieving ambitious targets for rig and crew utilization in accordance with high HSEQ (Health, Safety, Environment, and Quality) standards.

In the summer of this year, MND DS started a project to dispose of several wells of the Berlin Erdgasspeicher (BES) underground gas storage facility, which is located directly in Berlin. Here, our company uses an MD 80 rig operated primarily by MND Germany employees, which enabled us to meet the customer's request for at least a partially German-speaking crew. In addition, the MD 80 has thus returned to the foreign market for which it was primarily intended after several years of operation.

Our company is pleased to announce a major modification to the Bentec 350, which will increase its lifting capacity from the original 350 to 418 tonnes. This move will allow us to better respond to the growing demand for heavy rigs that has arisen not only in the Oil and Gas sector, but also in the deep geothermal drilling sector.

Not just fix it, but improve it in every way. MND Drilling and Services has a plan to elevate the Lužice site - from a functional, landscape, technological and aesthetic point of view. The tornado caused more than a quarter of a billion crowns worth of damage. Three years on, virtually everything has been repaired. But it doesn't stop there. On the contrary.

The deepest borehole in the Czech Republic in the last 30 years has received considerable media attention. Representatives of newspapers, TV and radio stations went to the area around Krumvír in South Moravia, where Bentec 350 is working. MND arranged an excursion for them to show their readers, viewers and listeners what it is like to work on a borehole that goes more than four kilometres underground.

It is not unusual to see one of MND Drilling and Services (MND DS) rigs towering in the vineyard. This time, however, the vineyards around our Bentec 250 rig were French, as our company returned to the French market after several years.

The Borkovany 8 well site is quite densely populated with technology. The Bentec 350 rig is complemented by five trestles, one gas-producing production cross and other infrastructure. For a number of years now, the Borkovany deposit has been in production, and well number 8 will continue to do so. The expected reserves have been confirmed.