Jordan-based Arab Center for Engineering Studies (Aces) said its Dubai unit has completed a challenging site investigation project in the hills of Fujairah, UAE.

The investigation was carried out for a quarry site located at the top of a hill at an elevation of 400 m within the Hajar Mountain area, according to Aces.

The scope of the investigation included drilling of 30 boreholes to depths ranging from 40 to 250 m, with a total of 1,500 linear m besides continuous coring with 100 per cent core recovery using wireline HQ core systems.

The drilling work was carried out with many of the rigs that had been designed and manufactured by the Jordanian group.

According to Aces, the biggest challenge had been the coring of a 250 m borehole, which is one of the deepest boreholes drilled by its Dubai unit.

Boreholes that are over 200 m deep are rare in civil engineering applications, and are mostly required for ultra-high towers and nuclear power plants, said the statement from the company.

A water-based mud system was used to overcome major drilling challenges such as borehole instability and loss of water due to the highly fractured nature of the rock.

The average drilling productivity per day exceeded 14 m which allowed drilling the deep borehole in less than three weeks, it added.

Aces has till date completed a number of deep borehole investigations in the region, including Jeddah Tower (Saudi Arabia), Burj Khalifa (Dubai) and several nuclear power plants in the UAE and Jordan.-TradeArabia News Service