What types of drilling work best with CorePlan?

Updated October 2022: CorePlan now supports hydro drill rigs!

Mineral exploration and grade control drilling

Did you know? CorePlan originally began as a software platform for mineral exploration companies. Our exploration early adopters worked with us to develop a product to help their drilling contractors easily digitise their plods and so CorePlan was born to suit the needs of exploration drillers.

Most CorePlan users are drillers for mineral exploration companies searching for rare earth minerals such as gold or metals like copper and nickel. These drillers use drilling methods such as aircore, diamond, reverse circulation or sonic drilling.

Here are a few reasons why CorePlan is popular with mineral exploration drillers:

The platform captures all activities undertaken by exploration drillers. The workflow starts when you receive the drill hole plan right through to completion, including invoicing and payroll.
The data capture process is perfect for high-speed and deep drilling. Drillers assign a drill type and add details to each interval depending on the granularity required for each project.
Drilling Hub and its sister product, Exploration Hub, work together to create a singular collaborative workspace specifically designed for the needs of explorers and their drillers. By minimising the friction in collaboration and increasing visibility, signing on for repeat business becomes a no-brainer!
Lastly, exploration drilling is massive in Western Australia (CorePlan’s home state) because the State is filled to the brim with minerals. After starting with just a handful of local customers, word of mouth quickly spread, building a solid foundation of West Aussie fans in this industry.

Whether you drill above or below ground, it’s easy to log surface and underground data using CorePlan. The mobile app works offline so drillers can capture their plod data anywhere. Entering the data directly into a mobile device with a backlit screen helps drillers enter accurate data even in poorly lit environments.

CorePlan has been designed so that it's easy to customise yourself. Many of our exploration drilling customers also drill for other industries and have successfully used the platform on their other projects.

Keep reading below to discover more common industry use cases for CorePlan.

Geotechnical drilling

If you’re in the market for geotechnical drilling software, CorePlan may be what you’ve been searching for. Whilst CorePlan was born out of the needs of exploration drillers; geotech drillers are also using the platform. CorePlan’s tools can help geotech drillers as there is a good amount of crossover between exploration and geotech drilling workflows. Geotech drillers that need to record their drilling intervals using common rig types like diamond, rotary air blast (RAB) or sonic, find that the platform is a good fit for their needs. Other rig types like auger that are used in geotech can also be recorded using CorePlan.

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Water drilling

Yes, you can use CorePlan for water bore drilling and water well drilling!

*Updated October 2022*

As of October 2022, CorePlan now supports water drilling using the new 'hydro' label.

The new hydro option gives you more flexibility to choose how you want your data captured and displayed. Under the RC or diamond drilling settings, drill intervals cannot overlap by default. Using the new hydro rig label, drillers can add multiple overlapping drilling intervals into their plod forms. This also makes it easier to track changes in the diameter of your drill bits as you drill the hole, as previously this activity needed to be recorded separately under downhole activities.

If you’re drilling shallow bores using an auger drill, the platform will also work well; however, to get the most out of a subscription, you’d want to have your drillers out drilling for most of the year and logging around 30-45 shifts per month across your business.

If you need to capture drilling intervals and other costs like consumable usage to charge to your clients, CorePlan is an easy way for your drillers to do this on the go, making invoicing a breeze for your admin team.

Environmental drilling

If you are working in environmental drilling, CorePlan is worth considering as an option for your business.

Environmental drillers using drilling methods like aircore, RC or sonic will find the workflow helpful for reasons similar to water bore and geotech drilling. Just like these drilling types, to get the most out of CorePlan you’d want to be doing ongoing environmental sampling for longer projects or have a steady pipeline of regular work.

What types of drilling aren’t suitable for using CorePlan?

Currently, CorePlan isn’t designed for use in farming, construction or oil and gas drilling.

The CorePlan plod entry system is based on recording drilling intervals, drilling to depth and logging downhole activities, making it unsuitable for cultivation or seed drilling in farming. The drill hole planning interface works best for entering and tracking holes based on their specific GPS coordinates instead of larger areas such as a paddock or field.

The platform is also designed for fast and high volume drilling methods, making it unsuitable for the specific technical and sampling requirements of oil and gas drilling.

Tl;dr?

If you need:

to record the progress of a drill program by a driller and rig on a shift-by-shift basis
to record activities specific to a hole (eg downhole activities), consumables and other incidentals
to charge your clients based on this data
a single place to store, analyse and report on this data

then CorePlan could be a great tool for your business!

If you aren’t drilling regularly or run an incredibly complex drilling program that requires very granular detail down the hole (eg oil and gas), CorePlan won’t be ideal for your needs at this stage.

Can’t see your drilling method here?

If you’re still unsure if CorePlan is compatible with your drilling workflow, one of our Perth-based customer success specialists will be more than happy to discuss your requirements. Live chat with our customer success team now using the chat bubble or give us a call on 61 8 6365 4488.

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What types of drillers can use CorePlan? See if you're on this list!

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