Drilling Rig Financing

About 2 minutesNo personal-credit inquiryInstant answer

Crest Capital finances new and used drilling rigs for established businesses: water well and geothermal drillers, geotechnical and environmental firms, quarries and mining operations, and construction contractors. Financing covers $10,000 to $500,000, and rigs bought from a dealer or from another drilling company can qualify. The sections below describe the main rig types and drilling methods.

Mobile Drilling Rig Financing

A mobile drilling rig is mounted on a truck, a trailer or crawler tracks, so the whole rig moves from one hole to the next instead of being assembled on site. Water well, geotechnical, environmental and blast hole work is done mostly with mobile rigs. Because the rig carries its own mast, power and pipe handling, a crew can drill several holes in a day at different spots on a site, and support vehicles such as pipe trucks and water trucks can be financed too.

Truck Mounted Drilling Rig Financing

A truck-mounted rig is built on a truck chassis, so it drives between job sites on public roads and sets up quickly. Water well, geotechnical and geothermal drillers use them where a site can be reached by road. Smaller rigs fit on a medium-duty chassis, while larger water well rigs ride on heavy tandem or tridem chassis; the rig and its carrier are bought as one unit.

Track Mounted Drill Rig Financing

A track-mounted drill rig sits on crawler tracks that carry it across soft ground, rough terrain and slopes a truck cannot reach. Quarries, construction sites and remote exploration and environmental sites use them, and they travel between jobs on a trailer. Rubber tracks protect lawns and pavement on geotechnical and environmental jobs, and steel tracks suit quarries and broken rock.

Top Hammer Drill Financing

A top hammer drill strikes the drill string from above: the hammer rides on the rig's feed and its blows travel down the rods to the bit. It drills quickly in hard rock at shallower depths, which suits quarry benches, road cuts and construction blasting. Its speed falls off as holes get deeper, because each joint in the drill string absorbs part of every blow, which is where down-the-hole drilling takes over.

Down the Hole Drill Financing

A down-the-hole drill puts the hammer at the bottom of the hole, directly behind the bit, driven by compressed air, so the hammer's energy is not lost along the rods. It keeps drilling steady at greater depths and is used for blast holes, water wells, foundation piles and geothermal boreholes. It needs a large air compressor, carried on the rig or towed behind it, sized to the hammer and the depth.

Rock Drills Financing

Rock drills break rock with repeated hammer blows while the bit turns. They range from handheld pneumatic drills to rig-mounted top hammer and down-the-hole drills, and they are used in quarrying, tunneling, construction and well drilling. Hydraulic rock drills are common on modern rigs, and pneumatic drills remain common on smaller equipment and handheld tools.

Blast Hole Drill Financing

A blast hole drill bores the holes that hold explosives in quarries, open-pit mines and construction rock cuts. The holes are drilled in a pattern to a set depth so the blast breaks rock to a usable size; many blast hole drills are track-mounted rigs using top hammer or down-the-hole drilling. Rigs are sized by the hole diameter and depth they drill, and a quarry may run several of them.

Air Core Drill Rig Financing

Air core drilling uses a bladed bit and double-walled rods: compressed air sent down between the walls carries the cuttings up the inner tube to the surface, where they are collected as samples. It is a quick way to sample loose and weathered ground in mineral exploration. The rigs are usually truck- or track-mounted with a large compressor, and once a target is found, explorers often follow with reverse circulation or core drilling.

Environmental Drill Rig Financing

Environmental drill rigs are compact rigs, often direct-push or hollow-stem auger rigs, that collect soil and groundwater samples and install monitoring wells at sites being tested or cleaned up. Their small footprint lets them work beside buildings and on tight sites. Many ride on rubber tracks or small trucks, and one rig may switch between direct push and augering on the same job.

Seismic Drill Rig Financing

A seismic drill rig drills shallow shot holes for seismic surveys: small charges set in the holes send sound waves into the ground, and the reflections map the rock layers below. The rigs are light and mobile, mounted on trucks, tracked carriers or buggies. Survey crews drill many holes along each survey line, so seismic rigs are built to move and set up quickly.

Geotechnical Drill Rig Financing

Geotechnical drill rigs sample the soil and rock beneath a planned building, bridge or road so engineers can design its foundation. They drill test borings, recover soil samples and rock cores, and run in-place tests such as the standard penetration test. Many are compact track or truck rigs that can reach tight or soft sites.

Used Drilling Rig Financing

Used drilling rigs are financed the same way as new ones, whether you buy from a dealer or from another drilling company. Before you buy, check the rig's hours, its maintenance records and the condition of the mast, the rotation head or hammer, and the compressor or pumps. Used rigs come from dealers and from drilling companies replacing or upgrading their fleets, and a used rig with a documented service history can be a sound purchase.