DCA mourns the loss of Hermann Lübbers

The co-founder, former president and honorary member of the Drilling Contractors Association (DCA), Hermann Lübbers, who last worked as a project manager for large-scale drilling technology at Beermann Bohrtechnik GmbH, died on 16 October 2019 at the age of 65 after a long and serious illness.

At the end of 1993, Hermann Lübbers and Dr. Rüdiger Kögler had the idea of founding an association for Horizontal Directional Drilling Technology. On 10 November 1993 the first official meeting of the working group "Horizontal Drilling Technology" took place in Wallenhorst in the Hotel Bitter. The association was founded only one year later.

At the first meeting of the DCA, Hermann Lübbers became Protocol Secretary under the presidency of Claus Schmidt, who unfortunately had also died. The preparation of the first Technical Guideline of the DCA in German and English and the establishment of the office in Aachen fell into this founding period.

When Hans Ringers was elected as president in 1997, Hermann Lübbers became Vice-President and was significantly involved when the first drillmaster and foreman courses were realised in Celle. He also had a leading role establishing a standard display for HDD drillings.

But as vice-president he really put emphasis on developing DVGW’s worksheets GW 321 and GW 329 (for supervisors and skilled staff at HDD drillings), and later on the certifications related to these. This measure at that time was one, if not the milestone in view of quality protection in DCA’s history. For the first time minimum standards could be put into effect in this industry in the course of certification.

In the years between 2002 and 2006, under the presidency of Gerard P. Hoogveld, who also unfortunately passed away, the focus of his board work was on the training and further education of personnel on the equipment and the promotion of young scientists in industry.

The members meeting in 2007 then elected Hermann Lübbers as 4th president of the DCA. During his term of office the Technical Guidelines were completely revised twice and considerably expanded. The last and topical edition was published under his direction in three languages in 2015.

Representatively for all the other objectives that were achieved stands the implementation of own DIN standards for HDD drillings. It is primarily due to Hermann Lübbers that the new DIN standards overcame so many obstacles within the shortest time possible. Furthermore he could achieve that the DCA as association was specifically mentioned in the VOB; only very few others ever succeeded in that.

Hermann Lübbers remained associated with the DCA even after his resignation from the board at the beginning of 2017. After coordination with the board, he continued his activities with regard to training and further education. This applied primarily to the HDD training at the Bohrmeisterschule Celle and to the further training seminar according to GW 329 in Kassel.

Hermann Lübber's work will always be both an incentive and an obligation for the DCA and its members. The DCA will honour his memory.

24th DCA Annual Congress 2019 – Krakow/Poland

The Drilling Contractors Association (DCA) is organising its annual congress again this year. We cordially invite you to Krakow/Poland. Members, friends and partners of the DCA will meet from October 16 – 18, 2019 at Hotel Qubus to hear interesting specialist lectures and exchange experiences.

Sponsors of this annual congress are the polish companies Heads, ZRB Janicki and PPI Chrobok. Many thanks for their support go to all these sponsors!

The motto of the 24th annual congress is: “HDD smart and green”

The congress will open with a very interesting lecture by Prof. Dr. Dr. Franz-Josef Radermacher, chair of the faculty for “Data Bases/Artificial Intelligence at the University of Ulm and director (CEO) of FAW/n (Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing/n) Ulm, also member of the Club of Rome on the topic "The world in the year 2050". The focus of his exciting and challenging subject matter of the lecture will be on technology and innovation.

In addition to other interesting lectures concerning the Polish HDD market, two workshops will take place as announced.

Workshop 1 will be dedicated to the topic "Electrically operated drilling rigs".Workshop 2 will deal with "new" trenchless techniques linked to HDD technology and will discuss areas of application as well as advantages and disadvantages compared to classic HDD technology with the participants.

On Friday, lectures on HDD projects will again be presented, as usual. Furthermore, an interesting spouse program is planned (see attached information).

The registration deadline is 20.09.2019.

Registration and room reservations

DCA Supports 17th Trenchless Engineering Conference in Poland

Poland's largest trenchless industry meeting is taking place this year for the 17th time. The international conference, exhibition and technology fair "Trenchless Engineering" invites from 11th to 14th June 2019 to Tomaszowice near Krakow. On the two main days of the conference, lectures in the form of workshops with exciting discussions will be held in the morning and technology shows in the afternoon.

The following topics will be the focus of the lectures:

• Global trends and trenchless industrial development directions
• Global and Polish trenchless projects - a review
• Technology selection for trenchless rehabilitation projects
• Technology selection for trenchless pipeline installation projects
• Economy of trenchless projects
• Legal and financial aspects of investments
• Optimization of drilling processes.

The event will be accompanied by a festive event on 13 June with the presentation of the TITAN awards.

The DCA is one of the partners of the event and will be represented in Tomaszowice by board member Atef Khemiri.

Registrations can be made via the website https://konferencje.inzynieria.com/ib2019.

Jorn Stoelinga, LMR Drilling GmbH, becomes new president of the DCA

On 13 February 2019, the members' meeting of the Drilling Contractors Association (DCA) took place on a regular basis in Oldenburg. With 41 member companies of 112 member companies in the association and 93 participants, the meeting was well attended. The main objective on the agenda of this year's meeting was, besides the planned amendment of the statutes, the new elections of the board. After two years as President of the DCA, Marc Schnau was no longer available for re-election as president for professional reasons. In his speech, he thanked the members of the DCA, his colleagues on the board and the management for their excellent cooperation over the past years.

The new President of the DCA is Mr. Jorn Stoelinga of LMR Drilling GmbH, Oldenburg.

With 29 years of professional experience in horizontal drilling technology, he is a recognized and valued expert in the industry. After studying oil production technology at the University of Applied Sciences in Den Helder, he held various positions in HDD and pipeline construction at the Dutch companies Nacap and Visser & Smit Hanab b.v. before joining LMR Drilling GmbH at the end of 2018. During his career he has worked in Europe as well as in Central America and South East Asia.

Jorn Stoelinga has been a member of the DCA Board since 2015 and was initially responsible for the training of site managers and machine operators in the Netherlands. Since 2017, he was elected as a DCA Vice President, during this time he took over the leadership of the task group "Coating Quality".

In his inaugural speech, the new president announced that the previous objectives of the DCA would continue to be actively pursued in the future. In particular, the European idea of the association is to be given even more focus. After the successful introduction of two representatives of the DCA in Spain and Italy, further representatives will follow, especially in Northern and Eastern Europe. With the amendment of the articles of association and the new allocation of board positions, the profile of the DCA is to be further sharpened, especially in the area of HDD small drilling technology. In addition to promoting training and further education measures for specialist personnel, the DCA continues to endeavour to provide and further develop technical standards and recommendations. The association will continue to focus on measures to further develop technology, increase quality and harmonise contractual and competitive conditions.

After the election of the president the following members of the DCA were elected to the board:

• Vice-President (Small Scale Drilling): Marco Reinhard (Leonhard Weiss GmbH & Co. KG)
• Vice-President (Large Scale Drilling): Atef Khemiri (HDI)
• Vice-President (Associate Members): Dr. Tim Jaguttis (de la Motte & Partner Ing. mbH)
• Treasurer: Jürgen Muhl (STEP Oiltools GmbH)
• Board Member: Marc Schnau (x-plan schnau engineering)
• Board Member: Franz-Josef Kißing (Open Grid Europe GmbH)
• Board Member: Scott Stone (Visser & Smit Hanab bv)

Site manager training course at TRACTO-TECHNIK

On 13.03.2019 the construction supervisor training course will take place again at TRACTO-TECHNIK in Lennestadt. The event will be held in cooperation with the DCA and the companies Moll-prd and AMC. As in previous years, the DCA will be in charge of the technical management. The event is aimed at owners and managing directors of specialist foundation engineering companies and drilling companies, HDD construction managers and HDD project managers and focuses on supplement management and drilling mud disposal.

If you are interested, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.