L.J. Hughes & Sons, one of the largest diamond drilling contractors on the U.S. East Coast, has selected an Atlas Copco CT14 drill rig to equip the fourth generation of the family business with the state-of-the-art drilling technology it will need to compete and prosper through the 21st century.
The company, based in Summersville, West Virginia, traces its origins to some time between 1915 and 1920 when founder Luther Jones Hughes gave up a steady paycheck as a driller and went into business for himself with two steam-powered Sullivan drills.
In 1946, sons Robert and Charles joined their father’s business and were followed by daughter Evelyn and son-in-law Bob Herold in 1952, steering it through several decades of continuous growth.
In 1981, the third and current generation, led by Charles’ twin sons, Mick and Mike, and Evelyn’s son, Fletcher, were thrust into a management role when Robert and Charles succumbed to heart attacks within two years of each other—both at the age of 64. At the time, L.J. Hughes had between 23 and 25 drill rigs turning and the company was on track to complete a record high of just over 569,000 feet drilled for the year. In 1990, upon Evelyn’s retirement, her daughter, Rebecca, joined the management of the family business.
L.J.’s children, Charles and Evelyn, and their children all went to college and looked forward to professional careers, but fate intervened to draw them into the family enterprise.
“By the time I got out of college, I had no desire to do anything else,” said company president Mike Hughes. “It was in my blood.”
Fleet
The drill rigs in the L.J. Hughes fleet—mostly Joy 22s from the ’60s and ’70s—have been rebuilt several times by the company’s skilled fabricators and mechanics, but by the late ’90s, the family decided to start looking to the future.
“Joy is out of business and the 22s are no longer being manufactured,” said Mike. “Over the years, we bought a lot of equipment from competitors that have gone out of business and probably have enough parts for us to surf into retirement on, but we thought we needed to set our sights on a new type of drill rig and begin updating our fleet.”
Determined to make the best possible decision, the L.J. Hughes management team inspected drills in North Bay, Nevada and Utah over a span of several years before deciding in favor of a JKS Boyles rig. Just as the decision on a preferred vendor was made, JKS Boyles was acquired by Atlas Copco.
As the relationship between L.J. Hughes and Atlas Copco developed, Mike learned about the CT14, which was only on the drawing board at the time.
As a regional contractor focused almost exclusively on drilling for coal and coal bed methane in West Virginia and neighboring states, L.J. Hughes required a rig designed to drill to a depth of approximately 3,000 feet.
“Most of our holes average between 500 and 1,000 feet, but we have drilled holes down to 2,900 feet, so we needed a rig with that much depth capacity,” said Mike. Competing drills on the market at the time offered either too little or too much capacity. The CT14, with a capacity of 4,000 feet, came closest to meeting the company’s needs.
The fact that it was still on the drawing board gave L.J. Hughes the luxury of influencing the final design.
“It was a real collaboration,” said Mike. “We were sold on the gear-driven JKS Boyles head, for example, and worked with Atlas Copco to include it as an option.”
L.J. Hughes took delivery of the first CT14 off the assembly line in January 2006, and proceeded to make further adaptations to it before putting the truck-mounted rig into service.
Adaptations
“I knew when we got it that there were some things we’d want to redo,” said Mike. “The crow’s nest was definitely one of them. Atlas Copco worked with us to redesign it for the way we operate.”
The company’s fabricators also designed a fold-down catwalk along the sides of the rig and added several step-ups to make it easier for crews to move around.
“Sales support from Atlas Copco account manager Tom “Stretch” Wasicki, who looks after the Central and Eastern U.S. territory, has been excellent,” said Mike. “Any time we’ve had a problem or a question, we’d call the company’s sales manager in North Bay, Martin Sommers, or “Stretch” and they’d look after us right away.”
CT14 promises to significantly boost drilling productivity
“With the feed system on our older rigs, we have to stop the rotation every 30 inches, run the swivel head back up, re-chuck it and drill again; so it’s stop and start, stop and start,” explained Mike. “Not only does it slow you down, but it also stresses our bit.”
“The CT 14 has an 11-foot stoke on it, so you can drill 11 feet before you have to re-chuck. That helps in numerous ways. It’s faster because you’re not re-chucking as often, you should get better bit life, and when you’re drilling through a broken formation, it’s much easier drilling through it in one pass.”
The company turned to one of its most experienced drillers to break the rig in and set an example for embracing change. “Fuzzy Salisbury has been here since I was in diapers,” said Mike. “He’s 68 years old, has a wealth of knowledge and is retired, but every summer he comes back and works two or three months for us. He took the rig out to drill the first hole.”
“I’m glad it’s proving itself because I’d like to order another one,” he added.
Standardizing on a particular brand of equipment, whether it’s drill rigs, pick-up trucks or engines has been an important factor in the company’s success. Drillers and mechanics become more adept at operating and repairing similar equipment, and it’s easier and less expensive to stock spare parts.
“We carry a complete inventory of parts for all of our equipment, so we are able to make repairs quickly and get on with the job,” said Mick, who serves as the company’s vice president.
Rods
L.J. Hughes has also come to rely on Atlas Copco for consumables—especially drill rods. On one of his trips to North Bay, Mike was introduced to the NT wireline drill rod with its unique TUFF thread design.
“I love that thread,” he remarked. “They showed me the model in the machine shop and I asked them if I could have it. I brought it back to Summersville and showed it to Mick, Fletcher and all the drillers. Everyone liked it. We ordered 1,500 feet to start with and now we’re using it on almost all of our rigs.”
Drill crews are able to screw the rods together much faster and there’s less risk of pulling them out of the threads in a tight hole.
Decisions about acquiring new technology are routinely made by consensus.
“We’ve always tried to involve our employees in the decision-making because they’re the ones who are running the equipment,” said Fletcher, who serves as the company’s treasurer. “We listen to them and ask for their advice whenever possible.”
Hands-on
All three of L.J. Hughes’s grandsons got their feet wet in the field working on drill rigs as helpers and getting their hands dirty in the shop. Mike, for example, jokes that he was probably the lowest paid college graduate there ever was when he joined the company as a driller’s helper after completing a degree in Industrial Management at West Virginia University.
“What we learned out in the field, working with our hands, is invaluable to us now in managing the company because all of us have been there and done it,” said Mike. “When there are problems in the field, we can troubleshoot them with our drillers and the men in the shop, and come up with a solution.
“And that’s what we’re doing with the fourth generation. Matt Lilly, a great-grandson of L.J. Hughes, was interested in coming into the business. He’s a college graduate, too, but he started off with us as a driller’s helper. He’s out there working with his hands, so he can gain the same experience.”
Over the years, L.J. Hughes has learned to adapt to the changing fortunes of the coal mining industry, resorting to work sharing to keep its experienced drillers on the payroll during lean times and investing prudently in new technology during years of plenty.
Through it all, the company has remained focused on Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and Maryland, in addition to West Virginia, drilling in excess of 14 million feet (the equivalent of 2,700 miles) since 1946, when it began keeping records. There have been opportunities to drill elsewhere in the U.S. and as far as South America and China, but L.J. Hughes has never been tempted to overextend itself.
There are more than enough challenges in their own backyard.
“The easy drilling and the easy coal mining are over,” said Mike. “Coal seams are going to be thinner and deeper and drilling is going to be more difficult because of the old mine workings we’re encountering.”
Backed up by state-of-the-art drilling technology from Atlas Copco Exploration Products and a skilled team of drillers, fabricators and mechanics, the family business is well positioned to continue prospering well into the future.