Sir – I am not really surprised. It was to be expected for the well in the Beetaloo Basin to become unstable during horizontal drilling.
Anyone who had worked in the 1982 first geological seismic survey of the Adelaide – Darwin railway by the Department of Mines and Energy Northern Territory of Australia would have said so.
I was a part of the team surveying the terrain,
Station managers, old residents, told the engineers in charge of the drilling that it was not a smart idea to drill for core samples, the area being unstable.
They tried and abandoned after the drills bits kept getting stuck.
Evelyne Roullet/Couturier
Alice Springs