DrillNZ is an initiative to coordinate the knowledge and infrastructure required for scientific advancement through drilling in New Zealand
Scientific drilling not only forms the basis for our current understanding of how the Earth works, but it also underpins a wide range of economic and technological applications and developments. As an example, drilling technology is widely used for petroleum and groundwater production, mineral and coal exploration, geothermal energy generation, and geotechnical engineering investigations.
For these reasons, a group of stakeholders (including universities, Crown Research Institutes, and industry partners) has put forth a concept during the Research Infrastructure Scan 2010 to help Government, in particular the Ministry of Science and Innovation, coordinate physical/intellectual resources and assets in order to optimize research investment in the field of scientific drilling.
The Research Infrastructure Scan 2010 resulted in a list of high priority project areas for potential research infrastructure investments over the next 5 years to inform government’s research infrastructure strategy. The DrillNZ concept/proposal has been ranked "Tier Two", together with two other projects (PET scanner/cyclotron and second beam hall for OPAL).
Tier Two projects are "infrastructure areas that may have merit but that require further information and analysis to determine whether they are within the scope of the policy and whether there is a case for national infrastructure investment". These items are on the horizon, but a case is yet to be made for national research infrastructure investment due to insufficient information currently available for estimating need, usage, value, cost, etc.
The "Tier One"projects were: two underpinning research infrastructure (KAREN and High Performance Computing), and four high priority transformational research infrastructure (Synchrotron Beamlines, Nano/Micro fabrication and prototyping, Integrated ’omics facilities, Large Animal Imaging).
The DrillNZ concept not only fascilitates investigation of topics of societal/economic significance (such as research into groundwater, energy, petroleum, coal, underwater natural resources, and hazards), but also generates synergies across Institutes, exchange of ideas and expertise, compilation of inventories of equipment, databases, and people involved in scientific drilling, and creates closer links and opportunities between government, industry, and academia.