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The Zilper Trenchless Team Joins Petra
I am thrilled to announce the acquisition of Zilper by Petra.
Zilper, a pioneer in the trenchless technology space, will merge with Petra, the first company capable of undergrounding critical utility infrastructure through nightmare hard rock geologies. Our combined companies will operate as Petra, allowing us to accelerate our development of new methods designed to bore through all nightmare geologies while making projects more cost-effective. I met Daniel and Roberto, the co-founders of Zilper Trenchless, years ago, and we have been working on this merger since January of 2022.
Before connecting, Zilper and Petra started around the same time, and we came to the same conclusion, as we refined our technologies and engaged with more industry leaders, that the utility tunneling industry needed new technology to meet the undergrounding demand. There has been long-standing demand in the sector to remove risk in utility undergrounding projects with the latest technology.
Over the years, each company separately focused on creating technology capable of boring through the geologies of the construction team's nightmares - hard rock to soft ground. Petra took on the challenge of boring through hard rock geologies that were previously impossible. Zilper decided to focus on soft ground: sand, high water table soil/sand, cobbles and boulders, swamp, and tar.
Zilper's Innovation
Because of Roberto's genius for building trenchless machines, Zilper has developed innovative solutions to bore common and nightmare soft ground geologies; they have done this quickly and scrappily. The Zilper team developed a guided auger boring machine with features other trenchless methods lack. They created a plug that stops the inrush of water when boring through sand and an adjustable pipe ramming cutter head that allows them to use a single body to bore multiple diameters, cutting down on costs and machine mobilization time.
Zilper also went back to first principles as they realized they needed to get more thrust force out of their machine. They accomplished greater thrust force with simple fixes to their ingenious and elegant propulsion system, allowing them to transfer more energy to moving earth than previously possible.
All of this means that they can uniquely bore through geologies that other teams of underground contractors struggle with. We think of geologies that drillers bore through like items on a menu, with the most expensive being the nightmare geologies mentioned above and the least expensive being the soft soil geologies.
Why We're So Excited About The Zilper + Petra Merger
Most of the world's utilities were not designed to withstand the storms, extreme heat, and drought brought on by climate change and rapid population growth. Above-ground power lines have caused thousands of wildfires in drought-prone areas. In low-lying coastal areas, increased flooding and sea level rise causes sewage to leach into waterways. Legacy technology makes undergrounding very difficult in many populated regions with hard and soft soil nightmare geologies.
There is a growing demand to fix aging sewer and water lines and add electricity transmission lines. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects global energy demand will increase by 50% in the next 30 years, requiring more transmission lines. In Miami, a multi-billion investment is planned to underground utilities and build sewer systems to address increasingly dangerous flooding. Changing ground conditions are the most significant risk in successfully undergrounding these utilities.
The world needs a more versatile tool that can de-risk undergrounding projects by boring through more geologies, especially nightmare geologies. Zilper has built trenchless products that can uniquely bore through some of the riskiest soft ground conditions on earth like flowing sands, dense clay, cobbles, and water-logged ground. The Zilper machine is innovative because it dramatically reduces the risk of excavating these nightmare geologies. In addition, the proprietary Zilper technology suite has successfully completed numerous trenchless tunnels where competing technologies have failed to deliver. Together, we're building the future of trenchless tunneling.
The combined company, in an industry first, will deliver a solution that de-risks the social, environmental, and economic costs of underground utility in hard and soft soils.
Petra will begin manufacturing Zilper's technologies in the United States in September 2022 for introduction to the US and European Markets in early 2023.
