Winners

Established in 1991 as a limited company, Marriott Drilling – headquartered in Chesterfield, Derbyshire – was originally formed in 1947 by the late Richard Marriott, grandfather of the three current grandsons, and so the business celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.

Today, PR Marriott Drilling (Marriott) has developed from a small family business focused on local water resources with self-built drilling rigs to a highly respected specialist company that provides onshore deep drilling and associated services to the domestic and international oil and gas, gas storage, geothermal, geoscience, mining, geotechnical and water industries. The current business operations extend across the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Albania, Kenya, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Belize, Guatemala, Bolivia and Kuwait.

Leader in its field
Marriott offers a wide range of services, from contract drilling to integrated and management services for projects, and is a leader in safety, innovation and technology. The company has an experienced and versatile team of some of the best in the industry with a commitment to project and customer success. This is underpinned by comprehensive quality health, safety and environmental programmes, together with personnel training to ensure competence and service excellence. Marriott is accredited by Lloyds Register for safety, quality and environmental management.

The Marriott team is led by the grandsons of the founder, Richard, and the company employs 200 to 300 personnel worldwide with a 30-strong head office team at its headquarters facility near Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

For international projects, the company has a policy and reputation for employing and training local personnel to the high standards of the company, and is proud of the fact that in East Africa operations are crewed by over 80% nationals, and in Central and South America almost 100% local employees.

The success of Marriott is illustrated by the development from a domestic family company to a respected player on the international stage within the last 20 years.

A global reach
International operations commenced in 2002 in Spain, followed by the discovery of the first oil in Belize, Central America, that resulted in 50 wells being drilled and the development of the associated infrastructure for oil exportation.

In recent years, the emphasis on deep drilling has changed with over 60% of work now carried out by Marriott in the non-hydrocarbon sector. In the UK and Ireland projects include drilling related to mining for potash in North Yorkshire and salt in Cheshire, as well as a zinc-lead mine in Ireland and participation in the UK Geoenergy Observatory Research Project.

With more focus on geothermal energy exploration and development in response to the net zero agenda, Marriott has drilled the deepest onshore well in the UK for a geothermal project in Cornwall, as well as drilling into a former coal mine on Tyneside for low grade heat.

International contracts have included a two-year programme to investigate a potential radioactive waste repository site in Switzerland and involvement for more than 10 years in geothermal energy development for electrical generation in Kenya. Other international projects include a gas development in Mozambique, managing three rigs for the National State Oil Company in Bolivia and a well servicing contract in Kuwait together with two geothermal projects in Ethiopia, for which two heavy drilling rigs were mobilised from the Kurdistan part of Iraq.