The African Business Journal: Capital Drilling Limited Capital Drilling Limited ================================================================================ admin on 03 November, 2009 02:42:00 “We intend on being the best drilling company in the world” Brian Rudd, co-founding shareholder and CEO of Capital Drilling Limited says. The company began in the Lake Victoria Goldfields region of Tanzania, East Africa back in 2005. Here they worked on the Kabanga Nickel Project which is a joint venture between Barrick Gold Corporation and Xstrata. Soon after they moved on to work in Egypt with Centamin Egypt Limited, then on to Zambia to work on a nickel deposit with Australian listed mining company Albidon. “From 2006 we grew quite significantly and spread further out with new projects at the Geita Gold Mine for Anglo Ashanti in Tanzania. We added more rigs in Egypt and in Zambia. In 2007 we started the Reko Diq Project in Balochistan, Pakistan which was a joint venture with Barrick and Antafagasco. Then in 2008 we started in Papua New Guinea with Barrick Asia Pacific then more recently with Allied Gold on the Simberi Island Mine. From March 2009 we commenced operations in Mozambique for Riversdale Resources and Baobab Resources” Rudd explains. Fast-forward to 2009 and Capital Drilling shows no signs of slowing. The global economic crisis has proved to be little more than another challenge for Capital Drilling. The company has remained flexible and streets ahead in its path. “Right now we have 60 drill rigs in our fleet having begun in 2005 with just two. We currently have about 645 employees group-wide. In November 2008 we changed the focus of the company due to the global crisis and we moved into the blast hole drilling sector” Rudd says. “We are now operating blast hole rigs in Egypt, Zambia, Tanzania and plans to expand into other regions as demand requires.” Capital Drilling Today Capital Drilling has come a very long way in just five years, but more recently the company adapted to industry pressures and the global economic downturn in moves which are by no means simple. “Since our inception in 2005 with two air core rigs we now operate a full spectrum of rigs been truck and track mounted and heli-portable machines and an average age of five years means we operate one of the youngest fleet of rig in the industry and this month we are adding another new purpose built track mounted RC rig to the Geita Gold Mine in Tanzania” Rudd says. The company has a registered office in Bermuda, a corporate office in Singapore and operational offices in: Johannesburg(SouthAfrica), Cairo(Egypt), Karachi(Pakistan), Mwanza(Tanzania), Lusaka(Zambia), Bor(Serbia), Yerevan(Armenia), Lae(PapuaNewGuinea), Lubumbashi(DRC), Tete(Mozambique). The business complies with all local government regulations and labour laws and undergoes regular audits under the direction of the lead auditor Deloitte. “We have considerable experience in establishing operations in emerging markets and navigating the often complicated requirements imposed by local business laws and regulations, taxation, exchange control regulations, labour laws, goods import and customs controls. We have built up a strong network of local relationships to ensure timely and cost effective delivery of personnel, equipment and consumables to our field operations and thereby maintain our high standards of quality and reliability” Rudd says. Capital Drilling Training Another interesting company focus at Capital Drilling is the lengths they will go to in order to train, retain and further the careers of their team. As Rudd rightly points out, their worldwide employee base has tipped over 600 now, yet the company are still in-tune with the needs of individual workers. “We’re quite heavily focused on training and development and within that we do have a pretty intense internal training program. We operate another division of Capital Drilling which is called Capital Support Services which is solely to provide training and development to our Capital Drilling employees, nationals and ex-patriots, to develop their skills in all areas from management styles to ability to drill, to internal driver training. For drillers we follow the Mineral Drillers of Australia Association drilling training program” Rudd says. “We set clear objectives and career paths for our staff. Our team have a decent future with the company and we have a very low turnover of staff and this is due in part to our growth and also the respect that the management team holds for everyone that works for us. Whatever level of the company a person might be, they are free to ring myself or any of the other managers at any time should they have a problem or need us to help them deal with an issue.” In conjunction with this supportive staff structure is the emphasis Capital Drilling places on safety standards. ‘At Capital Drilling, safety is our number one priority, sitting at the heart of the company values. We have developed a large team of health and safety specialists and we deploy these dedicated specialists into all of our countries of operation. We are committed to regular performance appraisals and operate in an environment of continual improvement’ their website says. “We’ve grown well with our client base and we have a reputation now for our commitment to safety” Rudd agrees. “Our average age of our drill rigs is different from a lot of our competitors. We’re sitting at about four years in age in our drilling fleet so it’s a fairly modern fleet. All of these come with the latest safety equipment which is a heavy focus in our company. We make sure everyone comes home with ten fingers and toes.” Capital Drilling Tomorrow The company mission statement “developed market standards for emerging market operations” shines through however you approach Capital Drilling. Be this growth, employee training, health and safety, performance or quality, the aim is clear and the company are already making their next move. “One of the other new areas we’re going into is underground drilling and coal bed methane” Rudd says. This is one company set for a very exciting 2010 and beyond.