Larchford Ltd

Drillmasters

UK drilling contractor, Larchford Ltd was founded in June 2006.

Working predominantly in the UK onshore market, the company is the country’s newest land based drilling contractor, and has rapidly established itself as a leading provider of new style drilling rigs. The business took its first delivery of a rig in January 2007. That rig, called Drillmaster 1, has been providing drilling services on a longterm contract.

Larchford is a land drilling contractor that provides the oil and gas industry professional, cost effective solutions tailored to meet well construction needs. Larchford helps its clients develop and maximise their assets, and recognises the requirement for a flexible approach to the services it offers. It understands the financial burdens imposed on oil and gas companies and the difficulties they face when the cost of development drilling has a significant impact on the viability of their project. It looks for innovative ways to add value during each step of the well construction process.

It has established itself as a drilling company with vision and proven performance, providing consistent emphasis on safety performance, strong management capabilities, and innovative and environmentally friendly, high-tech drilling rigs that are available for drilling projects in the UK and Europe. The company has created a well construction team that is capable of delivering wells that can exceed clients’ quality, cost and time frame expectations under strict environmental conditions. In addition, although it is already one of the quietest rigs available, Larchford has available a full set of top quality engineered sound proofing for the rig, making it suitable for drilling wells in close proximity to dwellings, where planning consent may be an issue.

The most important requirements for a well, as defined by Larchford, are that it must be constructed efficiently, on time and on budget, while satisfying strict environmental
conditions such as land use and noise reduction conditions and always taking into account safety, quality and environmental constraint. Ultimately meeting these requirements ensures that the oil and gas well drilling and associated services provided by the company conform to contractual and regulatory requirements with an overall emphasis on performing these services with the highest degree of safety possible.

The business is committed to delivering best-in-class performance, which will be achieved through the continuous capture of experience and learning, ensuring that the company constantly strives to improve the high performance that informs its reputation. On 30th January 2010 the company was extremely proud to have achieved 365 days of operations without a lost time incident (LTI). It was keen to acknowledge that this was a significant achievement that would not be possible without the active support and co-operation of Star Energy and all the Larchford personnel. Despite this, the company will not rest on its laurels and is keen to continue working to the best of its ability to improve upon this achievement.

This accomplishment forms part of Larchford’s general objective of making all business operations as maintainable as possible within the ten-year period from 2006 to 2016. Based on the results of an initial Environmental Review, Larchford has established a clear environmental policy to attain that goal. The policy focuses on defining environmental responsibilities of management, staff and suppliers. In addition, Larchford as a responsible company fully supports Agenda 21, which is a programme of action for sustainable development.

The objectives outlined under Agenda 21 are to encourage the concept of stewardship in management and utilisation of natural resources by entrepreneurs, and to increase the number of entrepreneurs involved in projects that implement sustainable development. The agenda ensures that companies consider environmental issues in their investment policy and practice, by minimising the environmental impact of new developments through the use of environmental management procedures. Additionally environmental impact assessments are used in strategic planning of projects to ensure that any ecological effects are limited. In this way companies can influence suppliers to ensure that they contribute to the realisation of the policy.

The specific goals of Agenda 21 are to prevent pollution by ensuring all necessary training and equipment is made available to staff and by ensuring suppliers and clients are aware of the company’s intentions. In this way Larchford hopes to be able to support and make full use of the best available technologies and management practices, so that it can promote the suitable environmental legislation. Additionally the company will continue its commitment to the recovery and recycling of waste, as opposed to disposal wherever feasible, as well as reducing the use of hazardous substances by using alternatives where possible, and generally reducing the consumption of resources, materials, water and energy.

As the business progresses, it will continue its strong commitment to environment across its operations. In the future, Larchford is hoping to achieve quick growth on the back of innovative technologies, which result in much safer solutions. This growth will be achieved predominantly organically, while the management will seriously consider the possibility of acquisitions. Larchford is also keen to look for joint ventures in Europe, particularly the Netherlands and Germany, with the hopes of developing and extending its operations further still.

Larchford Ltd
Products: Drilling rigs