A CREDITORS' meeting was held at Dubbo RSL Club yesterday to provide an update after Tom Browne Drilling Services went into administration earlier this month.
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Deloitte partners Vaughan Neil Strawbridge and Salvatore Algeri were appointed as administrators on April 14, while Shaun Robert Fraser and Jason Preston from McGrathNicol were appointed as receivers and managers of the company by its secured creditor.
The Dubbo-based company employed 75 people in Dubbo and Mt Isa.
About 35 creditors and employees attended yesterday's meeting held by the voluntary administrators.
A spokesperson for Deloittee Restructuring Services said the administrators were continuing their investigations into the affairs of the company and would share their findings with creditors at a second meeting in three weeks' time.
The Daily Liberal made a phone call to Tom Browne Drilling Services yesterday but was referred to "the receiver".
"We're continuing to operate the business," receiver Shaun Fraser said.
"We've had to make some redundancies given the slowdown in the resource sector and the demand for drilling companies but we're continuing to operate and we're conducting a process to try to find a buyer for the business and its assets."
Tom Browne Drilling Services was founded in 2005, according to the company's website, which describes it as "one of the leading figures in the drilling industry, both in Australia and worldwide".
Mr Browne was formerly the owner of Pontil Drilling, which he founded in 1976, until the company was sold in the 1990s.
He remained a consultant in the industry for several years before establishing Tom Browne Drilling Services, a company with its head office in Dubbo that supplied exploration drilling services to operations around Australia.
