Drilling is set to resume at one of East Africa's most closely watched geothermal ventures. Marriott Drilling Group, a UK-based drilling contractor, has signed an agreement to drill up to four exploration wells at the Corbetti geothermal power project in Ethiopia, located in the Corbetti Caldera near Shashemene in Oromia. Final site preparation is underway, a rig is expected to mobilize in the coming months, and drilling operations are scheduled to begin early next year.
The contract marks a new stage for a project that recently changed hands, with Taranis Operations acquiring a majority interest while the Private Infrastructure Development Group retains a minority stake of roughly 40 percent. Under the new ownership structure, Taranis is leading the next phase of exploration and development. If the exploration campaign confirms the resource, the first development phase is expected to include production and injection wells and a steam field sized to supply a 50 MW power plant, with a second phase planned to lift installed capacity to 150 MW. Corbetti stands out in the regional market as one of the first geothermal projects in Africa to be taken from greenfield through to development with private capital rather than public financing.
For international EPC contractors and equipment suppliers, the Corbetti program is a small award on paper but a telling signal about how African geothermal now gets financed and built. A development-finance institution keeping a 40 percent seat at the table is exactly the de-risking structure that unlocked geothermal in Kenya, and its return in Ethiopia suggests a repeatable template: private developers take exploration risk, public-leaning capital absorbs resource uncertainty, and EPC packages follow once steam is proven. The procurement implications sit in the well program itself. Exploration wells in a greenfield caldera demand mobilization of drilling services into a remote Oromia location, which pulls casing, cementing, mud systems and air freight logistics through Addis Ababa. If Phase 1 proceeds to a 50 MW plant, the steam field becomes the equipment-heavy scope: production and injection wellheads, separator stations, and the isolation and control valves that handle two-phase geothermal brine. That medium is unforgiving - silica scaling, chlorides and temperatures well beyond standard water service - so trim selection, body materials and tight shutoff ratings become specification battles that valve manufacturers can win early by engaging during front-end engineering rather than after. Suppliers watching East African power should treat Corbetti's rig arrival as the trigger to qualify products for geothermal service before Phase 1 requisitions are written.