Rolex logo watches: Pool Intairdrill

We are not affiliated with Rolex, nor do we work or have any other relationship with Rolex. We are interested in these watches, and the watch presented is from my own collection. All information should be read with caution and we cannot guarantee that this is all correct. Information given is based on good faith and knowledge as good as possible.

Document written and created by Boris Pjanic. Information and images courtesy to Fenella Dunn if not otherwise marked. Fenella is a former Pool Intairdrill employee.

Document created for learning purpose only. If corrections are required, please contact me at: redsub @ gmail . com.

(my photo)

The above Rolex has been discussed in many watch forums and mistakenly people called it the Pan Am Rolex. This was wrong. Below is a lot of information what stands behind this logo.

I’m having to think hard about this. I worked in Libya in the early 80s. I initially worked on the payroll in the accounts department, all done by hand in those days, no computers! There were about 500 employees ranging from the management and warehouse staff to the rig managers, tool pusher, catering and general labour.

Pool Intairdrill was an oil servicing company, they supplied the labour, rigs, plant etc to the big named oil companies, ie Oxy (Occidental), Agip and to the Libyan NOC (National Oil Company). There were about 7 or 8 rigs in full operation plus a couple of floaters.

I think Pool Intairdrill was part of the ILI corporation, this may have been where they were registered to in Libya. Perhaps someone else can confirm that. Pool Company was a subsidiary of ENSERCH Corporation. They were based in Houston, Texas, that was where my salary came from.

They had an office in London in

coincidentally beside the Libyan Embassy where the fatal shooting of Yvonne Fletcher occurred in 1984. There were offices and drilling sites in other parts of the world too.
Where I worked was basically a big warehouse in a large walled compound where most of the office, warehouse and catering staff also slept and ate in their own porta cabin accommodation. There would also be men coming in from the rigs to go on leave and vice versa. The Filipinos and Thais worked for 6 months out in the desert before earning one months leave. The Maltese worked 6 weeks and then had 3 weeks off and everyone else worked one month on, one month off.

I lived in Tripoli with my husband in a residential area not far from the Pool offices as I had been hired locally. It was near the Airport road in an industrial park where the roads were just sandy lanes and where other companies had similar compound set ups.

I was 26 then, and the whole experience was life enriching. I never met so many nationalities at the one time as I did then. It was also a pleasure to work beside people from all walks in life. The majority of the rig workers were British, European, some Canadians, some South Americans but no Americans themselves, they had been banned from entering the country at that time. There were also Maltese, Koreans and Australians. The Filipinos, Thais and Maltese provided the catering and general labour. As you can imagine there were some real characters. I also worked in Personell as it was called then and then in budgeting back in the accounts department where mainly I worked beside Filipinos and Maltese plus a few Libyans. I will add here that the Libyans I worked beside were extremely polite, friendly, enquiring of my culture and forthcoming of their own. We had a lot of laughs.

The watches would have been handed out as safety awards, probably the rig managers would have received a Rolex and the men on the rigs would have got other awards. Safety as is now was a huge issue, each rig was proud of its run of accident free days.

I myself have a Zippo lighter with the logo on it, obviously I didnt win this award! It was given as a present by one of the Managers. I still have it though I gave up smoking years ago!

Anyway here are some scanned photos.

By the way, that’s me wearing the Pool jacket, except we were in France at the time but it had come in useful on a wet day in the middle of summer!

If you enlarge the one of the warehouse you can just make out the logo on the side of the truck.

The two Filipinos were accountants I worked beside.

Pool stickers.

Pool Intairdrill warehouse.

The logo does actually stand for P and I not I and D.

Tripoli and everything was shipped in. As you will be aware Malta was very close to Libya and many of us used to hop over to Malta to do shopping etc. That will explain the Valletta address where the watches would have been purchased. Many of the staff at Pool Intairdrill were Maltese.

(Image courtesy to Philipp)

It’s the middle row of photos towards the top. Ian Beckford giving Mike Cole his watch!

The photos below show my old boss John Campbell, Chief Accountant and Controller and Neil Thompson, two great guys who we used to socialize with. Sadly both now deceased. KJ Thomas was Ian Beckford’s secretary and was Indian, a sort of general factotum about the place.

The second attachment gives some info at the bottom about Pool Intairdrill.

Another page from the newsletter that shows a description of Freddie Leimbachers actions. He worked in the warehouse, a german speaking swiss man. Another lovely person.