Tullow Oil
steps up local capacity building programme
Accra, March 20, Ghanadot/GNA -
Fourteen young Ghanaian graduate engineers have begun studies in various
disciplines in oil and gas exploration and production under Tullow Oil Ghana’s
sponsorship as part of the company’s bid to develop and strengthen local
capacity in its upstream industry operations.
Twelve of the fourteen engineers, all young graduate employees of the Ghana
National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), left Accra for London and Cape Town, from
where they will be assigned to specialist institutions in the United Kingdom and
South Africa.
Two engineers will be assigned to the company’s Ghanaian exploration drilling
activities which are in progress. They will remain at the TGL’s Head Office in
Accra.
All the graduates will pursue specialized technical on-the-job training and
industrial courses in petroleum engineering, geology, environmental engineering
and other oil industry-related study programmes over the next two years.
Tullow officials say they are certain that some of the beneficiaries would
eventually merit more advanced studies after their initial courses.
GNPC, the regulator of Ghana’s upstream oil and gas industry and one of Tullow’s
key partners in the development of the Jubilee Fields, has placed the
development of local capacity and the systematic building of a strong and
indigenous human resource base for the emerging petro-chemical industry at the
very top of its agenda – an agenda which officials at Tullow Oil say coincides
with their company’s global operational principles.
Mr. Kofi Esson, Government & External Relations Manager of Tullow Oil Ghana,
told journalists at the close of a two-week induction programme organized for
the beneficiary graduates in Accra that his company is happy to replicate in
Ghana what it has already achieved in Bangladesh, where Tullow maintains only
three key expatriates, leaving the bulk of operations in the hands of an
indigenous Bangladeshi workforce.
“At this stage of the development of the Ghana’s oil and gas industry, it is
important that we help to ensure that the regulator itself (GNPC) is
sufficiently grounded in terms of human resource capacity,” Mr. Esson said.
“Tullow so passionately wants to place Ghanaians in charge of the management of
Ghanaian assets-especially strategic ones like oil and gas and we believe that
we would be drawing closer to this goal if this brilliant and youthful crop of
Ghanaian graduate engineers return home to the industry with new and productive
ideas and knowledge to drive our industry forward,” he said.
The induction, primarily organized to give the young engineers some preliminary
insights into seismic survey, drilling and oil production, also touched on the
fundamentals of Tullow’s global work culture, ethics and value system and also
to align the young engineers to the company’s practices in exploration,
development and production of petroleum and gas.
Tullow Oil Plc is one of Europe’s leading independent exploration and production
companies operating a balanced worldwide portfolio which stretches across
Africa, Europe, South Asia and South America.
The company’s recent exploratory successes in the Jubilee and adjoining fields
have made Ghana one of Tullow’s most important concessions.
GNA
