Significant onshore oil discoveries in Uganda and Kenya and offshore gas discoveries in Tanzania and Mozambique have made East Africa a subject of intense interest among the global energy industry.
The international oil and gas business and investor community has expressed interest in developing oil and gas infrastructure in East Africa. At the East Africa Oil & Gas Summit in Nairobi, business leaders from across the globe came together to combine regional governments’ insight with that of international operators and service providers.
As delegates discussed commercial opportunities from the speed at which governments in East Africa are developing hydrocarbon reserves; another key consideration was ensuring the people in the region directly benefit from their country’s Oil and Gas resources through job creation, empowerment and national workforce development.
Olumide Bankole, ACG’s Head of Training and Development Services, took to the stage to share our full-service training solutions – focused on designing, developing and delivering site-specific operations and maintenance training programs. He emphasized that the anticipated future make-up of the global oil and gas industry, depicts a growing requirement for engineering, construction, operations and maintenance technicians.
‘’Therefore the question that we should be asking ourselves is: how can we make sure the specific technical skills required to support an offshore oil and gas industry are available within East Africa countries workforce’’?
“Engineering, construction, operations and maintenance technicians, first-line supervisors, maintenance and repair technicians require technical vocational training.”
From traditional industry standard course delivery and development, which can take years – to fast-track technical training through the creation of dedicated training centres and real-life infrastructure. Olumide outlined the benefit of creating “immersive training environments that provide a realistic, hands-on training, without the risk” to accelerate and assure competency in just two years.
‘’In each of our training ventures, we’ve collaborated with industry and academia to create dedicated systems for technical and vocational training that match the future requirements of skilled talented professionals. This feeds the industry’s forecasted growth, reducing its reliance on expatriates. These are the kind of learnings East Africa regional governments can harness in pursuit of its own workforce development”
According to Olumide, successful workforce development requires more than just technical competence. However, he outlined the need to focus on the creation of a workforce that holds safety at the core of its DNA.
“History has taught us that the provision of safe equipment, systems and procedures is insufficient if the culture does not actively promote safe working. It is behaviours that turn systems and procedures into reality. What people actually do is influenced by their beliefs, values and attitudes towards safety.’’
‘’To us at ACG, training has gone beyond being something people feel they have to do from a compliance perspective. Our goal is to help clients reduce risk and maximise returns, while training a confident, competent, and safe workforce.’’