There are new opportunities, often found in hostile physical environments such as deep water and in remote locations, far from existing infrastructure... These opportunities present challenges that drive us to extend limits of our technologies.
Many of these projects are huge and capital intensive and because of these risks, there is a greater degree of technical risk and cost uncertainty... Only adoption of latest technologies can help us. Technology is still the lifeblood of the industry.
We also need to ensure that the industry maintains a sufficient supply of technical expertise both in terms of experienced personnel and a steady supply of new talent to train and develop. Technology alone never found any oil or gas. It's the successful application of technology that really counts, for instance reservoir management has to be properly handled and location of drilling sites to be sequenced. Techniques like underbalanced drilling or horizontal directional drilling may be required.
Technologies, and its application, are integral to success in the future. Oil is heading for an era of cost based pricing and is already there. Cost and pricing are chasing after each other on a downward slope and as they do we'll be driven to cut costs further to remain competitive. This is done on three fronts -People, Technology and goods.
We (Uganda) have one of the fastest growing economies in the world; a young population, rapidly growing economy, robust primary education and we are presented with a great industrialisation opportunity through the oil and gas sector project.
In the next few years, the Oil industry will provide thousands of direct and indirect employment opportunities to the youth of our nation should they acquire the appropriate skills to grab the emerging opportunists. It’s estimated that all these activities will create approximately one hundred and sixty thousand jobs across the upstream, midstream and downstream industries. The resources required will range from semi-skilled, skilled to managerial; while there is need for engineers or equivalent (Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, structural, 3D Piping, system, Health, Safety & Environmental), majority of the resources will be skills based resources such as artesian skills, including but not limited to:
Masons, Plumbers, Carpenters, Black Smiths, Fitters, Welders- Structural, Welders- Radiography, Jointers, Fabricators for Pressure Equipment, Structural Fabricators, Riggers, Scaffoldings, Crane operators, Fork lift operators, Heavy Duty Mobile operators, Lifting Planning and Supervisors,Safety officers
The Country now requires high focus on the specialised education, skills and entrepreneurial development and in the institutional capacity building to meet this high demand and the emotional expectations of the people due the anticipated boom in economy.
Our people must not let go of this once in a life time opportunity The Government should therefore play a direct and active role In skilling Ugandans in the Oil and Gas sector. There is need to maintain a long-term perspective, consider decentralisation of activities, empowerment of women and the underprivileged, provide tax benefits, provide subsides etc
In a bid to create the capacity to provide the semi-skilled and skilled manpower, the GOU has recommended the private sector to established partnerships with Universities and other technical Institutes. Further, In order to develop local talent and encourage industry, Government of Uganda issued a statute mandating minimum local content in all projects. The Final Investment Decision (FID) is expected in the second half of this year, the activities are also expected to ramp up in the next twelve to eighteen months, there is a genuine concern on the how prepared we are to provide the requires human capital for the Oil and Gas sector.
The Oil and Gas Sector operates with high standards i.e the international standards so these resources must be certified to International Oil and Gas standards, the training institutes must be accredited to the International standards such as City and Guilds, OPITO etc The is a need to transform some of our already existing human capital to be able to service the oil and Gas industry through oil and gas certification, incubation and mentorship.
The youth need to be aware of the opportunities the Oil and Gas Industry presents; in the most basic form the youth i.e Senior Six leavers, University and Tertiary students should know that a typical entry level Corporate skilled job in the existing industries will be paying USD 200-275 per month as compared to USD 1,500-2,000 for a similar job profile in the Oil and Gas sector! For example, a competent pipe welder qualified to 6GR position according to ASME Sex IX gets USD 1500 to USD 1800 pm on Dubai markets in established fabrication yards.