Fourth strategic roundtable on oil and gas sector held
Times News Service
MUSCAT: The fourth Strategic Roundtable was organised in Muscat on Tuesday at the Ministry of Oil and Gas.
The Oil & Gas Year (TOGY), conducted the event in partnership with the Ministry of Oil and Gas and Oman Society for Petroleum Services (Opal), and with sponsorship from Occidental of Oman, Oman Drilling Systems and Baker Hughes, a GE company.
At the beginning of the event, Salim Al Aufi Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil and Gas announced to set up the first National Young Professionals (NYP) Committee under the auspices of the Ministry of Oil and Gas.
YP events
This committee represent the Sultanate at the World Petroleum Council (WPC) in which we are an active member and other YP events (locally, regionally or globally), he said.
The Young Professionals are classified as those working in the oil industry for less than 10 years and those who are younger than 35 years of age and the main objective for setting the committee is to lead our new graduates onto the oil and gas world and profession by enhancing the learning, knowledge sharing across the industry and bridge the gap between old and young generations, he added.
Expert panel
The fourth Strategic Roundtable brought together Salim bin Nasser Al Aufi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil and Gas; Raoul Restucci, Managing Director of PDO; Stephen Kelly, President and General Manager of Occidental of Oman; David Campbell, Operations Manager of BP; Devaki Khimji, Executive Director of Al Tasnim Group; Andrew Sutherland, Exploration Director for Hydrocarbon Finder; Walter Simpson, Managing Director of CC Energy Development; and Mohsin Al Hadhrami, Managing Director of Schlumberger, to engage in an open and constructive dialogue about the progress Oman’s oil and gas industry has made and future perspectives given the deep changes taking place within the energy industry.
The event, titled “Oman – The path towards a new energy future,” covered themes including the 4th Industrial Revolution and oil and gas development, the role of renewable energy and clean technologies in increasing energy efficiency and driving down costs, the strategic significance of research and development (R&D) and development of indigenous processes to strengthen competitiveness, building lasting resilience in the industry to cope with oil price cycles and entrenching gains made by the industry during the downturn, among others.
Speaking about these technological changes, Al Aufi said, “The fourth Industrial revolution is changing the way of the industry works, with significant implications in terms of human capital,” while Devaki Khimji of Al Tasnim Group, said “As a contractor, our side of the industry is very labour intensive. We are using technology to make people more productive in our operations.”