Joint pact to Omanise project turnaround activities

MUSCAT, MARCH 21 - Four major oil and gas entities in the Sultanate have joined hands to boost the level of Omanisation in key turnaround and maintenance work on their facilities. Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), Oman LNG, OQ and OPAL signed a remote agreement on turnaround and maintenance activities to build on an earlier signed Memorandum of Understating (MoU) between the same parties to explore the local market needs of skilled workforce and the feasibility of this project. The agreement was signed by Raoul Restucci, PDO Managing Director; Hamed al Numani, CEO of Oman LNG, and Ahmed al Azkawi, OQ Head of Procurement. OPAL was represented by its CEO, Abdulrahman al Yahyaei. This signing comes as an initiative to maximise ICV in turnaround activities which are usually dominated by short term expatriate workforce. The three oil and gas operators, which undertake various maintenance work throughout the year, foresee this as a significant milestone in providing the necessary impetus to the sector’s on-demand local skilled capabilities which would ultimately replace short term expatriate workforce. The operators, in collaboration with OPAL, established an integrated turnaround and maintenance execution programme which aims to develop and nurture local capabilities in turnaround execution, as well as upskill the Omani workforce and create jobs for the local Omani cadre in this field. A turnaround is the shutdown of a plant for a period of time for maintenance, refitting and inspection purposes before it is brought back into operation. Turnarounds are important to ensure the safety and efficiency of operation installation. However, due to the irregular nature of the requests for such services, companies in Oman currently carry them out through the support of local, regional or international contractors. At present, the majority of this contractor workforce consists of skilled expatriates with Omanis only participating in semi-skilled or unskilled roles.