OPITO Secures Contract with Oman Government

OPITO International, has secured a contract with the Ministry of Oil and Gas in Oman.

The global oil and gas training standards body is working with the government, the Oman Society for Petroleum Services (OPAL) and employers to improve the delivery of training that will ensure the country has a skilled and safe oil and gas workforce. This will have a positive contribution on the economy in Oman by creating greater employment opportunities for Omanis.

With a track record in helping oil and gas provinces to build indigenous workforces to exploit their oil and gas reserves, OPITO is working on a phased plan that will provide the Omani Government with a sustainable solution to the employment needs of its people and to the demands of its growing oil and gas industry.

The first phase is an analysis of the current provision of vocational and non-vocational training throughout Oman. OPITO will be visiting training centres and colleges to identify the standard of training and then provide recommendations on how technical training provision can be improved to deliver a framework of qualifications which will meet current and future skills demands and improve competence in the operations and maintenance activities associated with the extraction of hydrocarbons.
 
David Doig, OPITO group chief executive, said: “By working with the government and employers, we will help the Government in Oman develop a learning infrastructure in-country which will be able to deliver industry-designed and industry-recognized qualifications underpinned by technical training standards, occupational standards, a robust assessment process and accredited certification and qualifications. This will ensure that the training is delivered in the correct way, by the right people, using the right equipment in a safe and well-managed environment and competence can be effectively measured.”

As a result of OPITO’s ground-breaking work in Oman hundreds of Omanis will be able to be trained to recognised industry qualifications in electrical and mechanical maintenance and instrumentation and controls, allowing them to work in the oil and gas industry. This will open-up new economic opportunities for the Omani people, impacting positively on the economy and giving the oil industry confidence in the competence of their technicians.

Khalid Ghalib Al-Hinai, HR Advisor to the Minister of Oil and Gas and Chairman of the In-Country Values HR Committee, said “Our aim is to increase the competency levels and productivity of the local workforce coming into the industry by aligning existing vocational and technical training with industry requirements and accrediting it to international standards.”

OPAL is working with OPITO by bringing employers together to ensure that the learning infrastructure recommended by OPITO delivers against their needs.

Musallam Al Mandhari, chief executive officer of OPAL added: “The association with OPITO will ensure Oman’s training standards meet the technical training requirements of the industry and offer Omanis training to global standards.”

As a not for profit organization, owned by the industry, OPITO will reinvest the revenues generated by this contract in the continuous development of educational products and services for the benefit of Oman and the wider industry.

OPITO has a proven track-record in responding to the global oil and gas industry’s training needs. Having successfully designed and monitored safety training standards in the North Sea for many years, OPITO created an international organisational structure to support the move by the industry to adopt common global standards in emergency response and hazardous activities. Over 300,000 people around the world were trained to those standards in 2014, helping prevent incidents through greater safety and competence.