Driving East Africa’s Oil and Gas Towards Industrial Development Through Increased Local Capacity Development

 

The oil and price went significantly down since 2014. Industry analysts project the price will oscillate between $50 to $60 per barrel in 2020.

Technically speaking, in this period when the oil price is selling at $50 per barrel, it is not only a challenge to attract direct foreign investment but there is also intense competition for available funds.

The good news is that those who align their strategy with the current trends, they are winners in the global oil and gas market.

With low oil price having lasted a while, this is the proper time to ask the “why’s” of today.

“Why are we are just causal workers?”

“Why are we are not leading highly specialized work and deep-water projects?”

“Why the high cost of hiring staff?”

“Why the less return on investment to shareholders?”

This is our time to seek a more economically viable way to reduce costs and generate value for the community.

Local-International Universities Collaboration to Move Students from Just Local Champions to World-Class Graduates

A strong relationship with international higher-ranking universities in the oil and gas-related curriculum which have state-of-the-art technologies and facilities will supply the labor market with committed workers for the shift to industrialization.

This enables relevant universities to learn from each other in terms of curriculum upgrading, staff and student exchange, and joint research and paper publication.

Tanzanian universities will learn the best practice from those major universities and the international universities will benefit from our insights and experience in academic research. This will keep knowledge, talent and money in the country and pave way for industrial development.

Challenging Conventional Training and Development in Oil and Gas to Stimulate Industrial Development.

Moreover, training and development of young professionals and even of the highly experienced workers to deal with such an industrialization era in an unconventional way is extremely important.

That way, we move the local industry professionals from just users and followers to ex-pat experts and to professional independent focal point which will produce local leaders of the oil and gas industry and they will able to lead the industrialization phases execution accordingly.

Optimum training and development could save a giant amount of money spent from the national GDP to bring expatriates to lead the projects either for oil and gas or to plan for the proposed industrialization vision. The development of local personnel is the key to securing enough money and cost optimization to have the proposed 2025’s middle-income economy successfully implemented.

Develop Linkage Between Oil and Gas Local Skills to Other Sector Of Economy

I agree that it can be a little difficult to build an industrialized economy by relying on just one sector. But the popular misconception among many people is that there is limited room for diversification in the oil and gas industry.

The belief is that by training and developing local people in the oil and gas industry, you can’t significantly impact another sector of the economy. But there are opportunities to transfer oil and gas skills into another sector of the economy.

For example, for those geophysicists, reservoir engineers, petroleum engineers and petroleum geoscientists who have been trained to use software and do seismic interpretation, there is an opportunity to transfer that knowledge to the groundwater industry, environment consultancies, survey industry, and civil engineering and construction sectors.

Final Words

With substantial and massive natural gas resources in deep water and oil price fluctuation in the global market, we can use Barrack Obama’s famous slogan: “Yes We Can” prepare our students to be world-class graduates and train and develop local professionals to move them from just depending on foreign experience to be an independent focal point and supply the labor market with well-suited workers to shift to the industrialization that is being envisioned.