One hundred and sixty Ugandans have been skilled on how to construct oil pipe lines and refineries via welding. Simply put, the major goal of the training has been to prepare the graduates for the oil and gas piping systems including pipe line and refinery construction.
The welding skills attained by the graduates come in handy when it comes to assembling, maintaining and instituting structural units. The training is very critical given that the ambitious work on both the oil pipeline and refinery are in their early stages. Thanks to the funders of the training, China National Offshore Company (CNOOC), those lucky Ugandans are now benificiaries of the American international standards of welding.
The graduates are fruits of the National content policy pushed by the president to skill Ugandans on oil and gas and to help other Ugandans to win tenders in the fledgeling and lucrative oil and gas sector. Such is the importance of the policy that it involves the priceless high-end technology transfer from the foreign based experts in oil and gas and the global industry players to the Ugandan industry actors.
The Chinese National Offshore Oil Company(CNOOC), as we have already stated, finances the skills development program which is implemented by the Kigumba based Uganda Petroleum Institute jointly with Sunmaker Oil and Gas Training Institute. The graduates have been undergoing a two-month theoretical and practical based thorough training at the hands of the relevant experts.
Those skills have been imparted to the graduates through use of the shielded metal arc welding (SMAW). That training encompasses the required skills in the welding industry with emphasis on tubular welding. The training is part of National Content Enhancement activities for the Kingfisher Development Area whose key objective being to empower and enhance the knowledge of local technicians through training towards International certification.
Eighty out of the graduates have been trained in what is technically referred to as shielded metal arc welding(SMAW) 1G, 2G and 3G. An equal number of graduates have been trained in what is technically referred to as 4G,5G and 6G which follows the international standards of the American Petroleum International Institute.The beneficiaries are drawn from the districts comprising of the Albertine oil-rich region which are Masindi, Kikuube, Nwoya, Buliisa, Kibaale, Sembabule, Lwengo, Rakai and Kyotera.
Peter Lokeris, Uganda’s State Minister for mining, wall full of praise for CNOOC and the collaborating training institutes of Uganda Petroleum Institute Kigumba and Sunmaker Oil and Gas Training Institute over passing on the priceless skills to Ugandans as the country hugely anticipates for the oil and gas dollars from which they will be now able to benefit a lot from by actively putting to use the skills they have attained.
Ma Paxin, the vice president of CNOOC Uganda, said his company is fully committed to help to equip Ugandans with the best internationally certified skills for them to be able to profitably make money from the country’s oil and gas resources by putting to use those skills whose attainment the entity finances.
Financing the training of Ugandans is one of the ways CNOOC gives to the country and it’s people for what it earns from oil and gas activities the other being sponsoring university education of Ugandans abroad in oil and gas studies as wells as sports activities within the Albertine region. CNOOC additionally receives students from higher institutions of learning in the oil fields and offer them useful lessons about the sector as well as conduct them around their operation areas to feel and have a firsthand view of what their ongoing activities.
Author Profile
- Joan Atuhwera is a Business Administration Graduate, a Human Rights activist and writer with over five years’ experience in pursuing justice for others via her keyboard. She can also be reached via email: [email protected] or WhatsApp +256774334595
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