Gas, oil discovery thrust search for new skills abroad

Dar es Salaam. The good news of discovery of natural gas in the southern and coast regions is shifting interest on the type of courses Tanzanians are applying to study abroad.

Currently, as the country sees the potential growth and brighter future from the gas and oil sector, many parents who send their children abroad for studies also make a timely choice for them- wanting them to study courses relating to oil and gas exploration to prepare them for future fortunes.

The shift of the trend draws a major line in the perception of the public. In previous years, many students who went abroad opted to study medical and other engineering courses, only very few sought courses on oil or gas.

The apt change of interest comes after last year’s revelation of the discovery of 35 trillion cubic feets of natural gas in southern and coast regions, making it one of the future gas producers in Africa.

About 20 per cent of the discovered gas is in Mtwara, one of the poorest regions in Tanzania. The discovery has attracted major foreign players from Europe and as far as China.

One of the agencies dealing with recruiting students to study overseas, a Global Education Link (GEL) Ltd, reveals to The Citizen that from last year, most of Tanzanian students who wished to study in universities abroad opted for programmes on gas and oil exploration engineering.

Mr Abdulmalik Mollel, managing director of the GEL, says that for this year, his agency has recruited over 140 students who have chosen to pursue such courses in overseas colleges.

This number is equivalent to about 70 per cent of all students the agency has so far recruited for studying abroad in the current year. Last year, GEL recruited 49 students who went abroad to pursue programmes on oil and gas.

“Even those who had previously chosen to study other courses, their parents came here and intervened by forcing them to change and take oil and gas engineering courses,” Mr Mollel says.

The GEL, which was founded in the year 2006, serves individuals in getting recruited to various academic, professional and technical courses at different levels ranging from certificate, diploma, undergraduate and post graduate levels.

It facilitates students to apply for studies in different countries, including the UK, Malaysia, India, and Ukraine. It also deals with transfer programmes to United States of America, Australia and China.

Mr Mollel supports that for the developing countries like Tanzania it was a positive move to acquire skills from developed countries for emerging discoveries since it has no experts in the area.

“We better train our own people than import experts... and the public should do away with the mindset that studying abroad is a sign of one being corrupt, rather we should perceive the move as a quest for development,” he argues.

Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda invited reputable global companies to invest in Tanzania’s oil and gas sector to boost the country’s economy. Mr Pinda, when in South Korea last year where he officiated at the naming of the Ocean Rig Poseidon, manufactured for deep sea oil and gas exploration in Tanzania’s offshore, said that prospects of oil and gas exploration in Tanzania and East Africa in general, are very promising.

The premier said, the involvement of the Brazilian firm, Petrobas, in oil and gas exploration in the country is a timely step towards unlocking the strategic potential of the hydrocarbons in the country that have been identified through various seismic and drilling explorations.

“If proven, this potential will present an additional dimension to the planning and development of oil and gas industry in the country,” he said.

Pinda said, under the country’s Public Private Sector Partnership Policy, the government in collaboration with the private sector, oil and gas companies, would deliberate on ways to enhance effectiveness and efficiency in providing the industry a new status in the country’s economic development.

He called on the private sector to come forward and identify areas of investment in the gas and oil downstream industries.

The premier mentioned areas like gas transportation and distribution networks, fertiliser factories, gas operated cars and gas fired turbines for electricity generation which the private sector can venture into in their own capacity or in collaboration with the government.

When tabling 2013/14 budget for the ministry of Energy and Minerals in Parliament recently, Prof Sospeter Muhongo said that in the budget, Sh63 billion has been allocated for gas processing in Lindi and Mtwara. A US-based firm has been given the go-ahead to build the processing factory.

Prof Mohongo said youths in Mtwara and Lindi regions will also receive training on gas and oil-related disciplines at Vocational Education Training Authority (Veta) centres.

According to Prof Muhongo, an American firm, Schlumberger, has built a large workshop in Mtwara that is designed to repair equipment used in mining, exploration and processing of oil and gas.

But, Mr Mollel notes that there is a bad thing about choices being made for studies abroad as a result of oil and gas discoveries because almost all of them choose engineering courses for exploration while the sector has many other areas such as maintenance of machines and data feeding.

“If everybody wants to study engineering for exploration, in the future there is a danger of lacking experts for other sections in the sector,” he said.

Reuters reported that shortage of trained oil and gas workers in East Africa is slowing development of new fields following a series of major discoveries and may force governments to relax rules requiring companies to employ local people.

Governments are now investing in programmes to train skilled oil and gas workers, but they are hampered by weak education systems and the high costs involved.

Rolake Akinkugbe, head of energy research at Ecobank, says it would take at least 10 years of training programmes to make a lasting impact on employment in the oil and gas industries in the region. “I certainly foresee a situation where east African governments might have to relax their local content rules around employment and contractors, certainly in the early stages of development of hydrocarbons resources.” says Akinkugbe.

“As you would expect, getting a skilled workforce is challenging, especially for the highly technical oil and gas fields,” says Martin Mbogo, country manager for British Africa-focused explorer Tullow Oil in Kenya.