Rigworld International Services, a Ghanaian-owned offshore oil and gas services company, has blazed the trail again by establishing an $8.5 million ultramodern, internationally accredited oil and gas training centre.
Located at Kejebril near Ghana’s oil city, Takoradi, the Rigworld Training Centre is expected to be commissioned in October, this year.
The highly equipped oil and gas training facility, which is the first of its kind in the West African sub-region, has advanced simulators for real-time training and development.
The training centre will offer a variety of safety and survival courses, including Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training (BOSIET), Further Offshore Emergency Training (FOET), Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET) and Compressed Air Emergency Breathing System (CA-EBS).
Other courses to be offered are Well Control and Intervention Training, Banksman and Slinger, Forklift Training, Crane Operations, Rope Access Training, Health, Hose Assembly Training, as well as provision of offshore medicals, among others.
According to Carlos Akyeampong, General Manager of Rigworld Training Centre, the idea of building the centre was conceived in August 2016, out of the desire to find suitable and lasting solution to the problem of lack of relevant training within the oil and gas industry.
“The need to carry out jobs safely and competently within the oil and gas industry propelled the idea for an offshore training centre. This is also in line with Petroleum Commission’s commitment to local content and participation within the industry. The establishment of Rigworld Training Centre is, therefore, part of the forward-looking and giant steps to boost local content and participation in the oil and gas sector,” Mr Akyeampong said in an interview with the media.
Following Ghana’s discovery of oil in commercial quantities in 2007, the need to build local capacity in the inchoate industry became necessary in 2010 when the country commenced full production of its first commercially viable oilfield, the Jubilee Field.
The Local Content and Participation Policy was formulated to champion the cause of ensuring that Ghanaians constituted 90% of the workforce in the oil and gas sector by 2020. Shortly afterwards, the local content and local participation law was passed to enforce that vision.
However, over seven years of oil production down the line, not much had been achieved in building local competence to fill this budding industry.
According to Kofi Abban, Managing Director of Rigworld International Services, “It was against this background that our company decided to complement government’s effort with the establishment of an international-standard oil and gas training centre to train locals for this industry.”
“As far as the oil and gas sector is concerned, every well-meaning Ghanaian who is interested in the rapid development of our country should support every effort aimed at ensuring that our own people take over the industry, instead of leaving it in the hands of foreigners, who will make the money and repatriate it to their countries to aid their development. In this regard, I want all of us in the industry to support our own, rather seeking to undermine one another. When we do that, we lose together as a country while foreigners gain,” Dr Abban stated.