Oil And Gas Students Must Seek Technological Transfer

A Petroleum expert, Mr Albert Longdon-Nyewan, has advised students pursuing oil and gas programmes in tertiary institutions in the country not to focus their attention on completing their courses only to get high-paying jobs in the oil industry.

Rather, he urged students and others already on the field to aim at acquiring the requisite technological transfer, knowledge and skills from foreign experts in the industry.

That, he said, would enable them as indigenous people to gain the necessary experiences and capacity to take advantage of any opportunities to play major responsible roles in the industry in the near future.

“Though we need to be paid the right salaries, according to the international standard, we should concentrate more on acquiring the technological transfer, knowledge and skills to enable us to take over from foreign partners in the future”, he advised.

Mr Longdon-Nyewan, a Petroleum Engineer with the Ghana National Petroleum Company, said “the only way to ensure that local content in the oil and gas industry is first for our youth to get the needed training while in school and getting the knowledge and skills on the field to be prepared for any future opportunities”.

He was speaking on “Recent British Petroleum (BP) Oil Spillage in the USA and how Ghana could avert such disaster” at an oil and gas forum in Koforidua.

The event, organised and hosted by the All Nations University College (ANUC), brought together both local and international experts in the oil and gas industry to discuss ways Ghana could benefit from the industry and how preventive measures could be put in place to forestall any possible future oil spillage.

As an emerging industry in the country, the petroleum engineer said, the oil industry could offer many Ghanaians employment opportunities to develop themselves and raise their living standards.

Besides, he said for the country to prevent the challenges plaguing other oil-producing African countries, where the indigenous were only offered most of the menial jobs while the lucrative ones were available to only foreigners, Ghanaians must desire to train themselves thoroughly in every area of the industry.