Abu Dhabi Gas Industries (Gasco)is recruiting hundreds of engineers and technicians as part of a major expansion.
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The company hopes to recruit some 1,800 staff over the next 18 months, increasing its workforce by about 40 per cent.
Gasco, a unit of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, is on the verge of starting several major projects, including expansions of existing plants as well as the installation of new gas processing facilities at various locations. A dozen projects worth more than US$13 billion (Dh47.74bn) are at various stages of execution.
Once those projects have been completed, Gasco will be one of the world's largest gas processing companies.
The initiative comes as data suggest Middle East oil and gas companies are hiring again after dramatic cutbacks at the height of regional unrest in recent months. According to a job index by Monster Gulf, listings for jobs with oil and gas companies declined 31 per cent between November and April.
But Mark Guest, the managing director of OilCareers.com, said the number of projects hiring in the region could increase as much as 60 per cent this year over last year. He said his site "has definitely seen a growing trend since the beginning of 2011, with visits to the site, CVs uploaded, jobs posted and applied for consistently climbing month on month".
At the same time, recruiters say Gulf companies are struggling to find enough qualified people.
"We've had a lot of requests for specialised persons, including in oil and gas. But the problem is with the supply, because now there is difficulty in finding the right people," said Panos Manolopoulos, the managing partner of Stanton Chase International in Dubai.
One reason for this, he said, is that the economies are improving in countries that have historically sent labour abroad, such as India.
"People are finding equally good conditions in their own country, so they don't necessarily want to emigrate," said Mr Manolopoulos.
Wassim Karkabi, a Stanton Chase managing partner, said the difficulty was particularly being felt in the search for executives, in part because many multinational companies had drastically scaled back pay packages.
"Companies are not paying what they used to be paying before the crisis happened," Mr Karkabi said. "There's been a lot of correction on the packages."
Gasco is seeking employees across a number of categories and said it intended to adopt more creative recruiting methods to find them.
"We are looking at different ways of doing it but we are not lowering our standards," said Ken Nikolai, an adviser in the company's human capability division.
Gasco participated in a recruitment fair in Dubai on Monday in an effort to identify potential talent and will conduct interviews elsewhere in the UAE at weekends to accommodate other job seekers. Mr Nikolai said the company would also send recruiters to South America, Europe and Asia.
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Abu Dhabi's Integrated Gas Development project, valued at about $6bn, includes developing offshore drilling platforms, gas processing plants and a pipeline capable of carrying 1 billion cubic feet a day of gas from the big Umm Shaif oilfield in the Gulf to Habshan, the location of the emirate's biggest onshore deposit. The company is building a plant in Habshan to strip valuable liquids from the gas.
Gasco has awarded contracts for a plant to be built at Ruwais, the industrial port in the west of Abu Dhabi, which would split the gas liquids into products such as propane and butane. Both have markets as petrochemical feedstock.
In January, Gasco awarded $1bn of contracts to build a sulphur granulating plant near Ruwais. Sulphur is an important by-product of oil and gas production in the Gulf.
* additional reporting by Tamsin Carlisle
nparmar@thenational.ae
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
- Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
- Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
- Other residents have included Iraqi businessman Nemir Kirdar, singer Ariana Grande, holiday camp impresario Sir Billy Butlin, businessman Asil Nadir, Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.
Hunting park to luxury living
- Land was originally the Bishop of London's hunting park, hence the name
- The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
- Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds
if you go
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Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
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Breast cancer in men: the facts
1) Breast cancer is men is rare but can develop rapidly. It usually occurs in those over the ages of 60, but can occasionally affect younger men.
2) Symptoms can include a lump, discharge, swollen glands or a rash.
3) People with a history of cancer in the family can be more susceptible.
4) Treatments include surgery and chemotherapy but early diagnosis is the key.
5) Anyone concerned is urged to contact their doctor
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Favourite colour: Brown
Favourite Movie: Resident Evil
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Trivia: Was the voice of three characters in the Emirati animation, Shaabiyat Al Cartoon
What is blockchain?
Blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology, a digital system in which data is recorded across multiple places at the same time. Unlike traditional databases, DLTs have no central administrator or centralised data storage. They are transparent because the data is visible and, because they are automatically replicated and impossible to be tampered with, they are secure.
The main difference between blockchain and other forms of DLT is the way data is stored as ‘blocks’ – new transactions are added to the existing ‘chain’ of past transactions, hence the name ‘blockchain’. It is impossible to delete or modify information on the chain due to the replication of blocks across various locations.
Blockchain is mostly associated with cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Due to the inability to tamper with transactions, advocates say this makes the currency more secure and safer than traditional systems. It is maintained by a network of people referred to as ‘miners’, who receive rewards for solving complex mathematical equations that enable transactions to go through.
However, one of the major problems that has come to light has been the presence of illicit material buried in the Bitcoin blockchain, linking it to the dark web.
Other blockchain platforms can offer things like smart contracts, which are automatically implemented when specific conditions from all interested parties are reached, cutting the time involved and the risk of mistakes. Another use could be storing medical records, as patients can be confident their information cannot be changed. The technology can also be used in supply chains, voting and has the potential to used for storing property records.
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Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
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'Worse than a prison sentence'
Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.
“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.
“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.
“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.
“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”
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At Everton Appearances: 77; Goals: 17
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UAE Team Emirates:
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1st ODI Zimbabwe won by 6 wickets
2nd ODI Sri Lanka won by 7 wickets
3rd ODI Sri Lanka won by 8 wickets
4th ODI Zimbabwe won by 4 wickets
5th ODI Zimbabwe won by 3 wickets
