19 June 2012, Sweetcrude, ABUJA – THE Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) plans to send Nigerian drilling engineers for training at the French Institute of Petroleum in France.
The training is part of Federal Government’s plan to boost daily oil production. Specifically, the programme will enable the engineers acquire the right training and certification to operate in the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector.
PTDF’s Head of Media, Kalu Otisi, who disclosed this in Abuja on Monday said the training would commence in August and would last for four-months.
He said: “Currently, Nigerians do not have the right training and certification to operate in the oil and gas industry which is very critical. As a result of this we have now decided to start this programme; it is a four-month programme and will take place in one of the internationally recognised drilling institutes in France.”
Lamenting the inadequacy of trained manpower in especially the nation’s upstream oil and gas sector, Otisi said: “We have some oil fields that have not been explored and it is only through drilling that you can determine the yield of any oil field. The programme is critical to increasing our oil reserve, and daily production to about four million barrels per day from the current 2.5 million barrels per day.”
Otisi stated that his organisation has also commenced training of Nigerians in welding as part of efforts to empower them to take control in the fabrication, repair and maintenance of oil pipelines and vessels.
