Emiratisation message: Jobs in UAE’s oil and gas sector ‘greatest in the world’

The UAE's hydrocarbons industry provides a rich vein of opportunities for graduates looking to enter the private sector. One of the challenges facing companies aiming to attract local talent is getting that message out.

The energy sector is not all about oil. Hasna Ahmed joined BP Abu Dhabi as a health systems coordinator, taking on numerous tasks such as promoting better diets. Delores Johnon / The National

Pioneers of the country’s hydrocarbon sector want other Emiratis to know that it is still full of opportunity, calling for greater efforts to promote the industry as a viable employment option for new graduates.

Nabil Al Alawi, the chief executive of Al Mansoori Specialised Engineering, says the government needs to step up efforts to entice today's youth to venture into the oil and gas sector.

“Strategically it’s very important for the Government, [and] not only the UAE but all of the Gulf, to create this strong desire by selling the oil and gas business to the younger generation so they will all have this dream of becoming a worker in the sector.

“It’s unfortunate. They’re selling them shopping malls, real estate and hospitality, but no one is selling oil and gas,” Mr Al Alawi says.

Hasna Ahmed, 29, the health systems coordinator for BP Abu Dhabi, says for her getting into the industry happened by chance. She did not always know she wanted to be in health and wellness but the field was relatively new and that was attractive.

“It was a challenge for me because it was a new profession,” she says.

Ms Ahmed graduated from university in 2007 with a degree in health management and began working for the Abu Dhabi Government’s Health Authority.

Government jobs are often seen as a better option for Emirati youth. A survey released by Gulftalent.com in March last year suggested UAE graduates prefer to work for government organisations rather than the private sector. The research found 86 per cent of Emirati male graduates and 66 per cent of females preferred to work in the public sector after graduation, citing higher salary and benefits. However, there is a down side.

For Ms Ahmed, leaving the government sector became a priority after hitting a promotional ceiling.

“If you get recruited in the government sector, you have job security and high salary, but the organisation is fixed so it is really hard to move up,” she says.

“At the end you’re doing the same clerical job that you were doing when you were recruited.”

There are numerous job opportunities in the hydrocarbon sector these days. It is not just petroleum engineering. Still, many young Emiratis remain unaware of the range of positions available. “Actually, I didn’t decide to come to the oil and gas industry,” Ms Ahmed says. “I studied something unique, but when I went to practice, I wasn’t given the space to explore. BP did that for me.”

Although this country has come on leaps and bounds as far as advancing the necessary infrastructure to make its hydrocarbon sector more successful, there is still a lot of work, and Ms Ahmed is leading the development of BP Abu Dhabi’s wellness programme.

The company had only a basic health system in place, including vaccinations.

“I started to implement my studies for the first time,” Ms Ahmed says. She helped to launch the global Beat the Fat initiative from the Abu Dhabi office — a competition for weight reduction. After getting this programme off the ground, she is going a step further to include spouses of BP employees.

For BP Abu Dhabi, the new initiative includes a Tuesday walk from the office located on Khalidiyah Street to Marina Mall.

The private sector is working for Ms Ahmed. After being with BP for a year, she says she was not seeking to change her employer. Her journey into the private sector is somewhat different to that of an earlier generation of Emiratis.

Mr Al Alawi began his career in the late 1960s when the best chance of employment of any kind was in the hydrocarbons sector. He first ventured into the industry’s operations side and remembers when there was nothing else but oil and gas.

“The only thing that existed here in 1965 was nothing,” he says. “If you looked left and right, the only business you could see was oil and gas.”

He recalls the journey that would turn into a long, illustrious career that led to the creation of one of the first UAE oil services companies.

The lack of infrastructure and knowledge meant a more primitive version of oil and gas drilling.

“All we knew about was to drill a hole, find oil, open a well and flow it,” Mr Al Alawi says.

He felt it made sense to get educated in the industry that would play such a pivotal role in the country’s history.

Unlike today, with nearly 2,000 students at both undergraduate and graduate levels at the Abu Dhabi-based Petroleum Institute, Mr Al Alawi did not have that local option and had to study abroad. He returned to the Middle East where he eventually joined the oil services multinational Halliburton.

After 13 years with Halliburton, Mr Al Alawi decided to venture out on his own and sought to register the UAE’s first local oil services firm. He recalls going to the municipality to register his company but oil and gas services did not exist.

He says the authorities advised him to “Go home, do something else.”

However, he explained his vision and was informed he would need Government approval to allow oil and gas services to become a sector for registration. He went to what was known at the time as the Department of Petroleum, as UAE ministries were not yet established.

It took six months to see the head of the department but Al Mansoori Specialised Engineering was formed and went on to pave the way for other local oil services companies to be established.

Today, there are hundreds of oil services companies operating in the country.

After that early hurdle came the challenge of winning business. Mr Al Alawi decided to try for a smaller fish rather than go after large firms, and began with Japanese outfit, Jodco. Just like any new company, he faced resistance. The Japanese head finally conceded, but on one condition — that Mr Al Alawi would do the work himself. “So I put on my coveralls and went out there.”

The small job valued at about US$100,000 a month with only three people working in the field was a two-year contract. “But the next job was the one that really got me going,” he says.

“I had been visiting the oil company called Adma [later known as Adma Opco], run by a BP guy, Morris Boyle.

“You’re very brave to do what you’re doing, but I will encourage you at the right time,” Mr Al Alawi recalls Mr Boyle as saying.

And one night Mr Boyle called. The crew worked about three to four months with older equipment, but Mr Al Alawi thought an overhaul was necessary. His company created an industry standard for slickline engineering, which involves using a single strand wire to run tools into wellbores, constructing units that weighed 3,000 pounds, when they previously weighed 6,000 pounds.

“We were the darling of the industry,” Mr Al Alawi says.

Loving his job, he now wants today’s Emiratis to know that the hydrocarbon sector is vast and full of opportunities. And he hopes the Government will help relay that message.

“How do you expect Emiratis coming out from the universities would even think about coming into oil and gas when you don’t even advertise that this is the sexiest and greatest job in the world?,” he says.

Pioneering work sometimes takes time. Mr Al Alawi began with a company of only five people, and now has more than 2,000 employees across 24 countries. The UAE’s hydrocarbon economy accounts for nearly 80 per cent of government revenues and more than half its exports, according to the IMF.

“The business is changing. The expectations are changing. Standards have been changing,” Mr A Alawi says.

His own career path has been a long one, but as his son carries on in his business and with his grandson already accepted into the Petroleum Institute, he is hopeful for the future.

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