Oando PLC (referred to as “Oando” or the “Group”), Nigeria’s leading indigenous energy company listed on both the Nigerian and Johannesburg Stock Exchange, in partnership with the
Society for Petroleum Engineers (SPE), will be sponsors of the forthcoming SPE Young Professional Forum (YP), themed; ‘Positioning Young Professionals for the Transitioning Future of the Oil and Gas Industry: The Way Ahead’. The event is set to hold at the Wings Office Complex, Ozumba Mbadiwe, Victoria Island, Lagos on March 7, 2020.
This is the second SPE event, this year, being sponsored by Oando, part of a long term strategy to support platforms of this nature in advancing and building a more robust sector via mentoring, knowledge sharing and networking.
Through the YP programme, Oando aims to support SPE in the development of young oil and
gas professionals of 35 years and below to become tomorrow’s industry leaders; and to establish
a resource base of qualified professionals from which the SPE can draw upon to strengthen the
organization and industry.
Commenting on the partnership with SPE, Ademola Ogunbanjo, General Manager, Business
Support Group, Oando Energy Resources, who will be speaking on the topic “Career
Advancement’ at the event said; “The collaboration between SPE and Oando is pivotal to the
creation of a knowledge based industry, one where technical expertise and know-how are freely
exchanged across organizations through the leadership and coordination of the SPE. At Oando,
we constantly seek improved ways of working whilst still delivering value to all our stakeholders.
Though we recognize that the oil and gas industry is an old and traditional one, we do not accept
that traditional ways of operating must prevail over new thinking and innovation and this is what
our partnership will achieve.”
The YP program is one of many avenues Oando is exploiting to build capacity in the
industry. Against a backdrop of a shrinking employment market and rising number of
graduates, the Company in 2019 decided to launch the Oando Graduate Accelerated
Programme (O-GAP). O-GAP is a bi-annual scheme aimed at up scaling new graduates by
giving them hands on experience and structured learning from some of the best minds the
industry has to offer through an 18 month training programme. It is one of many ways that
the Company believes as a private sector player it can strengthen the local oil and gas
talent pipeline and in the medium to long term contribute positively to the economy..
In addition, the Company was selected by Strathmore University Law School, Nairobi, Kenya in
2019, as the preferred indigenous player for the academia to visit in its quest to acquire sector
knowledge to better equip the students as they enter the new and burgeoning Kenyan oil and gas sector.
The university’s visit to Nigeria was precipitated on a need to take learnings from leading private and public sector players to enable improved success for Kenya.
The selection of Oando was on the basis of its knowledge pool gained from operational experience across the
full energy value chain, success stories of pioneering initiatives within the sector, a diverse and
experienced workforce and finally its impact on both the local and African oil and gas industry.
Commenting further, Ademola Ogunbanjo said; “To remain globally competitive, the onus lies
on the continent and indigenous industry leaders both in the oil and gas sector and other sectors
of the economy to collaborate for growth and innovation to move the continent forward.
The hope is that this trend of knowledge sharing and transfer will continue amongst African countries and
companies as part of local content development and capacity building.