Kenya Pipeline to train oil and gas engineers

The Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) is set to cut down costs incurred hiring foreign experts to work on the country’s oil and gas infrastructure.

This follows the launch of an oil and gas pipeline curriculum set to increase the country’s stocks of skilled laborers in the nascent sector.

KPC managing director Joe Sang said on Tuesday that the company has been spending millions shillings a year to hire laborers from other countries. In the ongoing replacement of the Mombasa, Nairobi oil pipeline KPC has had to import welders and coaters from abroad.

“We know the youth of this country can do that job  under the local content provision. As a company we’ve decided to have a school that we are going to train our young people on oil and gas courses,” Mr Sang said.

KPC has been mainly importing labor from Nigeria and South Africa to work on the aging pipelines.

Mr Sang said the school will be located at its Morendat facility in Naivasha and will initially offer six courses.

“For the first year we’ll do it in Kenya and the in the second year we will invite students from Uganda, South Sudan and even  Tanzania,” he said.

The school will be first in the region and third in Africa after Algeria and South Africa.

By Noah Kuto