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Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company has announced plans to attract between 1,400 to 1,600 new employees by 2018 with at least 800 of them being young Omanis.
The news plans have been seen as fresh attempts from Orpic to address the talent shortage in the reagion while also commiting to nationalising the workforce in the oil sector in the country.
To overcome certain skills  and training challenges, Orpic has announced plans to provide training for the new Omani joiners to equip them with the necessary skills.
Orpic’s plans to bring in more local personnel have already been in place with the Oman’s third batch of trainees arriving in Sohar.Â
In his welcoming speech Orpic’s CEO Musab bin Abdullah al Mahruqi, said: “We have already welcomed two batches of graduates who were enrolled in training programmes coupled with employment opportunities. All 100 graduates of the first batch were employed by the company,” and added: “Work is under way to assess the second batch which consists of 110 trainees and we look forward to employing them after they successfully pass their training programme.”
“The current number of Omanis working in Orpic is 1125, forming 74% of the total workforce. We hope to achieve our goals and succeed in our efforts to raise this percentage through training and qualification programmes that are designed for this purpose, particularly now Orpic’s development projects are underway.”
Around 330 young Omani graduates have been brough in for training as part of Orpic’s plans to train 500 young Omanis in groups with the objective of increasing the company’s “Omanisation” to 78% in the end of 2014.
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