300 youths undergo petroleum industry-related training

From Paul Osuyi, Asaba

Three hundred youths drawn from the Niger Delta states are presently undergoing a two-week training on petroleum engineering technologies aimed at equipping and engaging them with the latest oil and gas industry skills.

The training, which is being organised by UFUGOLD Projects Services Limited, in conjunction with the Petroleum Institute (PTI), Effurun, Delta State, through the support of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, to ensure that the beneficiaries become self-reliant and contribute to the peace process in the oil-rich region.

Declaring the training open on behalf of the Federal Government, the Principal and Chief Executive of PTI Training Institute, Effurun, Delta State, Dr Henry Adimula, said it was also aimed at reducing unemployment and its spiral effect of youth restiveness.

Adimula, who enjoined the trainees to take the workshop seriously, noted that with the recently signed Petroleum Industry Act, there will be job opportunities for youths of the region.

According to him, beneficiaries who take the training serious might become self-reliant, entrepreneurs and future employers of labour in the oil and gas industry.

He noted that the benefiting youths were carefully selected to expose them to modern-day petroleum engineering technology-related skills throughout the duration of the workshop.

He said they would be trained in petroleum products such as soap, cream, special corrosive painting, repairs and maintenance and various entrepreneur vocations.

‘At the end of the programme, all of us would become entrepreneurs, self-reliant. They will be given the necessary skills that would help them on their own,’ Adimula added

The Managing Director of UFUGOLD Projects Services, Ufuoma Johngold, reiterated that the intensive training is to make the youths self-reliant, urging them to value the new knowledge and skills more than the empowerment as it will turn them into employers of labour in the shortest possible time.

Johngold, who expressed worries over incessant reported negative vices of Niger Delta youths, said the training and empowerment became necessary in order to develop both physical infrastructure and human capital to be able to enhance significantly the quality of living in the Niger Delta region.

Also speaking, Dr Abubakar Dembo, who is Chief Internal Auditor of PTI, said the empowerment was necessitated by the need to develop the manpower capacity of the Niger Delta states, disclosing that the training is an annual programme designed to take Niger Delta youths out of unemployment.