ExxonMobil, El Dorado Offshore recruit 12 Guyanese

El Dorado Offshore and Ramps Logistics has partnered once again with US oil giant ExxonMobil to recruit 12 rig clerk trainees for the emergent oil and gas industry.
Recruitment Director Natasha Jairam-Abai explained that this was the third batch of individuals to benefit from this type of training, but this year, the number of women increased.
“El Dorado Offshore and Ramps Logistics is collaborating with Exxon and we’re launching our third batch of rig clerk trainees within our programme. This batch consists of 12 candidates, six of those are females and we don’t have much rig clerks that are female within the oil and gas industry, so we’re proud of that at this moment,” she explained.
The candidates will undergo 10 weeks of training, both theoretical and practical, at four different locations. From Guyana, they will move to Trinidad and Tobago and one of the drill ships as part of the exercise to forge their skills in all areas.
Jairam-Abai reiterated that local content development was essential in the industry and their agencies have pledged to do what was necessary to fill that gap.
“We’re committed to local content development for Guyana. As such, this programme has been rolled out with Exxon’s support. Over the progression of the next 10 weeks, these candidates will go from four different locations, which is the Guyana office; GYSBI (Guyana Shore Base Incorporated), our Trinidad office, and the Noble Bob Douglas drillship,” she expressed.
Guyana Times spoke to a few recruits who were eager to take a leap into this new sector. Anna Lane explained that she had applied for a different position, but opted for this role since it provided more opportunity.
“This is something completely new for me, something that I was not expecting and it wasn’t what I came in the office for, but it was a better opportunity and so I decided to take it … I don’t think we were expecting for it to be such a big deal,” she explained.
El Dorado Offshore sent its first batch of recruits back in 2017, in an effort to meet the human resources demands of the oil industry. Presently, it has deployed many persons to serve the industry. Some are stationed right here in Guyana while others have been placed on supply vessels as well as in countries as far as Singapore.
“We have persons at the onshore which is at GYSBI, the supply vessels, the drill ships, and we have persons on the FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel) right now in Singapore that will be coming back with the vessel,” the Director informed.
Guyana is expected to extract first oil in late 2019 or early 2020. In April, principal explorer ExxonMobil made its 13th discovery offshore Guyana at the Yellowtail-1 well.
It was only two months ago that the US supermajor made double oil discoveries at the Tilapia-1 and Haimara-1 wells in the South-west section of the Stabroek Block.
Approximately 292 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone reservoir was found at Yellowtail-1, which is located some six miles North-west of the Tilapia discovery.
According to ExxonMobil, it was drilled to a depth of 18,445 feet (5622 metres) in 6046 feet (1843 meters) of water.
The Noble Tom Madden began drilling the Yellowtail well on March 27 and it will next drill the Hammerhead-2 well.
This latest discovery adds to the previously announced estimated recoverable resource of approximately 5.5 billion oil-equivalent barrels on the Stabroek Block. Yellowtail-1 is the fifth discovery in the Turbot area, which ExxonMobil expects to become a major development hub.