Engineering solutions

As team leader in the operation engineering department of Dubai Petroleum Yusuf Al-Taher is on the frontline when it comes to solving the technical problems the company faces and coming up with innovation solutions. He sits down with O&G for a quick chat about his role.

“The main challenge now is to effectively optimise oil and gas operations to keep on target and maintain production levels”
-Yusuf Al-Taher

As operation engineering team leader what different aspects of the company are you involved in?
Yusuf Al-Taher. I'm involved in the day-to-day support of off shore operations, the oil and gas operations and I give the support required to maintain our production.

What are the main challenges that you are dealing with currently within your role?
YT. The main challenge now is to effectively optimise oil and gas operations to keep on targets and maintain production levels. With the current oil price, the goals and targets become very tough and you need to manage the job within this new required budget.

Some of the targets we are working towards relate to managing people and also to health and safety operations. Recruitment is a challenge. Currently there are five process engineers working under me. Under these current conditions it is very difficult now to find professional and qualified engineers.

What health and safety issues in particularly is the company currently focussing on?
YT. We constant review operation parameters in health and safety and procedures and initiate procedures to do different jobs. Another important task is to ensure our people are getting the right support.

What expansion plans does Dubai Petroleum have?
YT. Currently we have shut down our facility to upgrade  it and put in additional equipment and make it ready for future facilities. This work includes providing additional tie-ins for future equipment and extensions of the platform in order to install additional power generation machines. This is in order to install additional equipment and pumps which would enable us to handle more oil.

What new technology is Dubai Petroleum using to increase its production of oil?
YT. Currently we are installing ESP pumps. This stands for Electrical Submersible Pumps in the wells. They increase the flow from the wells and enable us to gain more oil than using our traditional methods. We have installed multiphase flow meters, which measure the percentage of oil, water and gas in the facilities. We understand the operation better using these devices.  There was also a project which involved looking into trying to enhance recovery using CO2 injections. This was project was under Shell. They were handling this project.

What internal projects is the company working on?
YT. The company is currently establishing a team, which is to take care of recruiting new nationals. The company has a target to reach 35 percent of nationals in this company and so far the plan is going well. Currently Dubai Petroleum has a lot of scholarship programmes for students to join the company and they are participating in all the university career fairs in order to recruit experienced people.

Is Dubai Petroleum affected by the problem of many petroleum engineers being close to retirement age? 
YT. In Dubai Petroleum we have a lot of people who've been working here for over 20 years and so there will be a big gap between this new generation and these people. So we need to push for more people in order to ensure there is continuous knowledge transfer between them.