By Mariana Somensi
Sahara Technical Institute (STI) is a successful oil and gas professional education and practical training excellence institute. It is part of Sapesco’s shareholders and sister companies, and works on strategic solutions to solve the oil and gas industry dilemmas. STI’s main philosophy consists on building a bridge between theoretical classroom instructions and integrated practical training.
Looking at people development as one of the pillars for the oil and gas industry’s progress, STI proudly concluded a series of advanced international courses that brought Egyptian, Chadian, and Libyan petroleum technicians and engineers together in Cairo. On December 21st, the company received delegates representing the petroleum industry from the three participating countries for an Award & Appreciation Ceremony celebrating the closing day of the program. The certificates were presented by Eng. Islam Kortam, Vice President – SPIC; Eng. Atef Sadek, Chairman – SAPESCO; H.E. Ambassador of Chad to Cairo; and Eng. Essam Abdel Fattah, Chairman – Midco.
“We are celebrating our success,” Mostafa M. Shabana, Chief Business Development Officer (CBDO) at Sapesco, told Egypt Oil & Gas. “STI has been running local courses since 2013. As of October or November 2017, we started changing our way of approaching customers and we started running these international courses; this strategic change has been reviewed and agreed upon with our CEO, Said Riad. We began building up a very strong team of Sapesco engineers, who are very knowledgeable and experienced. It was successful, with very intense and advanced material. We got instructors from all over the world,” he added.
The program offered by STI was divided in four two-week courses running simultaneously. Two of the courses were offered for technicians and engineers from Chad, the third one was an international course done by an international instructor, and the fourth was reserved to Libya. “The four courses were organized by the STI team aiming to enhance technical education and improve technicians and engineers’ skills, as well as to arrange many protocols with Africa,” Bader El Din Gamal, Business Development Manager at STI, disclosed to Egypt Oil & Gas.
As Shabana further explained, the advanced courses covered different areas of the petroleum industry. According to him, the company’s objective is to close the gap between theory education and practice. “Once students go to the real practice, they find it difficult, they are not fully prepared; so we try to close this gap by providing the theoretical and practical aspects of education at the same time,” the CBDO highlighted.
During the Award & Appreciation Ceremony, oil and gas experts congratulated STI’s commitment with the future of the industry by improving the skills of the new generation of technicians and engineers, which brings outstanding prospects to the development of the petroleum sector. “We are satisfied with the results of the courses. It enables us to improve drilling operations and any other petroleum operation in our country,” Abderaman Barkai Chaha, Chief Service Drilling at the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy of Chad, stated to Egypt Oil & Gas on the sidelines of the event. “This is the first STI course that we [Chad] participate and we can say that it opens the door for further courses and partnerships between Egypt and Chad in the oil and gas field,” he added.
