East African Business Week

Kampala, Uganda- In preparation for the first crude oil testing projects to be undertaken this year, four Ugandan nationals have completed a six month hydrocarbon production and technical skills course in Europe.
The team supported by Tullow Oil, undertook skills training at TTE International Ltd in North-East England, one of Europe's leading technical training institutes in petroleum and chemical industries.
Dennis Kiwanda, Denis Kiyingi, Ronald Ssempebwa and Stanley Kiganda who graduated on April 27, become Tullow's first Ugandan Production Technicians.
"The engineers were trained and certified in Hydrocarbon processing and operations petro-chemical operations, environment health and safety, risk assessment, process steam generation and other key modules as part of the curriculum," said a statement from Tullow Oil.
Following the development projects, the technicians employed by Tullow Uganda will be assigned to Tullow's other operations in Europe and Ghana to gain more direct experience as Uganda production projects come on stream.
Tullow Uganda's General Manager, Brian Glover said:  "Tullow is proud to have supported young Ugandan talent in achieving this milestone as part of our commitment to supporting national capacity development in oil and gas".
"As a business, we remain committed to supporting more Ugandans and developing national talent in the oil and gas sector".
TTE's Commercial Business Director, Sara Marshall added
''Tullow recruited four exceptional employees with the ability and ambition to immediately add value to the assets".
Glover says Tullow Uganda has embarked on a strategy of attracting, recruiting, training and developing Ugandan talent and ensuring that there is a structured process for oil and gas skills development through training as well as knowledge transfer.
He said the company has a comprehensive capacity development programme in place that is currently driving all training and development needs for employees in the business".
"The Tullow Oil training and development programme is aimed at supporting our long term Nationalisation strategy while at the same time ensuring that all staff acquire the relevant sector skills" Glover said.
Tullow is a leading independent oil and gas exploration and production group, listed on  London and Irish stock exchanges.
Tullow is the largest exploration company operating in Uganda's Lake Albert basin, which is estimated to contain roughly 2.5bn barrels of commercially viable oil.
Tullow's  business has taken a blended approach to training, which includes various programmes ranging from: Graduate trainee programmes, technical graduate trainee programmes,  sponsorship programmes, production technical training, international assignments and general functional training to support individual development.