AKSAI, Western Kazakhstan Oblast, 15 June 2004 – Eighteen local companies have been given the opportunity to improve project planning and management skills at three two-day seminars organised by Karachaganak Petroleum Operating B.V. (KPO) in conjunction with MacGregor Energy Services, a leading international oil and gas engineering contractor.

All the companies represented at the seminar are suppliers to KPO and among them were InterGasStroy, Temiraly, BurlinGasStroy, AksaiGasStroy, KazBurGas, BKKS, Gidromet and others.

Howard Burrows, KPO vendor development and qualification manager, said: "Since 2002 KPO has been assisting its Kazakh vendors to develop their professional capabilities. Up to date, more than 150 Kazakh companies have attended seminars organised by KPO.

“The understanding of the principles of project management is a key element to success of any project so we are hoping that these seminars will be useful for our vendors and will help them improve the quality and efficiency of their work”, added Howard Burrows.

The programme of the seminars developed by MacGregor Energy Services included presentations on the concept of modern project management and modern business technologies and covered a number of practical skills, tools and techniques to be used by the participants in their work.

The organisers also stressed the importance of a clearly formulated idea of the project and the need of detailed planning, formation of a project team, the efficient control of resources and the compliance with the international standards.

One of the participants Umar Itishef of AksaiGasService said: “We are always pleased to attend the KPO training programmes because they not only help us learn advanced experience, but also introduce it to our work activities”.

“KPO’s efforts to increase the potential of local companies are recognised by the Government of Kazakhstan. During the main phase of the Karachaganak field development more than 500 Kazakh companies have been awarded contracts to provide goods and services to the Karachaganak project the Kazakh Content of contracts concluded totalled $1.3 billion”, added Howard Burrows.