How competitive is the talent war for HSE professionals in the Middle East?
JS. At the moment what we’re seeing is that because the pool of good people is finite and the demand for oil is growing, we’re seeing some competition between countries. People are being headhunted from where they work. We’re seeing that with nationals and expatriates and that increases the overall expenditure that the company would have to outlay on HSE. Almost all of the companies we work with try to make it a core competency and it is certainly a source of competitive advantage when you are tendering, whether you are upstream or a downstream company. HSE is the main priority when you’re winning contracts or you’re looking to expand projects or work with international partners. O&G. What is the BSC doing to help raise health and safety standards among Middle Eastern oil and gas companies? JS. Developing workforce competency across the board is an area we’re working on with a number of companies with the aim of developing worker competency away from the traditional safety teams. Histo
