Sulzer-Mansa, a joint venture operator in the Oil and Gas services space has commissioned a state-of-the-art tools repair centre for on time accessibility by upstream industry players in the Western Region.
The tools repair centre located at New Amanful near Apowa in the Ahanta West District, was commissioned by the Minister for Energy, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh to fix industry defects in equipment that rotate as well as upgrading them.
Mr George Yaw Owusu, a pioneer in Ghana’s oil and gas sector and a partner of Sulzer – Mansa, said there was a critical need for such a country-based facility to halt the continuous capital flight due to the lack of home-grown engineers and technicians to undertake such repair works and upgrades when the need arises.
“As a result, expatriate engineers have been taking huge sums of monies into their countries over the period…imagine if you have to pay an expatriate 2000 pounds daily wage for a month and even years”, he added.
He said the centre would give meaning to local content and participation as well as provide hope for future engineers and technicians trained in Ghana.
He said the quest to solve such a huge industry gap resulted in a search for companies which could be of help, adding that, “we decided to do something about the lack of local engineers and our search gave us the second largest pump manufacturer, called Sulzer engineering company and this has given birth to the dream of promoting real local participation”.
The centre, had so far trained eight engineers to provide services to the oil and gas industry, mining, power plants and other manufacturing industries.
Mr Owusu lauded the government for establishing the Petroleum Commission to regulate the oil and gas industry and propagate local content and participation among industry players.
He described the local content policy as one of the best legislations in Ghana’s petroleum industry especially oil and gas and hope it would be applied to the other sectors.
“This legislation has an ownership content which gives hope to indigenous businesses in a joint venture agreement and also the need for technology transfer, a critical aspect,” Mr. Owusu said.
Mr Alex Myers, the Manager, Sulzer Pumps, in charge of Middle East praised the contributions of Mr. Owusu in the creation of Sulzer -Mansa.
He said the partnership was in tandem with the Petroleum Commission’s vision to create lasting partnership, through local participation.
Mr. Myers said the partnership offered a good opportunity for Sulzer to provide some value and create local jobs.
Sulzer, is a world-renowned equipment manufacturer and would focus on rotating equipment and heavy-duty equipment like pumps, compressors, turbines, motors and generators which are often shipped outside, or engineers are contracted outside to come and repair equipment at huge cost.
