Training to seal skills gap in oil export plan

Construction of an 865km pipeline that will move crude oil from the Turkana oilfields in the north to the Lamu seaport is set to start late next year to be ready by 2021/22 when Kenya is expected to commence commercial production and exports.

Developers are expected to pump out up to 80,000 barrels of crude per day when fully operational.

Even then, Kenya suffers a shortage of specialist pipeline welders, forcing the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) to source artisans from China and Nigeria.

Earlier, KPC said the country has only three specialist welders certified to work in the laying out of the pipeline.

Change dynamics

Global consultancy firm Accelerate to Excellence (A2E) believes the latest efforts to train personnel will change the dynamics.

A2E has been conducting the training of the 12 from KPC who will be accredited in the UK.

According to A2E managing director Stephen Kuria, those in the first cohort will be upgraded to enable them train others.

The welding that is done in the petroleum sector is said to be “much more complex” than the normal one.

The fact that you have a flowing product moving through the pipe which is constantly cooling your weld creates the problem of the weld cooling too rapidly and can lead to heat affected zone cracking.

The more obvious problem is that you're creating a heat source of over 1000 degrees only a few milimetres away from a highly flammable material.

Currently, there are about 50 Chinese and Nigerian welders in the country and are expected to be eased out once Kenya bolsters its capacity.

Lebanon’s Zakhem built the new Nairobi-Mombasa pipeline set to be opened in July to replace the ageing one.