HE Shaikh Mohammed
bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Oil, deputised Dr. Peter Bartlett, Chief
Executive Officer of the Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco), to inaugurate the
third edition of the Leadership Excellence Award for Women in the Oil and Gas
Industry (LEWAS 2017) on Wednesday 11 October 2017, at the Bahrain
International Convention and Exhibition Centre. It took place with the
participation of leading women engineers from governmental bodies and institutions,
oil and industrial companies and other related official and private entities in
the GCC countries. With the purpose of improving communication and knowledge,
and to learn the best practices used in the oil and gas industry in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) region, this awarding was part of the Middle East
Process Engineering Conference and Exhibition (MEPEC 2017).
During the opening
speech, Dr. Peter Bartlett conveyed the welcome of His Excellency Shaikh
Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Oil, to the participating Gulf
delegations wishing them good stay in the Kingdom of Bahrain, hoping that they
would benefit from the scientific and practical papers that are presented in
the sessions and in the events of the forum and achieve the intended goals from
this conference.
Dr. Bartlett
conveyed the compliments and congratulations of His Excellency Shaikh Mohammed
bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Oil, to all the honourees awarded in the
ceremony of the third edition of the Leadership Excellence Award for Women in
the Oil and Gas Industry in the GCC countries, in recognition of their excellent
& global standards performance as well as their initiatives during their
careers. Bapco’s CE praised the efforts of the Leadership Excellence Award for
Women (LEWAS 2017) headed by Mrs. Reem Al Ghanim, the efforts exerted by the
team members and the jury. Over 200 applications across seven categories, the jury
had an arduous task to decide on the final list due to the high level of
achievements that have been extended to receive nominations from the United
Kingdom, the United States of America and Africa.
Engineer Jihan
Al-Merbati, Executive Director of the Sustainable Energy Unit at the opening
session praised the promising statistics for the percentage of students in the
fields of engineering, science, technology and mathematics in higher education,
and the non-reflection of these percentages on job opportunities in these
fields, in addition to the most important obstacles and challenges that limit
their utilization and convert them to actual shares and participation in the
work area.
On his part, Dr.
Ahmed Ali Al-Sheryan, Secretary-General of the National Oil and Gas Authority
(NOGA), extended the highest appreciation and gratitude to Her Royal Highness
Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, the wife of HM the king of Bahrain
and the Chairperson of the Supreme Council for Women. He lauded her decision to
choose the Bahraini Women’s Day, the 1st of December 2017 to
celebrate the Bahraini Female Engineers. He highly praised the unlimited
support the Bahraini female engineer has in the public and the private sector
by HRH, as well as her appreciation for the role of women and their valuable
contributions in all fields of development. This forms a part of the activities of the Reform Program launched
by His Majesty the King of Bahrain King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa.
The forum included a
number of discussions and dialogue sessions attended by a distinguished group
of speakers from the Gulf and international oil and industrial companies,
including: Ms. Reem Alghanim, Division Head,
Women Development and Diversity at Saudi Aramco; Ms. June Wispelwey, Executive Director of AIChE; Ms. Nada Al Mesfer, Quality Unit Head, Well
Surveillance Group ,Kuwait Oil Company – KOC; Dr. Valery Eveloy,
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, The Petroleum
Institute; Dr. Miasser Al Ghamdi of SABIC; Ms. Fatima Sharif of Gulf Petrochemical
Industries Company (GPIC); Ms. Esra Al Khadhar Al Hosani, Instrumentation and
Control Engineer- Abu Dhabi for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO); and Dr. Amal
Jameel Fatani, President of Tata Consultancy Services Center.
