“I am aware that within a short period of time of its existence Baku Higher Oil School has become one of the key educational institutions in the country,” he said. “This can be seen by the quality of the students it attracts every year and I would like to congratulate the leadership of the university for the very impressive statistics that I heard a few moments ago.”

“BP has been operating in Azerbaijan for well over twenty years and we have a long history of close cooperation with SOCAR and leading universities here in Azerbaijan, and we are pleased to have been able to support a number of major educational projects,” Birrell said. “This cooperation has been driven by our belief that as operator of some of Azerbaijan’s oil and gas projects we have a role to play along with SOCAR and other institutions in developing Azerbaijan’s oil and gas specialized human resources for the future of the industry here in Azerbaijan.”

“We hope that working with SOCAR, the ministry of education, and other companies represented here today and indeed the faculties of the university we can play a role for developing the oil and gas workforce of the future,” he said. “As the part of the Memorandum of Understanding signed with Baku Higher Oil School in 2013, BP provides some practical experts from our industry who lecture here to provide practical knowledge for the students and we’ve already made 15 lectures and presentations and we are now making plans for 2016 series of lectures and presentations from BP specialists.”

“We’ve also worked with the university to try to arrange practical field visits which is very important for students,” BP regional president said. “We had one trip to Sangachal Terminal and one trip to ATA Yard where the Shah Deniz 2 facilities are being currently constructed. As a result of the investment along with SOCAR and the partners in Shah Deniz 2 in Southern Corridor, activity is very-very high at the moment, so we hope in 2016 we can continue to offer field trips to students.”

“I am proud to say that this summer three BHOS students have joined BP’s internship program,” Birrell said. “These students were Fidan Salim-Zade, Riyad Muradov and Insafali Samadov. I would like to congratulate the students once again and in particular Fidan who took the first and Riyad who took the third places in Techno Fest organized by BP. Techno Fest is a global innovation competition that we run every year for the best thirteen innovative ideas to improve productivity and efficiency in the oil and gas fields.”

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