Malampaya training center enhances Filipino capability to world-class standards

The Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Power Project has formally opened the Malampaya HSSE (Health, Safety, Security and Environment) Training Center in Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga, recently. The facility offers world-class training on HSSE to equip local workers with competencies necessary to execute fabrication yard and offshore work for Malampaya Phase 3 (MP3) efficiently and with no harm to people and the environment.

The MP3 and Malampaya Phase 2 (MP2) are the next phases of development of the Malampaya Project’s gas advocacy. MP3 involves the installation of a Depletion Compression Platform to sustain the level of natural gas production from the reservoir in northwest Palawan using deepwater technology.

The keynote speaker at the event was Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla. “This [Malampaya] vital undertaking of the Philippines acts as a model by which we can measure our vision to become an energy sufficient nation in the future,” he says. “As a country that is developing its hidden power potentials beneath its rich soil, it is quite apparent that facilities dedicated to the awareness, health and proper safekeeping of our hardworking workers as well as of the environment is needed and more so, essential.”

The energy chief further called the Malampaya Gas Project “one of the country’s premier ventures in addressing energy security.” It is one of the most significant industrial endeavors in the Philippines that promote gas advocacy by utilizing innovative gas technology to develop cleaner-burning natural gas sources for power generation. More than providing power, Malampaya also facilitates the transfer of technology and industrial expertise to Filipinos to help upgrade the country’s capability to compete with global standards of industrial and technological self-sufficiency.

Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. (SPEX) Managing Director Sebastian Quiniones affirms that the Malampaya Gas Project is not only steadfast in developing new energy sources to meet future energy demand, but is also committed to building sustainable growth in the Philippines by establishing facilities that will develop Filipino capability to world-class standards.

Aside from enhancing employability, a principal aim of the training center is to promote the well-being of people by imparting the core values of HSSE. “Apart from the immediate training needs of the Project, the facility aims to raise the HSSE standards in the local workforce  while helping enhance their employment opportunities in both local and international oil and gas industries,” explained Neil Burton, Malampaya HSSE Lead.

The Malampaya HSSE Training Center is located within the SITE Skills Training Center, owned by Australian firm SITE Group International Limited, renowned as one of Asia’s premier training facilities.

Among its key beneficiaries are scholars of the Bridging Employment through Skills Training (BEST) program, implemented by the Malampaya Foundation Inc. (MFI), Malampaya’s social arm that provides skills training to unemployed individuals and out-of-school youths from Palawan and Subic. Since the center’s inception in September 2012, close to 3,000 workers have benefited from its trainings.