The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is committed to overcoming the challenges associated with developing a fully qualified local workforce, a report says.

In an interview with Arabian Oil and Gas, manager of ADNOC's national recruitment department Mubarak Amer Al Mehairbi said that steps are being taken to fill jobs on the engineering side of the business that in the past had been almost exclusively filled by expatriates.

The news provider noted that efforts to recruit nationals to the state-run oil companies in the GCC have altered recently, with more of an effort being made to train workers for various engineering positions.

According to Al Mehairbi, ADNOC is successfully reversing a trend to simply look to the expatriate market to fill positions by recruiting and training the local workforce.

"The first goal we set ourselves was to localise 50 per cent of the engineering positions by 2004 ... The programme has been very successful," he said, adding that goals for further expansion have also been set.

ADNOC was established in 1971 and currently oversees the production of more than 2.7 million barrels of oil per day.

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