International oil companies (IOCs) need to ensure that Libyan workers are integrated into engineering projects, the chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) Shukri Ghanem has insisted.

Speaking to industry representatives, he said that the country needs to reap long-term benefits from oil production and that currently, too many engineering contracts are being handled by non-domiciles.

"Our graduates are becoming unemployed while we give jobs to people from outside ... this is not to the benefit of Libya in the long term," he said.

The Tripoli Post reports that Mr Ghanem set out a roadmap to address this problem and outlined plans to incentivise the training of the domestic workforce by offering tax breaks to IOCs which commit to an oil education programme.

The NOC has welcomed comments from IOCs regarding the establishment of new training courses and is now in the process of developing a framework to help IOCs set up new engineering and project management centres and facilities.

Oil and Gas Directory: Training and Development