Tuesday 29 September 2009

Finalists announced for Oil & Gas UK Awards ‘09

Oil & Gas UK has announced the finalists for this year's prestigious Oil & Gas UK Awards sponsored by Shell U.K. Limited.

Prizes are being awarded in five categories: Overall Excellence, which recognises outstanding achievement by young people working in the UK offshore oil and gas industry; Young Technician of the Year, which recognises the vital contribution of the industry's young technicians; Mentoring, which recognises the important role mentors play in passing on their knowledge and expertise to the next generation of oil and gas workers; Joint Supply Chain Business Innovation, which recognises the creation and implementation of novel contracting strategies; and a new award for 2009; People Development, which recognises the outstanding commitment made by an organisation in developing every company's most important asset its people.

Finalists for the three individual awards are:

• The Oil & Gas UK Award for Overall Excellence (sponsored by Marathon Oil U.K. Ltd) - Joss Bolton, production programmer with Shell U.K. Limited; Karina Sultanova, supply chain consultant with Shell U.K. Limited; and Peter Brannen, project engineer with Aker Solutions.
• The Oil & Gas UK Award for Young Technician of the Year (sponsored by OPITO The Oil & Gas Academy) Paul Cattanach, operations technician with TAQA Bratani Limited; David Maxwell, production operations technician with Apache North Sea Ltd; and Colin Campbell, gas generation maintenance team leader with Marathon Oil U.K. Ltd.
• The Oil & Gas UK Award for Mentoring (sponsored by Chevron Upstream Europe) Craig Porter, engineering services manager with Subsea 7; Gary Longhurst, lead mechanical engineer with BP; and John McSherry, technical services manager with Sparrows Offshore Services.

Finalists for the corporate awards are:

• The Oil & Gas UK Joint Award for Supply Chain Business Innovation (sponsored by Bibby Offshore) Aker Solutions jointly with Nexen; and Halliburton jointly with E.On Ruhrgas UK North Sea Ltd.
• The Oil & Gas UK Award for People Development (sponsored by the University of Aberdeen) Champion Technologies; Production Services Network; and Weatherford UK Ltd.

Malcolm Webb, Oil & Gas UK's chief executive, said: "The awards ceremony this year not only recognises the contribution being made by a new generation of industry employees and their mentors, but also highlights the importance of investment in people and their development. The new award for People Development will give due recognition to organisations which realise, appreciate and develop their most important asset their people.

"This year we received a record number of entries and the quality of those entries is again truly impressive. Our judges have had the extremely difficult job of shortlisting the nominations and I would like to commend every entrant for their efforts and assure those that did not make it on the shortlist, that it was a very close call. I congratulate the finalists and wish them the very best of luck on 5^th November when the eventual winners will also have the singular honour of receiving their awards in person from one of our industry's great leaders,  Sir Ian Wood."

The shortlisted candidates in the individual categories will meet the judges face-to-face over lunches on 7, 8 and 12 October before the winners are announced at the awards ceremony on 5 November 2009 at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. All winners will receive a specially commissioned glass trophy by Elin Isaksson in front of an audience of leading industry figures. In addition, winners in the individual categories will each be presented with a cheque for £500.

For further information on the awards or to book a table please visit www.oilandgasuk.co.uk, or telephone 01224 577250.

For more information, please call 020 7802 2400.