A first ever graduate program of a fuel company in PNG has seen engineering students at the University of Technology landing jobs just as they leave school.
Four student engineers entered Islands Petroleum’s new graduate program some 18 months ago of which two have officially started working for the company. Company’s owner and general manager Paul Bluett described the graduate program as an opportunity for his company to give back to the community.
Islands Petroleum has had 30 years of experiences in fuel distribution in parts of the New Guinea islands region. It has recently opened up lubes branches in Port Moresby, Lae and Madang. Islands Petroleum is also the authorised distributor of Mobil lubricants in PNG.
The graduate program devotes company’s time, effort and resources to further train young engineers to be suitable for roles within Islands Petroleum. While the program saw the student engineers attached with engineering and construction projects, they were also trained on lubrication, Mobil products and the various lubes applications.
Final year mechanical engineering students Ellyard Koreari from Pomio, East New Britain and Mula La’a from Hula in the Central Province slipped on the blue overalls last Monday morning to enter the work site in Rabaul. Only this time, they will work side by side with senior engineers as full time employees of Islands Petroleum. They were confident. They have worked on fuel projects and they were qualified lubes engineers ready to take on new challenges.
IP’s lubes engineer Raybon Tamegal had over the past months oversaw the transition of these young student engineers.
“They were eager to learn and have proven they wanted to work for Islands Petroleum,” he said. Mr Tamegal said the students had shown commitment to in-house training and to the several projects they have worked on.
Two new students under the graduate program for 2012 are Norman Hite from Milne Bay and William Painap from East New Britain. They are in their third year at Unitech studying mechanical engineering. They will commence work practical with the company over the Christmas break.
Mr Bluett, said the company was proud to assist in training young Papua New Guineans. He said the graduate program was to identify, support and train young people while they are still at universities. The general manager said the program also provided the trainees with secured jobs when they graduate.
Under the same program, Islands Petroleum has sponsored and recruited a business graduate from the University of Papua New Guinea to join its sales and marketing team. Sophina Dilu from Simbu province had just completed her final year of business management studies. She joined the workforce last month based at Islands Petroleum Port Moresby.
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