Baku, July 23, AZERTAC

BP has today launched a new business education programme for young engineers in Azerbaijan. The programme, fully funded by BP Azerbaijan, is designed to help young engineers develop the management and business skills they need in their engineering careers. The project is part of BP’s commitment to supporting capacity-building and overall educational development in the country.

The programme will offer extensive trainings to equip young engineers with the analytical tools and techniques they need to improve internal and external operations. It is expected that the new skills will enable young engineers to analyse and assess complex business problems and apply agile approaches to such areas as problem-solving and decision-making.

The programme will be managed by Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) and will be open to young engineers from all organizations across the country. The curriculum integrates the theory and practice of business administration, balancing training and work with successful practitioners.

Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, BP’s communications and advocacy vice president for the Middle East and Caspian Region, said in his address to the virtual event arranged today to launch the programme: “Through our own experience in recruiting young engineers for many years we have observed that in many cases they have strong discipline knowledge and technical capabilities but lack management and business skills. So, we decided that we could help young engineers develop the necessary business management skills so much required by modern businesses and organizations globally and here in Azerbaijan. We are grateful to BHOS and its leadership for taking over the management of this important programme and are confident this will be yet another example of very successful cooperation between BP and this great university.”

BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov said: “Such projects contribute to the development of young engineers’ business thinking and managerial skills. I believe the training modules included in the programme will have a strong impact on the participants' career development as well as on their day-to-day activities. One of the basic requirements of modern business is for engineers to possess managerial and social skills along with their academic and technical knowledge. I would like to thank BP for supporting such a unique project and I wish all participants the best of luck.”

The trainings will be based on eight core modules: Leadership and Teams: how to motivate others; Project Management and Risks; Financial Management; HR; Change Management; Design thinking; Agile; Ethics and Compliance. The total value of the project is 258,000 AZN.

In Azerbaijan, BP has been present for about 28 years safely, efficiently and reliably operating major oil and gas exploration, development and transportation projects. To date, it has invested together with its partners around $76 billion into projects in the country and has had a positive impact on local communities through generating tens of thousands of jobs and through its extensive social investment activities directed at building local capabilities, education, development of communities, local enterprises, sporting potential as well as research and promotion of the country’s rich cultural heritage.

In Azerbaijan, BP directly employs more than 2,500 Azerbaijani citizens who make over 90 per cent of the company’s professional staff.

Over the past 28 years BP and its co-venturers have supported a large number of major social investment projects. These have included educational programmes, building skills and capabilities in local communities, improving access to social infrastructure in communities, supporting local enterprises through provision of access to finance and training, support for cultural legacy and sport, as well as technical assistance to public institutions.

In 2019, BP and its co-venturers spent around $4 million in Azerbaijan on their social investment projects. Overall, since the start, BP itself and together with its co-venturers in the joint ventures that BP operates in Azerbaijan, have spent more than $87 million on social investment projects in this country.