Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa), a major energy firm owned by Abu Dhabi government, has joined the renowned Energy Delta Institute (EDI) as a strategic partner to develop Dutch gas hub.

The partnership contract was signed by Taqa managing director for the Netherlands, Jan Willem van Hoogstraten and president of EDI Eric Dam.

As per the deal Taqa and EDI will develop and exchange knowledge and expertise in the challenges associated with the natural gas industry.

Taqa will also receive access to staff development and join a growing platform of other EDI partners and international knowledge institutes.

The main objective is to develop the Netherlands' position in becoming the gas hub of Northwest Europe by addressing the threat of a growing shortage of qualified personnel in the natural gas industry, said the duo after signing the deal.

Jan Willem said: Taqa is committed to develop the Netherlands into the Northwest European gas hub and has chosen the country as its global centre of excellence for natural gas storage and transmission developments and operations.'

'Taqa's Bergermeer Gas Storage is a concrete example of  our commitment to this endeavour. In addition to creating more than 2,600 man-years of employment in the Netherlands, the amount of storage capacity will cement the Netherlands' role as the gas hub for Northwest Europe,' he added.

Eric Dam said partnering with a global energy company such as Taqa will allow the EDI to significantly expand its knowledge network both geographically and into new increasingly important areas of the natural gas industry such as underground storage and transmission.

'Taqa will without any doubt considerably contribute to EDI's effort to develop the Netherlands' natural gas industry knowledge and provide state-of-the-art training for the current and future energy manager,' he added.

EDI, headquartered in Groningen, the Netherlands, is an internationally renowned knowledge institute, with a primary focus on natural gas.

The other EDI partners include: Gasunie, GasTerra, EBN, Gazprom, Shell, RWE, Dong and University of Groningen.-TradeArabia News Service