The oil and gas industry has to 'reinvent' itself in keeping with the times, to invite the best talent and to make it more attractive to future investments in human resources, said an industry expert.

Speaking on the sidelines of the opening of the 17th Middle East Oil Show and Conference at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre, Bapco chief executive Faisal Al Mahroos  said while all other industries had modernised and expanded, the world's 'most important' industry - the oil industry - had lagged behind.

'We have to attract the best talent - we have to make the industry attractive - and for that we have to think futuristic, otherwise we will be left with a vacuum.'

'Today's graduates consider the oil industry as one without future and go towards other fields. This is not right, so there is a need for the oil industry to sell itself better,' he stated.

Earlier, Energy Minister Dr Abdulhussain Mirza, while making his closing remarks at the one-day talent and retention workshop, a part of the conference, said developing and retaining knowledge was vitally important.

'We are short of engineers with 10 to 15 years experience and we must question the future skills' base,' he said.

'We must be innovative in providing the knowledge base, the intellectual capital, the leaders, managers, engineers and workforce of the future.'

He said Bapco is facing the situation of loss of skilled employees from the industry at a time when investment projects are growing and there are insufficient graduates entering the oil and gas business.

'There has to be greater emphasis on a succession plan in the oil and gas industry,' he said.

'The problem has been building up for the last decade but is now reaching a stage where further action is required.

'If we now consider that thousands of the industry's engineers are planning to retire over the next decade, we are clearly facing a labour deficit that will be an investment bottleneck just when we are reaching an intensive phase of the investment cycle for some time to come,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service