Lebanon, a country that has mainly founded his economy on both the Tourism and the Agriculture sectors, has suffered greatly due to the long-lasting security problems both on the national and the regional levels.
The haunting thought that the geographical location of Lebanon has been a curse for this copious civilisation paramount all hopes for development and prosperity, or even a chance for the prepared Lebanese people to shatter the glassy ceiling and add value to the greatness of humanity.
At the heart of a geopolitically burning region with a fire susceptible to expand from neighbouring countries, Lebanon started pumping hope and brightness into its future with the hope of pumping hydrocarbons from below its surface. In 2013, a planned launch of gas exploration within the Levant Basin made the cause of the curse, the same cause of aspiration.
Although the exploration plan witnessed a three-year hiatus, in January 2017 Lebanon approved two governmental decrees re-initiating the country’s first offshore licencing round. Since then, the Lebanese community developed an unforeseen interest in the Petroleum and Chemical engineering sectors and thrived to become more and more involved in its educational, consulting, industrial, and technical aspects.
The initial attentiveness of the community spammed the educational sector with bachelors and Masters in chemical, Petroleum and/or Petrochemical engineering. The universities providing those programs are listed below, including:
BS or BE in Chemical Engineering:
- American University of Beirut
- Holy spirit University of Kaslik
- Balamand University
- Beirut Arab University (in 2017-2018)
- Notre Dame University (in 2017-2018)
BS or BE in Petroleum Engineering:
- Lebanese American University
- Beirut Arab University
- Balamand University
- Phoenicia University
BE in Petrochemical Engineering
- Lebanese University (in all its branches)
Adding to this substantial number of available programs a bunch of minors, double majors, and Master’s degrees provided by the cited universities and some more like the University of Saint Joseph. With an average of 20 students graduating each year per program, the Lebanese community will reap on average 180 chemical and petroleum graduates per year, summing to over 1000 Job seekers culminating over 6 years.
The tremendous turnout of the community, both parents and students, in taking part of the future of Lebanon as a “new frontier for hydrocarbons” as referred to by the financial times, will thwart unless met with equal shared responsibilities and dedication of the supervising community to control, educate, prepare and provide opportunities for those enthusiastic learners.
After a careful statistical and data-surveying analysis HJM group recognized several shortcomings in the chemical and petroleum engineering uprising fields.
- The educational field: The fairly recent establishment of chemical and petroleum engineering departments in the educational institutions is intuitively lacking seasoned and experienced academics and tutors which can convey well-tested theories and their relevant applications, due to the short life-span of those specific majors. Secondly, the long-lasting insecurity resulted in a restricted influx of highly experienced international academics specifically in American and franco-lebanese universities. This lead to an educational lull and a modest teaching experience felt within most universities.
- The research field: To succeed in becoming an oil and gas producer, Lebanon must act fast. Like any other ector thriving for development, it is merely impossible to facsimile another country’s existing strategy. Rather, the oil and gas sector encompass too many variables that requires investigation and exploration to synthesize a model tailored for the Lebanese case. Many of such variables cannot be imported from outside consulting but requires “in-house” research and development. This begs the need for investment in research focused on the oil and gas sectors including upstream production, midstream storage and transportation systems, and downstream refining and petrochemical industries. The lack of well-experienced academics, as well as young universities’ departments with underdeveloped laboratory acilities hindered the research in the chemical and petroleum fields and therefore the progress towards the initiation of the oil and gas plans. The lack of oil and gas research within the Lebanese scientific community is obvious with a handful of publications scarcely bordering the oil and gas sector.
- The industrial fields: Developing a technical facet for chemical and petroleum industries is of the utmost importance to reinvigorate a true momentum that puts it on the oil and gas world map. The hopes of the community to cease its petroleum future can only be achieved with available job opportunities for all graduates and providing technical expertise and unvarnished education benchmarked on technical and industrial implementations. Constructing chemical and petroleum pilot scale and actual scale plants will ensure a sustainable flux of students in oil and gas sector without the burden of job security, it will also construct and nurture local research for academic and industrial development, and finally it will guaranty a class of experienced citizens capable of withstanding the burden of such complex sector to secure a prosper future independent of international supervision.
After careful enumeration of the following constraints and deficiencies, HJM group stepped up to the plate to set stones for a strategic plan providing short- and long-term solutions to heed the warnings alerting across the oil and gas industry development. The strategy of HJM group includes investment in the industrial, research, training, and educational sectors in an attempt to fill the apertures in front of the road of Lebanon towards becoming an oil and gas producing country.
The training centre Lyceum is planning for a set of petroleum and chemical engineering workshops prepared and delivered by top quality experts from all over the world. Lyceum is currently collaborating with process engineers, chemical engineers, drilling specialist and reservoir experts (and many more) from BP, Shell, Total, ABC group, and other long-standing companies to usher technical expertise and delivering various workshops tailored for the need of the scientific community. These workshops will provide momentum, experience, and credibility for the rising generation of engineers planning to access the oil and gas sector. These workshops are expected to start in the summer of 2017-2018. Lyceum is also preparing a road map to construct many industrial facilities, model plants, drilling model-tools, and pilot scale processes, serving research development and technical experience in the oil and gas industry.
On the other hand, research will expand within the research centre, Stratagem, to motivate studies, publication, and analysis involved around the current Lebanese situation, future forecast and scenario planning, project feasibility and strategic management of oil and gas industries. Studies will also include economical assessments, project development for petrochemical and chemical industries, export plans and more. Research is led by a group of well-trained academics in collaborating with many top-ranks international universities including University College London, University of Manchester, Oil and Gas University of Ploiesti and many more. Stratagem will also open the doors for chemical and petroleum engineering students in collaboration with all universities in Lebanon to guide the students, develop their capabilities and expand their horizons through internships, training, and final year projects.
For a shining future, we are all invited to collaborate. The Lebanese Golden age is in our reach, it is merely a matter of how bright we can be.
It is time for transformation.