Just a few weeks ago, Oil & Gas UK hosted its first Oil & Gas UK Annual Conference – the largest of its kind for the UK oil and gas sector in 2014. Now, as summer approaches, like many organisations in the offshore oil and gas sector, we’re working hard to plan and prepare in anticipation of a busy autumn period.
For me, our conference highlighted not only the exciting projects underway on the UK Continental Shelf, but also the expertise and dedication of the people who work in our sector. To acknowledge their achievements, earlier this week Oil & Gas UK opened nominations for this year’s Oil & Gas UK Awards, sponsored by Shell UK.
Celebrating its eighth anniversary this year, the annual event will take place in Aberdeen, the oil and gas capital of Europe, on the evening of Thursday November 6. However, this year we’ve re-shaped our categories.
The two company awards, now called: the Oil & Gas UK Award for Investment in People; and the Oil & Gas UK Award for Business Innovation will both be split into two categories; one for large and the other for small and medium sized companies.
Following feedback from both the 2013 judging panel and Oil & Gas UK membership, we have tailored our awards in the hope of making them more compelling to companies of all shapes and sizes working in or offering services to the oil and gas industry. In particular, we hope that this strategy will encourage a greater number of players in the sector to share their achievements.
The criteria for the awards note that smaller enterprises must meet two out of three of the following measures: Less than 250 employees; less than £25.9million turnover; less than £12.5million in assets.
The decision also comes following the completion of a project to map the UK oil and gas supply chain. Our EY-commissioned reports, released this spring, showed that the UK supply chain is a £35billion industry, with over 3,000 companies. A sizable proportion of these companies are classed at SMEs, so we are keen to encourage those exceptional businesses to get involved.
In addition, we have revised in order to simplify our outstanding individual categories. They are: Mentor of the Year, Apprentice of the Year, and Graduate of the Year. The standard of entries for these categories was exceptionally high last year, and we look forward to hearing about the next generation of outstanding talent, and those supporting them, this year.
These suggestions came from our industry, so we are confident they will be well-received. Nominations are open now – so please do share your story with the team.
Stephen Marcos Jones is Oil & Gas UK’s business development director.
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