H.E. Talal Al Rahbi Joins Celebration of the 2nd Oxy Oman Post-Graduate Student Awards

Four Accomplished Winners were recognized at the 2nd Occidental Oman Student Awards for the Advancement of Post-Graduate Education

H.E. Talal Al Rahbi, Deputy Secretary General, Supreme Council for Planning, Oman, joins Celebration of the 2nd Oxy Oman Post-Graduate Student Awards

Source: OXY Petroleum Twitter Handle

H.E. Talal Al Rahbi, Deputy Secretary General, Supreme Council for Planning, Oman and Stephen Kelly, President and General Manager of Occidental of Oman, honored the four esteemed winners of Occidental Oman Student Awards for the Advancement of Post-Graduate Education 2017 at a ceremony during the 5th Gulf Intelligence Oman Energy Forum on Nov. 28th in Muscat. 

The Winners herald a new era of cutting-edge talent; they are the energy industry’s future inventors and scientists who will underpin the growth of Oman’s innovative ecosystem. The winners of this year’s 2nd Oxy Oman Post-Graduate Student Awards in the Ph.D. category were Dr. Khalid Al Hinai, Ph.D. in Enhanced Oil Recovery, Sultan Qaboos University; Ahmed Al Hatrooshi, Ph.D. Researcher, School of Chemical Engineering, Newcastle University and the winners in the Masters category were Hajir Al Farsi, Masters in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University; Abdullah Salim Al-Shereiqi, Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University.

“Maximizing Oman’s post-graduate skills can play an important role in the country’s rapid transformation into a knowledge-based economy. The Awards can be seen as a cornerstone of the country’s efforts to enhance the respect and prestige towards research-focused education. The high-level recognition will bolster the brightest students’ confidence to flex their brainpower in support of local Industry, Academia and Government – a win-win scenario,” said Stephen Kelly, President, and General Manager, Occidental of Oman.

Award winners will go on to become ambassadors for postgraduate education and will participate in an annual program of seminars throughout the academic year at universities in Oman. Sharing their knowledge and appetite for innovative and positive change, the winners will inspire the next generation of students to explore their own post-graduate future. The seminars will also bolster the youngsters’ understanding of how post-graduate studies can best be aligned with the Industry’s requirements – education and employment are two sides of the same coin. 

The 2017 Winners will join a prestigious alumnus of Omani role models including Dr. Lamya Al-Hajj, Mahir Mansour Al-Wahaibi, and Dr. Omar Said Al-Abri. Dr. Al Hajj is an international public speaker, thought leader and lecturer at Sultan Qaboos University. Al-Wahaibi works as an engineer in the solid waste sector and is leading the government plan to restructure and enhance waste management services across the country. Dr. Al-Abri is leading the development of an e-platform, which will host the resources and objectives of the Oman Energy Industry-Academia R&D Protocol that was signed in June this year. 

Winners of the 2nd Occidental Oman Student Awards 2017 for the Advancement of Post-Graduate Education:

Dr. Khalid Al-Hinai

Dr. Khalid Al-Hinai holds a B. Sc. of Petroleum Engineering from University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, M. Sc. of Petroleum Engineering (Reservoir Engineering) from Imperial College, London, UK and a Ph.D. in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) from Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (2014).

He has over 29 years’ experience in reservoir engineering and management. His years of experience were locally in Oman, regionally in the Middle East and internationally in South East Asia in Brunei Shell (BSP). The first 14 years of his experience was in PDO that included Reservoir Engineer Manager for the South of Oman. He worked for Baker Atlas as a Middle East Reservoir Engineer specialist before joining Al Ghuwaif Petroleum Geoscience. Khalid currently works as a consultant for Al Ghuwaif. Khalid specializes in well test pressure transient analysis, dynamic simulation modeling and Miscible EOR. Khalid is a member of Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Ahmed Said Hamed Al Hatrooshi

Ahmed Said Hamed Al Hatrooshi is a Ph.D. researcher at Newcastle University, School of Chemical Engineering. He has several achievements during his study, in 2015 he won the first prize in technical poster competition among all Ph.D. students in chemical engineering school. In 2016 he won the internal competition to represent Newcastle University globally at Biopro World Talent Campus in Denmark for the best 25 Ph.D. students in Biotechnology. He has been shortlisted for I Cheme global award 2016 in Singapore in the area of process safety. He represented Sultanate of Oman in the international inventions exhibition where he won the gold medal among more than 160 international inventors in the renewable energy section. He won the first prize at Intilaqa program sponsored by Shell for the best business idea. 

He has good industrial experience in the oil and gas sector where he worked in 6 countries (UK, Singapore, Indonesia, UAE, Canada and Oman) as an international rotator process engineer.

Abdullah Salim Al-Shereiqi

Abdullah Salim Al-Shereiqi is a Ph.D. student at Sultan Qaboos University and works in Rural Areas Electricity Company as technical affairs section head. He is a proactive, result-focused engineer with progressive expertise in the electrical sector. Abdullah started his work experience by working at a site in operating electrical distribution systems. His promotions from operation engineer, to senior operation engineer and finally technical affairs section head; expanded his understanding of current and future energy industry trends. He earned a Bachelor and Masters degree from SQU in Electrical & Computer Engineering with specialization in Power System & Energy Engineering. His Master's thesis research focused on “Implementation and Power Flow Analysis of a Multi-Microgrid in Oman’s Rural Power System” and a journal paper has been accepted for publication out of this research. Abdullah has started in his Ph.D. program at SQU to complete research in the renewable resources field with more attention to the quality of output power from the wind turbines and photovoltaic systems. He has a strong desire for research work and excellent in practical aspects of his subjects.

Hajir Al Farsi

Hajir Al Farsi is a multi-tasking person. She has a Bachelor Degree in Physics & a Master degree in Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering. On the other hand, she has a working experience in Banking Industry, where she worked with National Bank of Oman after finishing her bachelor degree & now she is working with Alizz Islamic Bank after finishing her master degree. Moving from the banking industry to energy industry has many challenges but she knew the journey would not be easy & this is what she likes in life.

Her master thesis was about “The Effect of Nanoparticles on Enhancing Oil Recovery Using Microwave Assisted Gravity Drainage (MWAGD) Process”. The results showed that adding nanoparticles to the water improved its thermal conductivity that helped in increasing the porous media temperature, which led to a reduction in the heavy oil viscosity and an increase in the oil recovery under MWAGD.