Wednesday 01 / May / 2024
Gulf Leaders Circle, Muscat Media Group’s GCC-wide business networking platform recently interviewed Marash Al Kalbani, a prominent figure in the Oil and Gas industry. Currently serving as the Operations Director at Daleel Petroleum, he oversees critical departments, including Well Engineering, Production, Engineering, Maintenance, and Asset Integrity. He spoke to GLC about his strategic contributions to Daleel Petroleum and the unique geological challenges the company faces in its extraction operations.
As you have been at the helm of Daleel Petroleum for several years, your experiences must be rich and diverse. Could you please review some of the most pivotal moments or projects in your career that have shaped your approach to leadership and operations management at Daleel Petroleum?
Marash Al Kalbani: Prior to joining Daleel, I worked for nearly 18 years with operators and contractors within the Oil and Gas E&P industry both locally and internationally. This equipped me with essential technical know-how and interpersonal skills.
Daleel might be classified as a small to medium company where truly there is a very high expectation towards efficiency and dynamic continuous enhancements. This is essential to guide the company through an intensely competitive sector and to guarantee sustained value for our stakeholders. Engineers love challenges and if they do not exist, they go looking for them. This is the spirit among Daleel employees where everyone strives to expand boundaries to maximize performance and productivity.
I felt that reality on my first day at Daleel and accordingly I drew a mind map of the best ways to harness my previous experiences to help the company continue its journey of success and to benefit from the company in improving my leadership capabilities and resource management.
During the ten years that I spent at Daleel, I participated in and led many projects and initiatives. Sharing the recent two projects:
1. Leading the company's emergency team during the Covid-19 pandemic
2. Positioning Daleel as the first operator in Oman to achieve Zero Routine Gas Flaring, accomplishing this milestone seven years before the World Bank's established goal.
The number of talents in Daleel, shareholders' support, and other governmental authorities’ directions were key success factors of both projects.
For the first project, the challenge was to navigate the company through the pandemic with acceptable business disruption compared to the level of the event, especially when people’s safety was at stake.
The challenge in the second project was to ensure that investment in these projects would achieve two main goals; environmental protection by eliminating the routine gas flaring and a financial return on investment. This is a major challenge for this kind of project because of the great risks it carries related to existing technologies and their suitability to the nature of the company’s operations.
