Bandar Seri Begawan - An oil and gas service sector job fair to be organised by the Energy Department at the Prime Minister's Office next month will see the-participation of technical institutions and over 100 contract vendors from major oil and gas industry players such as Brunei Shell Petroleum, Total E&P Borneo BV and Petronas.

Minister of Energy at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Pehin Datu Singamanteri Col (Rtd) Dato Seri Setia (Dr) Awang Haji Mohammad Yasmin bin Haji Umar said a wide range of job opportunities for all skills and qualifications will be offered and they are targeting the event itself to generate about 500 jobs by March next year.

The job fair, to be held from Dec 13 to Dec 17 at the Bridex Hall in Jerudong is in support of the Government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam's aspiration in local business development and employment of locals in the private sector.

The job fair will run from 12noon to 8pm daily and will run from 2pm until 8pm on Friday. This is an opportunity not to be missed especially for school leavers and their parents who are also encouraged to come as there will be a lot of good career opportunities and prospective.

"This is as a result of the recent conclusion of the Brunei Shell Vendors Forum and I am pleased to say that the Managing Director of Brunei Shell Petroleum Sdn Bhd, Ken Marnoch is giving us full support in this initiative as well as their other vendors.

"Other major industry players such as Total and Petronas are also supporting us," the minister said. The minister also expressed his contentment over the support given by the local vendors for taking this opportunity to put emphasis on local business development and local employment.

Apart from this, the minister said they are also emphasising on recruitment based upon 'on the job trainings' even without prior experience.

"We are pushing very hard on this and again we would like to thank all those companies involved for their determination in recruiting more Bruneians in their companies," he said.

"This is a good start for development and hopefully we can change the mentality in the energy sector so there will be more Bruneians in the field," he said.