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Monday 23 March 2009

GL seeks engineering opportunities in Kazakhsta

Foreign companies have shown strong interest in Kazakhstan ever since the country gained independence in 1991. This is mainly due to its boosting oil output: Kazakhstan's growing petroleum industry accounts for roughly 30 percent of the country's GDP and over half of its export revenues, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Responding to the rising demand for local engineering services, technical assurance and consulting company Germanischer Lloyd (GL) has established its local subsidiary Germanischer Lloyd Industrial Services Kazakhstan LLP.

"There are big opportunities to provide our services for onshore, offhore, power construction, drilling and environmental projects," says Yerzhan Syrymov, GL's new Managing Director GLIS Kazakhstan. From the new office located in Atyrau, GL will be providing verification and certification services, risk and integrity management services, supply chain inspection, materials testing, non-destructive testing services, ISO training and certification as well as GOST-K certification. GOST-K is a document that confirms the quality of products and its compliance with the norms and standards of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Most of the products imported to Kazakhstan are subject to compulsory GOST-K certification.

Yerzhan Syrymov joined GL in February 2009 after working for two years as Regional Business Development Manager for SGS Kazakhstan. The chemical engineer gained considerable professional experience as construction engineer, senior QA/QC engineer, project engineer and project manager within the Tengzichevroil Company, a joint venture of KazakhMunaiGas (KMG) and ChevronTexaco (CVX), between 1991 and 2007.

Currently a team of three, GL Kazakshtan is keen to expand. "We intend to employ up to twelve people and etablish a network of 20 to 25 freelancers as per clients needs. The plan is to hire and train local people to meet our expected qualification level and then start providing services with local people," says Yerzhan Syrymov. He is looking forward to the challenges ahead: "Our plan is ambitious: Keep up and continue expanding the market in the country with the GLIS service portfolio as a 'one stop shop'. In a few years time, we will then start looking to provide our services in other 'stans' countries such as Uzbekistan, Kirgyzstan or Turkmenistan."

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