Akram Alsharafi: Head of Department Petroleum Engineering Somaville University
Somaville University is the first and the only one offering bachelor of science in petroleum engineering. This department, a part of the faculty of engineering and computer science, was established in 2015. Indeed, it concentrates on achieving a thriving vision and mission. Essentially, our vision is to distinctively lead Somalia into effective education, sufficient training, and innovative research for the responsible and sustainable development of subsurface energy resources. Furthermore, the mission is to provide the critical skills to serve Somalia in developing conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources while promoting cutting-edge research to improve resource recovery and foster the socially responsible development of the earth’s resources.
In fact, a bachelor’s degree in this major takes 4 years to complete. So, two batches have successfully graduated, and another batch is graduating this year. Therefore, we are proud that we have prepared some human resources for the hopefully coming development of Somalia.
Before we go into some more details about our department, a short overview of petroleum engineering should be briefly presented. Basically, it is a scope of engineering concerned with all activities regarding the oil and gas production, starting from exploration, which is the search of the potential of hydrocarbons beneath the ground, and ending with the production and processing of oil and gas at the surface. Thus, I believe that petroleum can play a major rule in Somali economic growth as it is a gift from God.
As ahead of the department, we always seek for quality to develop the level of education. Our department involves highly qualified Somali and foreign instructors. Science the petroleum industry has not begun actively in Somalia, we rely on utilizing some available small tools and equipment to demonstrate our technical subjects in addition to annual geological tours in order to train the students how to identify the different types of rocks and the various formation structures, such as faults and folds. Moreover, we always employ a variety of real field-life videos to better illustrate the diverse processes and techniques used in the petroleum industry. Consequently, I confirm that with a competitive staff and modern teaching methodologies, we are going to have well-educated and trained students.
Finally, there are unfortunately plenty of obstacles facing petroleum students in Somalia, such as data and training. First, lack of data is a key challenge that senior students run into during their thesis book preparation. Second, the absence of field training is not granted to Somali students as the industry has not commenced yet due to the civil war. Hence, I think that if the ministry of petroleum and minerals cooperates with our students by providing them with enough data as well as finding a solution for training them in a neighboring country or a country with good diplomatic relations, then the students will definitely be well-prepared for the prosperity of Somalia.