As well, the former Fremantle-headquartered group is making New Plymouth its global head office, with group general manager Andrew Maffett raving about the New Zealand business climate.
"There is no better place to operate from than New Zealand, with its high and rigorous quality standards, low operating costs and quality Western lifestyle. It's also intriguing an Aussie company would choose New Plymouth over Fremantle, particularly when it's not always comfortable being an Aussie over here in sports-mad New Zealand," said Maffett, who shifted to New Plymouth about two months ago.
Learning Energy New Zealand, which the Gas and Petrochemical Industry Training Organisation set up almost three years ago, was a classic example of a Kiwi organisation exporting its innovative technology and skills. Its government accreditation and use of the NZQA unit standards for skill development, meant it was very attractive for domestic and overseas industry.
LENZ had already won training contracts in the Philippines and Eastern Russia.
It had worked with Shell Philippines Exploration staff designing and constructing a competence system for the $US4.5 billion Malampaya deepwater gas-to-power project; and with another Shell International team assessing training provider capabilities and determining legislative requirements for Sakhalin Energy, a $US9 billion Shell-operated joint venture with Mitsui and Mitsubishi of Japan.
Maffett said LENZ would continue working with M & O Group throughout Asia and the rest of the world, complementing their technical, safety and emergency training, with competence measurement and assurance systems.
M & O's prime focus was the oil and gas sector and it still uses the mobile HUET (helicopter underwater emergency training) course, first developed by the New Plymouth-based Quantum Safety company in the mid 1990's. Mobile training is now complemented by offices in 12 different countries, with fixed training centres and major operations in Angola, Kazakhstan, Brazil Qatar, Indonesia and New Zealand.
Since coming to New Zealand about four years ago M & O has taken over Quantum Safety and Emergency Care Consultants and established regional offices in Hamilton, Dunedin and Invercargill, catering to the energy, dairy and other sectors.
