KUALA TERENGGANU, Malaysia -- Waseem Mardan turns off a gas valve controlling pressure on an upstream platform under the watchful eye of an instructor and fellow workers. The Iraqi technician in his mid-twenties from Iraq state-owned Midland Oil Company is undergoing a two week course at the Institut Teknologi Petroleum Petronas, or Instep, a training center owned by Petronas in Malaysia.
"Instep was built to realize Petronas' goal of becoming the regional hub for learning about oil and gas," Chandramohan Saminathan, Instep's CEO explained to reporters during a recent media tour of the facilities.
