Serving the Teesside Business Community | 43
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen with students and members of SABIC’ s senior management team outside the Wilton Centre during the chemical company’ s Engineering Summer School.
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen joined engineering undergraduates from Teesside University when they were given a glimpse into their potential futures with one of the world’ s leading petrochemical businesses during a three-day workshop at SABIC.
Twenty-four students from the university’ s School of Science, Engineering and Design took part in SABIC’ s Engineering Summer School for 2017, featuring a range of practical and theoretical exercises designed to boost their confidence and employability for their future careers within the industry.
SABIC, whose UK headquarters are based at Wilton, near Redcar, also hosted 18 students from schools, colleges and apprentice training centres at a similar summer school for 16-to-18-year-olds interested in taking up engineering roles.
Named UK Company of the Year by the Chemical Industries Association, SABIC employs 600 staff and an additional 400 contractors at its Wilton and North Tees sites. Thousands more Teesside jobs are reliant on the business within the wider supply chain, bringing some £ 400m into the economy from payroll, utilities, goods and services.
The company is careful to nurture its future talent as it looks forward with confidence, buoyed by the conversion of its Olefins 6 Cracker to take ethane, a move that has safeguarded thousands of Teesside jobs whilst securing the company’ s long-term future in the region.
Kevin Thrower, SABIC’ s workforce development manager, who led and delivered the Summer School, said:“ It’ s part of our corporate and social responsibility plan to promote opportunities for young people within SABIC, especially as some of these students will form part of our talent supply chain in the near future.
“ It’ s important that young students who could add value to the UK process industry have a real understanding of how their individual traits and abilities to work in teams to solve everyday problems are equally as important as their technical capability.”
During the course, the undergraduates heard first hand from SABIC employees
A GLIMPSE INTO THEIR
FUTURES
£ 11m flood work underway
SABIC site director( acting) Daren Smith( left) with the Environment Agency’ s Phil Marshall at Greatham Creek.
about careers in mechanical and technical engineering, whilst interacting with SABIC’ s leadership team.
Major industrial energy and utilities provider Sembcorp also provided a coach tour of the Wilton International site – home to SABIC’ s Olefins 6 and LDPE plants – to give the students an insight into the site’ s companies, industries and activities.
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen joined the students on a tour of the Wilton International site on their final day of the Summer School.
He added:“ These young people are our region’ s future and this is a fantastic initiative by SABIC, one of the key employers in the Tees Valley.
“ Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the fascinating tour of the Wilton site and the insight into the manufacturing chain. It reenforced to me how important it is that we ensure there is a skilled workforce, ready to take up the opportunities our ambitious plans will deliver.”
Work has started on an £ 11m Environment Agency project that will increase flood protection from the River Tees and Greatham Creek while creating around 30 hectares of extra habitat.
With SABIC providing funding towards the scheme and INOVYN ChlorVinyls releasing some of their land to be used for the additional habitat creation, it’ s expected to be complete by the end of 2018.
The first phase of the project, which saw new flood defences built at Port Clarence to reduce flood risk from the River Tees- protecting 350 homes and 32 businesses at a cost of £ 4.5m- was finished in 2015.
Phase 2 will see the Environment Agency raise existing flood defences along Greatham Creek, to reduce the flood risk to Port Clarence and land which is south of Greatham Creek.
It will result in the creation of around 28 hectares of intertidal habitat to the north of the RSPB Saltholme nature reserve- a popular area frequented by seals and a variety of bird species including little tern, red knot and redshank.