OGUK Launches Forum to Help SMEs

OGUK Launches Forum to Help SMEs
Industry body Oil & Gas UK has launched a new forum dedicated to helping small and medium-sized businesses navigate the downturn.

Industry body Oil & Gas UK (OGUK) announced Tuesday that it has launched a new forum dedicated to helping small and medium-sized businesses navigate the downturn.

The SME forum will give participants access to OGUK’s existing business support guidance and initiatives, provide an opportunity to identify and address issues in the SME community and offer the chance for participants to collectively develop solutions, OGUK noted. The new forum will be chaired by Catriona Stevenson, the business manager at Ecosse IP Ltd, and its first event will take place on August 18.

OGUK outlined that the SME forum was launched amid concern that a growing number of smaller companies may not survive the current economic pressures and the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“With the oil and gas industry entering yet another downturn so soon after the last, and as we work towards the energy transition, we’re particularly worried about the impact this will have on our small businesses,” Emily Taylor, OGUK’s continuous improvement manager, said in an organization statement.

“The SME forum will bring the community together to create a shared voice and identify business opportunities across the sector,” Taylor added.

Forum chair Stevenson said, “working for a small business and having founded an oil and gas networking group during the last downturn has made me very aware of the struggles that these companies face, and now more than ever I feel they need our support”. 

“As we move into the energy transition and with Brexit upon us, I feel that the SME community need to come together with one voice to be heard and be better supported across the sector,” Stevenson added.

Last week, OGUK revealed that suspected Covid-19 cases offshore UK were continuing to decrease due to “effective industry-wide measures to protect the sector”.

As of August 4, there have been 305,627 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the UK, with 46,210 deaths, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO). Globally, there have been 18.1 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 691,013 deaths, as of August 4, WHO data shows.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com



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