A special moment for Zechariah at the Great Wall of China

PETROLEUM engineer Zechariah Yakap of Kumul Petroleum is back home after a four-month visit to the China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Corporation.
“It is the primary builder of pipelines in China and has several large-scale projects abroad. One of those was a huge oil storage tank for Saudi Arabia – 110 meters in diameter and more than 20 metres high. My job was to draft the engineering details for construction of the floating roof component based on their design.
“It had designed the storage tank with a floating roof that goes up and down with the oil level in the tank. The roof is a meter thick and weighs 1,345 tonnes.
“I had no prior experience in this field so it was an interesting challenge, not least because nobody, except my supervisor, spoke English.
“Some evenings I spent in my hotel room preparing drawings for the next day. But it was a great satisfaction to be able to complete the task successfully.”
He noticed the differences in culture while working at the company head office in Langfang City.
“Their staff pretty much lived there. The company served breakfast, lunch and dinner every day – even for staff members’ family.
“So staff had little reason to leave the workplace, meaning most of them worked almost around the clock.”
During his trips around the city, which is near Beijing, he did not talk to people much because only a few spoke English.
“Google Translate became my best friend. And they’re not used to foreigners. Children look at you like you were an alien. But they were friendly.”
His girlfriend joined him there from PNG. They visited the Great Wall of China.
“As an engineer you appreciate the enormous feat it is to build a wall like that with the construction techniques they had back then. Amazing!”
He also took the opportunity to propose to his girlfriend while there.
“Thankfully she said yes. So we’ll always have fond memories of the Great Wall of China.”
He is into his fifth year at Kumul Petroleum.
“Apart from my on-the-job training in Port Moresby, Kumul Petroleum has supported me with educational visits to Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Spain and China.”
He thanks the company for “empowering Papua New Guineans”.
“With the experience I gained in China, I will be able to participate in construction projects when Kumul Petroleum enters downstream projects. I can’t wait to play my part in developing my company and my country.”