Indonesia's oil and gas companies have begun to suffer from a shortage of skilled workers due to their preference to work overseas, an oil drilling executive says.

"The shortage of professionals in the oil and gas industry is getting worse, as most of the existing companies need more skilled workers to support their expansion projects," said Mohammad Zulkarnain, finance and administration director for state-owned PT Elnusa Drilling Services, quoted by the Jakarta Post on Saturday.

The director worried that the shortage of professionals would hinder the government's plan to boost oil production to 1.3 million barrels per day by 2009, from the current level of one million barrels.

"In the past, we could easily recruit so many professionals," Zulkarnain said. "Now, things are quite different because local professionals prefer to work overseas, either in the Middle East or Europe, largely because of better pay," he said.

As a result, he said, most local oil and gas companies were in a quandary. "Senior professionals who are paid between 5,000 U.S. dollars and 7,000 U.S. dollars monthly are certainly too expensive for them, while hiring fresh graduates is also a problem due to lack of skills even after six months or a year of training," he said.

Zukarnain said companies had also been discouraged from hiring fresh graduates by a law stipulating that dismissed employees get severance and reward pay.

Local oil and gas companies also faced difficulties replacing workers who were hired away by other companies, he said.

A participant from a human resources consulting firm said despite searching, the firm could not find "the perfect candidates " to work on the Natuna D-Alpha gas block in the Natuna Sea.

Source: Xinhua