Overview

As operations advisor, you will play a critical role in leading safe and compliant operations at site. You’ll act as the key interface between the ROO operations team and field activities, with a strong focus on coaching, safety leadership, and operational discipline. Your ability to influence and support local teams will be essential in ensuring reliable performance and national workforce development.

Key responsibilities

Leadership
Lead by promoting a strong safety culture, guiding daily safe production, managing incidents with root cause analysis, and coaching direct reports to support nationalisation and development plans.

Risk / Operating discipline
Ensure strict risk management and operating discipline by overseeing management of change, engineering queries, operational risk assessments, plant handover, control of work compliance, incident reporting, and exercising stop-work authority to maintain safety and operational integrity.

People
Lead by example to promote ROO values, develop and coach national staff, ensure HR compliance, motivate the team, manage performance rigorously, and escalate any unresolved issues through proper channels.

Production delivery, optimisation & excellent performance
Oversee daily plant and well performance to maximize production, support optimization and maintenance planning, lead root cause analyses, manage vulnerabilities, drive continuous improvement, ensure operations stay within design limits, contribute to scheduling and project support, identify defects, and fulfil reporting obligations.

Experience, qualifications & key skills

• Minimum 10 years’ hydrocarbon operations experience
• Including 5+ years in supervisory roles
• Strong HSE knowledge and mastery of control of work systems
• Excellent interpersonal skills for coaching and leadership
• Proven ability to work independently with integrity
• Ongoing professional development
• Experience in diverse, multicultural teams preferred

Interfaces

Interfaces with BOC site leadership, ROO operations line, operations coordinator, site maintenance advisor, permit and area authorities, ROO control of work team, and cross-functional ROO teams (TAR, projects, engineering) for integrated planning.

Procedures and processes

The OA must have in-depth knowledge of key ROO procedures, including control of work (ORA, LO/LC, SORA), MOC/EQ process, work management and activity planning, risk management, PSSR, GOC, and SOPs.

Summary of decision rights

The OA has authority to stop work for safety, prioritize tasks, decide on the 2-week schedule, recommend ops coordinator development, and manage permits and SIMOPS coordination.

Behaviours

• Safety-focused leader who coaches teams to reinforce ROO values
• Makes risk-aware decisions prioritizing high-impact work
• Provides proactive technical guidance
• Supports teams with clear direction and feedback
• Fosters cross-functional collaboration to achieve shared goals

Meetings to attend

Regularly attends and contributes to key daily, weekly, and ad hoc meetings including operations & maintenance reviews, CoW meetings (as chair), schedule planning, and TAR/project coordination to ensure alignment, readiness, and safe execution of site activities.

KPI’s

The OA is expected to achieve full compliance with key performance indicators including HSE targets, plant reliability, operational routines, override management, SOP adherence, nationalisation plan delivery, and accurate process safety incident reporting, while actively contributing to broader team goals.

Softwares & apps

The OA is expected to be a proficient user of key operational and reporting systems including Worksafe, Maximo, PI Vision, Power BI, Sharepoint, Sharecat, PMCS, FMD, and GIS.

Routine tasks

• Daily: Oversee plant performance, manage overrides, support safe production, and ensure CoW and ops discipline
• Weekly: Coach team, review execution, support planning, and drive improvements
• Monthly: Manage alarms with engineering and contribute to forward planning
• Ad hoc: Join project meetings and support readiness and operational alignment

About BP and ROO

Rumaila is one of the world’s greatest super-giant oilfields – those that contain over a billion barrels of recoverable oil. It is estimated that some 17 billion barrels of recoverable oil are still contained within Rumaila’s reservoirs.

The field is located 50km to the west of the city of Basra, southern Iraq. The Basra region is home to all six of Iraq’s ports, including the deep-water facility at Umm Qasr.

Rumaila encompasses a vast area of 1,600 square kilometres, extending approximately 80km north to south and 20km west to east, with the main anticline consisting of two domes, South Rumaila and North Rumaila.

Rumaila is part of the Iraq Basra Oil Company (BOC) family of oilfields. It is the largest producing field in Iraq, responsible for producing over 33% of Iraq’s oil. Oil has been produced at Rumaila for well over 50 years. A technical service contract signed in 2009 and extended in 2014, between BOC and BP, Petro-China and the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) is now driving the transformation of Rumaila into a sustainable world-class oilfield for Iraq and its people. This 25 year contract (to 2034) has laid the foundation for the long-term renewal of the field.

This demands significant investment in infrastructure, technology and people. Progress is already visible and the oilfield is returning to full efficiency. Average daily production has increased by over 40% since mid-2009. World-class training and safety standards have been introduced. Around 7,000 people work at Rumaila and over 22,000 contractors support Rumaila’s activities through a large supply chain. The vast majority of these people are Iraqi.

The next stage of Rumaila’s development is to access previously untapped reservoirs to extend the life of the field and deliver increased production.

Our people are key to all of this. We are aiming to create an exemplary record for safety. We are building skills and capabilities. We are developing a culture built on respect for each other, with an ethos to behave responsibly in everything we do – be that in our corporate governance or in the way we safeguard our environment. This is how we will build a reputation as a great place to work and with whom to do business. Most importantly we want to ensure we are a good neighbour to the people and communities.

Working together as one team under the technical service contract, the Basra Oil Company (BOC) and the State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) along with contractors, BP and PetroChina, bring a range of different expertise and skills in modernizing this supergiant field.