After the EPC leaves, the plant needs people who keep it running: mechanical fitters, rotating-equipment technicians, E&I technicians, planners and operators. The Philippines' own process industry and a Gulf diaspora on the same units supply them — for long-term maintenance contracts, not projects.
Maintenance is where a Filipino career in oil and gas is usually spent: fitters who overhaul pumps and compressors to OEM procedure, instrument technicians who calibrate and loop-check, electricians who work switchgear and Ex-rated equipment, planners who run SAP-PM. TESDA Instrumentation and Control NC II–IV, Mechanical Maintenance NC II–III and the domestic petrochemical, power and semiconductor plants train them; Gulf maintenance contractors employ them for decades.
Fitters: alignment and a pump-overhaul sequence. E&I: transmitter calibration, loop check against a drawing, control-loop fault diagnosis, motor-control wiring and safe isolation. Planners: a work-order and shutdown-planning exercise. Operators: a process-upset scenario. At Prime Search's Makati facilities, watched live by your maintenance manager.
Not just trade-tested — site-ready. Every oil and gas crew we present is screened on the safety behaviours operators audit, in the English the audit is conducted in:
Candidates from Aramco, ADNOC and QatarEnergy contractor sites arrive with this culture; we verify it in a recorded scenario, and destination inductions complete it.
Certifications, plainly: candidates with prior OPITO BOSIET/FOET, H2S, confined-space, CompEx, NEBOSH and other project-specific certifications are available — validity and project acceptance are verified candidate by candidate, never assumed for a crew. Welder qualification to ASME IX or API 1104, operator approvals, hazardous-area authorisations and offshore safety modules are issued or confirmed at your site or in the destination before mobilisation; we pre-test in Manila to the same parameters so that step confirms rather than filters.
Recruitment runs through our own DMW-licensed agency, Prime Search Manpower Agency Inc. in Makati (licence DMW-027-LB-11182024). Your company — or the EPC or maintenance contractor that employs the crew — is accredited at the Migrant Workers Office for the destination (Riyadh, Jeddah or Al-Khobar; Doha; Dubai or Abu Dhabi; Kuwait; Muscat; Manama; or the office covering your European country), and every worker leaves Manila with a verified contract, medical clearance, pre-departure orientation and an Overseas Employment Certificate. The Philippine ban on direct hiring applies; the employer is always your company, directly.
Everything here is subject to the permit, certification and HSE requirements of the destination country and the operator.
Some do from Gulf or UK contracts; most obtain it in the destination. We screen for hazardous-area experience and plan the certification.
Screened by system — Honeywell, Emerson, Yokogawa, Siemens — where you specify.
Yes — mechanical, E&I, planners and operators in one round under one accreditation.
General information for employers, not legal or migration advice. Rules change; we re-verify before each hire.