Leadership in the oil and gas sector extends beyond pure engineering skills.
The industry is a global powerhouse that needs effective leaders that can consistently deliver results that model the values of a safe working environment. These leaders need to be passionate about both employee engagement, leadership development, and more.
All of these are important in managing the workforce as well as the quality of the decisions and actions taking place in the organization. Elapath Group, the company under the spotlight in this publication, seems to have found all of these and more, in the energetic leadership of the exuberant and resourceful Eden Akash.
Elapath Group: Brief History/Background
Elapath was founded in 1990 as one of the first established oil and gas suppliers in the UAE. Over time, the company made its entrance into the global markets, and the USA, where it now has its main headquarter.
Elapath boasts a robust experience and expertise in both upstream and downstream operations. The group has a workforce of more than 200 people, providing advanced energy services in the USA, the Middle East, North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as, South Asia. The company is also an autonomous member of the petroleum board in Dubai.
With such a history and background, it’s easy to see why leadership at Elapath should not be anything short of capable and effective. With Eden Akash at the helm, however, the company has been doing pretty well, most notably as it relates to their projects in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and other places in the Middle East region.
Eden Akash: Navigating Elapath Group to Success
Eden Akash is a Turkish national and the current Chairman and Chief Field Officer of Elapath Group. He graduated from the famous Istanbul Technical University. After years of experience in both the public and private sector, he now occupies the critical leadership position at Elapath, tasked with building on the past success of the Group.
Eden boasts over twenty-five years of experience in oil and gas exploration and production with Elapath. He has been a part of the company’s activities from its onshore US to offshore California, GOM, offshore Brazil, the Middle East, and beyond.
He’s also had a stint in the public sector, serving at a time on the board of Turkish Petroleum International Company. He has served in different capacities in the petroleum industry that independent advisory roles and consulting services for the petroleum industry. On many of these occasions, he has worked on the managerial and technical aspects of both offshore and onshore engineering, construction, and operations.
Eden Akash: Elapath, Middle East, & Current Focus
One of the highlights of Eden Akash’s career is when he succeeded in securing a $50,000,000 project with UMC Engineering sometimes in 2015. Right now, his focus and commitment with Elapath are on projects in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the Middle East.
The Middle East has always been an important strategic base for Elapath. In fact, everything the company is today started from right there, the United Arab Emirates, specifically. Elapath, with Eden Akash, is now eyeing some major upcoming projects in the Middle East, in a bid to maintain and expand its presence in the region’s oil and gas sector.
The company already enjoys a prominent presence in the region. While the company headquarters is located in New York, USA, Elapath has subsidiaries in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, Cyprus, and Pakistan in South Asia. The company also has a sales network in Lebanon, Egypt, Greece, and Montenegro, facilitated through its foreign affiliates.
Speaking on its plans in the gulf, Eden Akash had said, “the Middle East remains a key market for us (Elapath), just as it is a global powerhouse in the oil and gas sector. While we’re already heavily invested in that region, we’re still very much committed to expanding our presence even further, with lots of projects and commitments already in the works.”
Elapath currently has many ongoing projects in gulf countries, even while it’s seeking to bolster its presence in this region with the bulk of the world’s total oil reserves. Many of these projects are involved in areas of upstream and downstream operations that include;
- Controlled Pressure Drilling
- Completion Sub-Assembly
- Integrity & Corrosion Engineering
- Plant & Pipeline Maintenance
- Air Loop & H2S Safety
- Tubular Running
- Jetty Berthing, etc.
Elapath has also earned a reputation as a key local distributor in many of the markets where it operates, including the Middle East. The company is also into supplies of products that range from petroleum to process, safety, apparel and more. This of course is facilitated through its strategic partnerships with various reliable agencies and global manufacturers.
Earlier this year, the company had signed a contract in San Francisco, California, USA, to execute various projects in the Middle East for about 2 million barrels of oil. The CEO of Elapath, Travis Gregg, while speaking on the development, had expressed his optimism in the promising nature of the contract.
On the back of its past and present successes, the company is seeking to further strengthen its relations with other major players and stakeholders in the Middle Eastern oil and gas sector. “We are currently working with various industrial partners, many of whom we have a long-term collaboration with.”
Since assuming office as the Chairman and Field Officer of Elapath, Eden has overseen a lot of decisions and actions that have proved critical in helping the company achieve its organizational goals, a large part of which is its age-long interest in the Middle East.
A lot has happened since Eden had managed to secure that $50 million project with UMC Engineering in 2015. Now occupying a strategic role in managing Elapath, Eden’s excellent track record, as well as his potential, will be put to the test severally. But for a person of his expertise and experience, stakeholders in Elapath can rest assured that the future is bright.