More Than a Milestone: What Kazakhstan Taught Me About Leadership, Legacy, and the Power of Local Teams

In January this year, we hit First Oil on a project that has redefined what delivery can look like - not just for Kent, but for me personally.

I joined our Kazakhstan commissioning campaign in its later stages, stepping in to help close out final delivery scopes. But even then, the culture, commitment, and capability of this team were impossible to miss. You could feel the legacy in motion, in every planning session, every field walk, every moment where someone quietly stepped up to solve a problem before it became one.

This wasn’t just another project. It was a shared purpose - six years in the making.

A Culture You Could Feel

Kent has been operating in Kazakhstan for over 26 years, and that long-standing local presence shaped everything about this campaign. There was no ‘us and them.’ The people building, leading, and executing this work were 96% Kazakh nationals, professionals who knew the region, the culture, the standards, and each other.

When we talk about nationalisation, we often focus on numbers. But what I saw was something deeper - a mindset. People weren’t just filling roles they were taking ownership. They were teaching, mentoring, innovating. Together, we delivered nearly 67,000 training courses. We replaced 137 expat positions with local talent - 44% above target. And we retained 86% of the project’s spend in-country.

That’s not a statistic. That’s a future workforce built from the ground up.

When It Mattered Most

In 2023, Kent was asked to take over some aspects of the project and help accelerate delivery. What followed was one of the most focused mobilisation efforts I’ve been part of.

We entered with a productivity bang; momentum, focus, and results from the get-go. We integrated SIMOPS more tightly and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the client to turn things around. Our performance coupled with our strong on-ground presence elevated the overall project delivery. The aggregated effect was in January 2025 while crushing the projections, First Oil became a reality.

We didn’t cut corners. We didn’t compromise. We simply pulled together and delivered - because that’s what the team in Kazakhstan does.

What I’ll Take With Me

I’ve worked in a lot of environments; complex SIMOPs, high-pressure start-ups, recovery efforts. But there was something uniquely powerful about this project.

It reminded me that the best outcomes aren’t born from technical expertise alone. They’re born from trust. From clear communication. From shared values, and people who believe in doing things the right way, even when the pressure is on.

This project gave me a renewed sense of pride in what it means to lead. But more than that, it gave me hope for what’s possible when you invest in people, not just process.

A Benchmark, Not Just a Finish Line

With over 24.5 million LTI-free hours, five scopes delivered in parallel, and a complex now producing up to 900,000 barrels per day, we can be proud of what was built. But the greater achievement, in my view, is what was built around it: a culture of safety, performance, and partnership that will echo long after the last system was handed over.

To everyone who played a part in this journey - thank you. You didn’t just finish a job. You raised the bar.