OIL and gas industry figures have formed a network to help address the problem of how to persuade women to make a career in a sector that has complained of skills shortages.
The AXIS Network aims to help attract women into the industry and to provide support for those who take the plunge into what is seen by some as a male-dominated world.
The founders include women who have reached senior levels in the industry but believe more could be done to help others enjoy similar success.
The network represents the latest attempt to tackle the gender imbalance that is seen as a potential constraint on the growth of the North Sea industry.
"Women can play a vital role in helping to address the skills shortage and driving the industry forward in the years to come," said the chairman of the network, Irene Hannah, contracts and procurement manager for Shell.
Ms Hannah said the network aims to raise awareness of issues that could affect women's attitude to the industry and to help find solutions.
"Typical career issues faced by females and which many other industries have overcome are still commonplace in the oil and gas industry. Examples of these are returning to work after having family or a conflict of interests for a couple who both work in the industry," she said.
The network expects to provide a forum for sharing best practice and offering access to role models and mentors and to hold regular events.
It has had support from oil and gas producers such as Shell and Dana Petroleum and services firms LR Senergy and Thor Holt.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article