For international employers · Oil, Gas & EPC
Falisha Manpower supplies shutdown and turnaround manpower from Pakistan to refineries, gas plants, petrochemical complexes, fertiliser plants and power stations, and to the maintenance contractors who carry out their planned outages. Instead of filling one trade at a time, we recruit the mixed crew a turnaround depends on: welders, pipe-fitters, static and rotating equipment fitters, riggers, scaffolders, insulators and painters, firewatch and hole watch attendants, and the supervisors, QA/QC inspectors and HSE officers who keep the work under control. Our Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment licence (OEP Licence No. 4035) covers the full engagement, including contracts, visas and Protector of Emigrants clearance.
A turnaround is not a construction job. The dates are fixed by operations, and the plant loses production for every day the unit stays down. Each worker has to be on site, through the pre-shutdown induction and cleared to work under your permit system before the unit is handed over, and the crew has to be balanced so that no single trade holds up the rest. We therefore plan backwards from the outage window: crew shape first, then assessments, then medicals and visas, with the slowest document steps started earliest.
Each trade is assessed on the task it will perform during the outage. Fitters show flange make-up, welders test to your repair procedure, riggers work from a lift plan and scaffolders erect an access bay for inspection. Your turnaround team then interviews supervisors and specialists before anyone is confirmed. Workers are engaged on project contracts whose terms, including the shift pattern and what happens if the window moves, are written down before departure.
Roles & specialisations
Matched to your specification and the work itself, not just a job title.
Welders who cut out and replace damaged spools, nozzles, tube sections and supports inside an operating plant, often on alloy or stainless lines with restricted access. Their joints are checked by NDT before the system is closed up, so they work to a repair procedure, not a production rate.
Fitters who open the joints on the work list, install isolation blinds, replace valves and piping, and then reinstate every joint against a tagged flange register before leak testing. On larger outages flange management runs as its own team with a dedicated supervisor.
Mechanical fitters for heat exchangers, columns, drums, reactors and furnaces. They open manways and channel heads, pull and reinsert tube bundles, change trays and internals, and close equipment up after inspection.
Technicians who overhaul pumps, compressors, fans and turbines during the window. They dismantle and rebuild, change seals and bearings, and align couplings by laser or dial gauge before the machine is run in.
Riggers who move bundles, valves, internals and heavy components with cranes, chain blocks and lifting beams in congested units. They work from an approved lift plan and coordinate every movement with a banksman or signaller.
Scaffolders who build access around columns, exchangers and pipe racks before the shutdown starts, modify it as inspection findings open new work, and strip it during demobilisation. Scaffold is usually the first trade to arrive and the last to leave.
Crews who remove insulation so equipment and piping can be inspected, then reinstate insulation, cladding and coatings after repairs. Their work concentrates in the closing days of the outage, when time is shortest.
Firewatch attendants stationed at hot work and hole watch attendants at confined-space entries, who keep entry logs, stay in contact with entrants and raise the alarm. Where your permit system allows contractor gas testers, they form part of this group.
Permit coordinators who prepare permits and track isolations with plant operations, and trade supervisors and foremen who run each work package, report progress against the schedule and manage the handover between shifts.
Inspectors who control the hold points, including weld visuals, NDT coordination, bolt-tightening records and box-up checks, and HSE officers who audit permits, toolbox talks and work at height across day and night shifts.
Before you hire
The distinctions that decide whether a hire works on your project.
The shutdown date, the mechanical completion date and the start-up date are set by operations. Work back from them to the date the crew must be inducted, then to visa issue, then to the end of medicals and trade tests, and finally to the date the requirement must be confirmed. Steps that depend on outside authorities, such as attestation, visa issue and emigration clearance, set the pace, so they start first and trade testing runs alongside them.
Size the crew from the work list: how many joints will be broken, how many bundles pulled, how many vessels entered, how many welds repaired. If flange crews outnumber riggers, bundles wait for lifts. If hole watch attendants are short, vessel entries stop. Send us the trade histogram from your planning schedule and we recruit to that shape rather than to a single headcount.
Some contractors already hold their welders and need only scaffolders, riggers and attendants. Others want every trade from one supplier. A single source gives you one assessment plan, one documentation pipeline and coordinated travel, but it also concentrates your dependency. Tell us which trades you are covering yourself so the two crews fit together on site.
Shutdown workers are normally engaged on a fixed-term contract tied to the project. Decide before offers go out what happens if the outage overruns or finishes early, how the shift pattern and overtime are treated, and whether workers may be transferred to a following outage. Those terms change how experienced shutdown hands judge the offer.
Most turnarounds run day and night shifts, and each work package passes between supervisors twice a day with permits live, joints open and lifts pending. A technically strong foreman who hands over poorly creates risk. When you interview supervisors, test how they brief the incoming shift, not only what they know about the trade.
Your requirement
The more precise the brief, the more precise the shortlist. Anything you are unsure of, we work out with you.
Standards & qualifications
Qualifications, codes and licences candidates may hold or be assessed against — you decide which apply.
Your permit system governs every job in the outage. The UK Health and Safety Executive’s guidance on permit-to-work systems (HSG250), written for the petroleum, chemical and allied industries, is a common reference for how permits, competence, work planning and audit fit together. Crews are inducted into your own site system, which takes precedence.
Guidelines for assembling pressure-boundary bolted flanged joints, including tightening patterns and controlled bolting. Its appendix on training and qualifying bolted joint assembly personnel is one reference operators use when setting competence requirements for flange crews.
The Engineering Construction Industry Training Board’s MJI training and technical tests cover safe dismantling and assembly of flanges and bolted connections by hand torque, hydraulic torque and hydraulic tensioning. Some fitters already hold them; where you require them, they are delivered by ECITB-approved providers.
Scaffolders may hold cards from schemes such as the UK’s Construction Industry Scaffolders Record Scheme (CISRS) or certificates from previous projects. Many sites still re-assess scaffolders at induction and have scaffolds inspected and tagged by their own inspector. Tell us which scheme or grade you accept.
Hole watch attendants, entrants and gas testers work to your confined-space procedure and gas-test limits. Certificates from earlier sites are useful evidence of training, but authorisation to act as an attendant or gas tester on your plant is granted by your site under its own system.
The programme is mandatory only for occupations Takamol has notified; NAVTTC runs it in Pakistan. NAVTTC’s published trade list includes welding, pipe-fitting, fitting-and-assembly, scaffold and painting titles, so several shutdown trades may be in scope for Saudi visas. We check each worker’s visa occupation before booking a test.
Assessment
Arranged to your criteria before you interview, so you evaluate ability rather than a CV.
Each trade is tested on its shutdown work: welders on a coupon to your repair procedure, fitters on flange make-up and blind installation, rotating-equipment technicians on dismantling and coupling alignment, scaffolders on erecting an access bay to your design. Tests take place at trade-test facilities in Pakistan, and your representative or a third-party inspector can witness them.
Flange crews show a tightening sequence with the tools you use, whether hand torque, hydraulic torque wrench or tensioner, and how they record each joint on a flange register. If you require a formal bolting qualification, we arrange it with an approved training provider, which assesses the candidate and issues the result.
Candidates for firewatch, hole watch, permit coordinator and supervisor roles are questioned on permit types, isolation checks, gas-test readings and emergency response, using scenarios taken from your procedures where you share them.
Riggers are assessed on reading a lift plan, selecting and inspecting slings, shackles and chain blocks, and signalling to a crane operator by hand or radio. Existing rigging certificates are checked with the issuer where it offers verification.
Your turnaround manager or package engineers interview supervisors, foremen and QA/QC staff, and can take them through a real work pack, shift handover sheet or box-up checklist before deciding.
How it works
From your requirement to workers on site.
We start from your outage dates, work-package list and the trades you are covering yourself, and agree the crew shape, the assessment plan and the latest date each step must be complete.
Working back from the induction date, we set target dates for selection, medicals, attestation, visas and emigration clearance, and tell you early if the window leaves too little room for any of them.
Each trade is sourced through our candidate database and sourcing network, with priority for people who have worked in operating plants and previous turnarounds rather than only on new construction.
Experience letters, earlier shutdown references and certificates are checked. Candidates whose experience is limited to greenfield sites are marked, so you can decide where they fit in the crew.
Practical tests run trade by trade. Your team then interviews supervisors, foremen and specialists on a video call or during a site visit to Pakistan.
Selected workers complete the destination’s pre-departure medical, document attestation and work-visa processing in batches grouped by trade, so one delayed file does not hold back the crew. Saudi-bound workers in notified occupations also sit skill verification.
Every worker’s contract and documents are registered with BEOE and cleared by the Protector of Emigrants before departure.
Scaffolders and advance teams can travel first, with the main crew arriving in time for the pre-shutdown induction. At the end, return travel follows your demobilisation sequence, so each trade leaves as its work is handed back.
Sourcing
Pakistan’s refining, fertiliser and power sectors carry out planned maintenance outages of their own, so part of the workforce has already worked to permit systems and outage schedules before going overseas. We look for that history specifically and check it.
Recruiting the crew through a single licensed promoter keeps assessments, documentation and travel on one schedule. That matters most when every trade must arrive within the same short period before handover.
Welding, pipe-fitting, fitting-and-assembly, scaffold and painting titles appear on the trade list NAVTTC assesses in Pakistan for Saudi Arabia’s skill verification, so workers in notified occupations can complete it before they travel.
Pay & terms
Shutdown pay is decided by the employer and written into each worker’s contract. Experienced shutdown hands judge an offer on what they will earn across a short, intensive period: the basic rate, how overtime on long shifts is paid, and whether food, accommodation and site transport are provided. A package designed for a long construction contract often looks weak to them.
Rates usually differ by role. Rotating-equipment technicians, alloy welders, bolting technicians, permit coordinators and supervisors are normally paid above helpers and attendants. Before offers are made, settle how pay is treated if the outage is extended or ends early, and whether any completion bonus applies.
No worker may be charged unlawful recruitment fees. Rates, overtime, shift pattern, contract term and extension terms all belong in the written contract registered for emigration clearance, so what the worker signs matches what was offered.
Compliance & trust
Falisha Manpower recruits under Overseas Employment Promoter Licence No. 4035, issued by the Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment (BEOE), Government of Pakistan.
Every selected worker is processed through BEOE and Protector of Emigrants formalities before departure — the legal route for Pakistani workers taking overseas employment.
Workers are not charged unlawful fees and their passports are not retained. Terms are documented in the employment contract before travel.
You set the specification and the acceptance criteria, and you make every final hiring decision — we source, coordinate, document and mobilise.
Read our quality policy, anti-trafficking statement, or report recruitment fraud. Licence status can be checked with the BEOE.
Sectors
Destinations
Subject to active employer demand and each destination’s visa and work-permit requirements.
FAQ
References: Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment (BEOE) · UK Health and Safety Executive: HSG250 Guidance on permit-to-work systems · ASME: PCC-1 Guidelines for Pressure Boundary Bolted Flange Joint Assembly · ECITB: Mechanical Joint Integrity training and technical tests · Construction Industry Scaffolders Record Scheme (CISRS) · NAVTTC: Pakistan–Saudi Arabia Skill Verification Program
Last updated 10 November 2026. General guidance for employers; destination rules change, so requirements are confirmed for each recruitment.
Send us the role, numbers, specification, destination and joining date. We will review it, confirm what the assessment must prove, and give you a realistic plan.
