The posting
Job Description
Job Purpose
Senior Operations Buyer leads complex procurement activities for drilling operations, owning higher-risk categories, strategic supplier relationships, and contract lifecycle management to ensure uninterrupted rig availability and commercial protection. The role provides technical procurement leadership, coaches junior buyers, and partners with operations, engineering, logistics, HSE, and finance to deliver measurable savings, reduce supply risk, and improve procurement maturity.
Responsibilities
Safety & Compliance Duties
• Will be a champion of Safety, providing exemplary leadership and commitment to all safety initiatives within the business.
• Places Safety as a true north, while never intentionally placing employees, our processes, customers, or the communities in which we live and work at risk.
• Will ensure that safety protocols are always adhered to.
Role Duties
Strategic Category Ownership and Sourcing:
• Owns category strategy for assigned high-risk or high-value categories such as tubulars, rental fleets, drilling fluids, large MRO, and custom equipment.
• Leads multi-vendor RFQ and tender processes for complex packages, design evaluation criteria, run commercial negotiations, and present award recommendations with clear commercial rationale.
Contract Lifecycle and Commercial Governance:
• Drafts, negotiates, and manages master agreements, framework contracts, long-term rental agreements, and service level agreements with robust commercial controls, SLA metrics, and penalty clauses.
• Maintains contract register, ensures timely renewals and extensions, and track contractual obligations, warranties, and insurance requirements.
• Supports procurement audits and ensure procurement decisions have documented commercial justification and approval trail.
Supplier Development and Strategic Relationships:
• Builds and manages strategic relationships with key vendors and rental partners, participate in quarterly business reviews, and drive continuous improvement programs.
• Assists in supplier qualification process and development initiatives including capability assessments, technical audits, joint improvement plans, and local supplier uplift
• Manages escalation for supplier failures, lead root cause investigations, and coordinate cross-functional remediation until corrective actions are verified.
Complex Negotiations and Commercial Improvement:
• Executes complex negotiations involving long term pricing, foreign exchange exposure, volume commitments, and service levels to secure value, flexibility, and supply continuity.
• Designs and implements commercial levers such as gainshare models, volume rebates, and performance incentives.
Project and CAPEX Procurement Support:
• Leads procurement support for rig major overhauls, CAPEX projects, and well-construction packages including bid coordination, vendor prequalification, and contract award.
• Manages interface with operations and engineering for technical specifications, change orders, and scoping documents to ensure commercial alignment and schedule adherence.
Risk Management and Contingency Planning:
• Owns end-to-end risk assessment for assigned rigs, maintain critical parts register, and implement redundancy plans such as alternate suppliers, and strategic stocking.
• Monitors supplier financial health, market supply indicators, and regulatory changes that could impact supply; propose mitigation and contingency actions.
Cross-Functional Leadership and Coaching:
• Acts as procurement lead in cross-functional operational planning sessions and client governance meetings to align supply plans and resolve escalations.
• Mentors and coach buyers on procurement methodology, contract drafting, stakeholder management, and ERP best practices.
• Create and delivers training materials and quick reference guides to raise procurement capability across field and office teams.
Data, Reporting, and Process Improvement:
• Analyse category and supplier analytics, spend dashboards, and supplier scorecards to inform leadership decisions; accelerate digitisation of sourcing workflows.
• Drive process improvements and standardisation across requisition, RFQ, PO, and invoice workflows; lead small projects to reduce PO cycle time and improve three-way match rates.
• Ensure ERP master data integrity for assigned categories and monitor key metrics to maintain audit readiness.
Compliance and HSE Integration:
• Ensures all procurement activities comply with company procurement policies, HSE requirements, client contracts, and local regulations; embed HSE clauses into contracts and supplier onboarding.
Responsibilities
• Bachelor’s degree in, Business Administration, supply chain management, or logistics from any reputable university.
• Minimum 3-5 years of experience, preferably in the Oil & Gas field.
About Us
Our Company Delivering world-class drilling services
Headquartered in Al Khobar of Saudi Arabia, ADES owns and operates an elite portfolio of offshore and onshore rigs across the Middle East and Asia. We pride ourselves on providing safe, client-centric services through our world-class operational excellence programs and highly trained workforce. Our resilient business model and efficient cost structure have very well served our growth journey from humble beginnings as a single-string operation two decades ago, to the current industry-leading position as the world’s largest offshore drilling service provider.
Our Culture
Committed to taking care of our people
We take care of our people, and in turn, our people take care of our valuable clients. At ADES, you are not a number in a list; you are the one who makes a difference each and every day.
Why ADES?
Together towards tomorrow
At ADES, we provide industry-leading service to our customers and a people-first approach to our team members. Together, we can help drive a successful tomorrow in all that we do.
