One spin-off of the merger that created BP Amoco PLC is a best-in-class petrophysics and multidiscipline integration training curriculum that was all but proprietary to Amoco and its national oil company partners.
Amoco maintained a training facility and laboratory at its Tulsa research center for its Petrophysics Center of Excellence (OGJ, Aug. 3, 1998, p. 71). Over 300 people participated in the program, which completed its 29th year in July 1999, shortly after the merger.
Now the University of Oklahoma has acquired the large Tulsa campus, mainly for use as a health sciences center, and BP Amoco has signed over rights to the program to a training alliance/joint venture between Schlumberger and Heriot-Watt University, Texas A&M University, and OU. The venture is called NExT, for Network of Excellence in Training LLC.
How it will operate
Amoco used the program mainly to develop its people and its reservoirs through the development of reservoir characterization and petrophysics skills. Now the program is expanded to overall integration aspects of exploration and production and will be open to all of the oil and gas E&P industry, says Jeff Johnson, director of curriculum for NExT Petrophysics and a former geoscience manager who led the operation for Amoco. The NExT Subsurface Integration Program (NSIP) and an Integrated Core Characterization Center owned and operated by OU will be located at the Tulsa facility.
BP Amoco has given NSIP to the joint venture alliance in return for tuition breaks and other considerations.
NExT is owned 50% by Schlumberger with the other 50% shared by OU, Texas A&M University, and Heriot-Watt.
NExT has established training centers for various disciplines at each university. Texas A&M will focus on petroleum engineering and geosciences and OU on well construction and petrophysics. Heriot-Watt will deal in petroleum engineering and have special responsibilities for the development of distance and computer-based learning.
Training is to be offered in numerous disciplines, including reservoir and production engineering, petrophysics, geophysics, geology, well engineering, and wellsite operations. NExT already offers a total of 50 courses.
NExT is an effort to combine academia's best with the practicality of industry to meet training and education needs, said Keith Millheim, NExT director and head of OU's petroleum engineering school.
Anticipated payoff
NExT will create an independent advisory board that represents oil companies from around the world, which will ensure that the program fulfills industry needs and responds to industry trends.
Peer review boards will audit course offerings under a review process that will provide independent and professional quality control for courses, programs, instructors, and subject matter experts.
Courses are to be offered at College Station, Tex.; Edinburgh, Scotland; Norman and Tulsa, Okla.; Pau, France; and at client sites worldwide.
In the meantime, the Amoco Heritage Petrophysics School is alive and well, with its first class under NExT set to kick off this fall.
How it fits in
Industry consolidation and rapid technological expansion since the early 1980s have catapulted the demand for training. Many accredited and nonaccredited organizations offer post-graduate education in geoscience subjects.
NExT will join the major geological, geophysical, and engineering societies that provide educational services to their members worldwide through meetings, short courses, and field trips. These societies have approached universities to obtain accreditation for their courses.
Some universities provide continuing education courses with which NExT will compete.
Even more competition is emerging from company ventures such as Petroskills, a joint venture of Royal Dutch/Shell, BP, and Oil & Gas Consultants International. And Conoco Inc. is preparing to open to outside participants its formerly internal training through Subsurface Consultants & Associates LLC, Houston.
