A November 2006 meeting of the UK Offshore Operators' Association warned that an acute lack of skilled engineers and technologists was threatening development of the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). Oil and gas industry skills and safety body OPITO said it would work closely with the UK petroleum industry to develop a sustainable workforce.
Six and a half years later, the sincerity of these efforts is visible in the fruits they have borne. In March 2012, Aberdeen Skills & Enterprise Training Ltd. (ASET), a subsidiary of Aberdeen College, opened its International Oil & Gas Training Academy, offering OPITO-approved training in areas ranging from maintenance and process operations to emergency response for professionals already at work in the field.
Company-focused training
With an eye toward the future, however, ASET also is training students just out of high school for careers in the oil and gas industry. These students are trained not just in a particular area of expertise but for a particular operating company.
OPITO runs the modern apprenticeship scheme on behalf of the UKCS oil and gas industry. Aberdeen College and ASET are approved by OPITO to administer both the academic and skills-based program, delivered over 18 months. OPITO employs the apprentices directly while they are in training, sponsored by the various oil and gas operators: Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, et. al. Once the apprentices complete their 18-month program they are employed directly by industry and OPITO places them with one of the operators. They then continue with an on-the-job Level 3 (supervisory) Scottish vocational qualifications assessment program as part of their continuing development. This can take up to 24 months to complete.
Among the equipment available for onsite oil and gas technician training is a fully dynamic and interactive production training platform, including current process applications, mechanical and electrical components, and instrumentation and control room interfaces.
ASET monitors demand and coordinates with job suppliers to meet it. Potential apprentices complete aptitude tests and an extensive interview process before being accepted. The oil and gas academy has 350-400 trainee apprentices enrolled, with roughly 120 admitted each year. The program had about 3,400 applicants this year, up from roughly 1,800 in 2012. This year's graduating class saw 93% of its students placed.
OPITO and ASET, however, are not alone. Forth Valley College in Falkirk, Scotland, also offers corporate-backed apprenticeship programs. The school's proximity to Ineos' Grangemouth refinery and petrochemical complex lends it a processing-based focus, and Forth Valley has installed an industrial process training plant onsite to maximize its potential in this area. Students who have completed their time in the training plant can move to Ineos' site to gain full-scale experience as part of their apprenticeship.
A rising apprentice
Danny, one of three students at ASET from Lerwick, Shetland, with whom I got to visit during a recent visit to Scotland, was happy to be on a career track that would land him a well-paying, international job from the moment he finished his training. The students I visited with at Forth Valley were much the same.
And who wouldn't be? The dots aren't very hard to connect, even here in the US. On the one hand you have an industry that is begging for skilled labor. On the other, a still-high unemployment rate (particularly among the young) and increasing college expenses with similarly increasing doubts regarding the ultimate return on investment.
Lone Star Community College in Houston established its Energy & Manufacturing Institute in 2011, offering 6-week programs as engineering technician or machinist, but its annual supply of positions falls well short of demand. US 4-year engineering programs need to rise to this challenge. The Offshore Technology Research Center at Texas A&M University in College Station, Tex., which already provides research and continuing education to the industry and general education to engineering students, would seem particularly well-placed for establishment of such a program.
