Global energy services firm Senergy has signed a major training deal with Abu Dhabi’s Petroleum Institute to help the in its strategic efforts to develop more local petroleum engineers and help meet the global talent shortage in the energy and engineering sectors.
Senergy, which supported the biggest transfer of assets in the history of the North Sea from Shell to Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., is fully committed to the development of local engineering talent in energy-rich countries for it is one of the key ways for the global industry to mitigate the pending talent crisis.
As one of only two Scottish enterprises to feature in the 2011 Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 of Britain’s fastest-growing privately owned companies, Senergy has donated 10 full Interactive Petrophysics software licences for the students of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s Petroleum Institute worth a value of over $2 million.
“Training young Emirati engineers how to use the energy industry’s latest technology is vital to ensure that resource holders reduce their dependence on foreign talent and have the skills domestically to manage and develop their vast hydrocarbon resources through the 21st century,’’ Senergy Chief Executive Officer James McCallum said today in Abu Dhabi at a signing ceremony with Dr. Ismail Tag, President of the Petroleum Institute.
Through an emerging network of global knowledge centers in Europe, the Middle East, including in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, South-East Asia, Australia, the U.S. and the UK, Senergy specializes in the upstream skills associated with the identification, quantification and extraction of hydrocarbon structures that positions the global firm as a natural partner for the Petroleum Institute, which itself operates as a leading international educational and research center for the oil and gas industry.
The Petroleum Institute’s masters students will be trained on Senergy’s Interactive Petrophysics software, which is an easy-to-use log analysis tool, ideal for petrophysicists, geologists and reservoir engineers who may wish to quality check their log data, as they are likely to engage with the product when they graduate and go to work with the likes of ADCO, ZADCO, ADMA and ADNOC.
“The strong partnerships with the oil and gas industry gives our post-graduate students not only access to global leaders in their fields but also research funding not found in many universities,” Dr. Ismail Tag said at the signing ceremony. “With the unique collaboration between education and industry students prosper and succeed because of the educational opportunities and research prospects at the PI,” he said.
Time is short for the energy industry to develop sources of new talent, especially when you bear in mind that the historical source of petroleum engineers has been the West. In the 1970s 40 colleges in the United States, the world’s largest energy consumer, offered degrees in petroleum engineering. Today, there are fewer than 20.
Brent crude oil prices have quadrupled since slumping to close to $30 a barrel during the height of the global economic crisis in early 2009, to average this year close to $110 a barrel.
