From executives to field hands, ongoing education is vital. The way the education is delivered is ever-changing, however.
As the entire world seems to spin faster and faster, it gets harder and harder to keep up with changes in the oilfield up and down the ladder. Ongoing education is necessary for everyone from managers and executives down to the first-day-on-the-job field hand.
Fortunately there are programs available for everyone.
At the Petroleum Professional Development Center, part of Midland College’s Continuing Education department, courses are designed for executives, managers, and even “outsiders” such as investors and legal counsel.
“We have professionals that are in the industry already, like petroleum engineers, geoscientists, certified petroleum landmen, oil and gas accountants—people that may be certified and who need to get ongoing continuing education for recertification,” said Hoxie Smith, the PPDC’s director.
As an example, Smith explained that professional geologists are required to get 15 hours every year of professional development hours (PDH), “so that is the population we serve.”
A related population consists of people moving to Midland and the oil patch who were in management in another career and who want to transfer that management skill to the oil business. But first, they need to learn about their new field.
“I [talked to] a guy that had worked for Sears for 29 years, lives in Chicago, was actually a vice president. He has a business degree—a very sharp individual,” Smith said. “He’s got family here, and he wants to be able to fit into the oil and gas industry.” One class for that gentleman might be the PPDC’s “The Oilfield from Planning to Plugging.” In that two-day class, participants “will be taken through the total gamut of activities and what’s done to go from generating a prospect, getting the leases, building a location, drilling that first well, then getting the oil to the gathering facility and then into the pipeline.” The class continues through plugging and abandoning the well at the end of its productive life.
The PPDC also has a six-month landman class it offers online. Smith said this class is suited to someone with a degree in (for instance) the arts who can’t find a job in that field, and wants to get into a less-technical aspect of the oilfield.
Smith said that Midland College, separately from the PPDC, started an Energy Technology associates’ degree four years ago. Its curriculum instructs young students about instruments, hydraulics, programmable logic controllers, and similar subjects “so they can go out in the field and help with different processes and instrumentation” in field jobs.
“I think this last semester we had about 24-25 graduates from that program and Chevron hired 23 of them,” Smith recalled. In addition to Chevron, he cited Oxy, Conoco-Phillips, and other large companies in the area as those who are interested in the college’s training programs because they are facing a large number of retirements in the next few years. While the companies are flush with new geologists and engineers, fewer new workers are coming in on the vocational side.
Specializing in the vocational side of training is the University of Texas’ Petroleum Extension Service, known as PETEX, with hands-on facilities in Houston and on the UTPB campus in Odessa. The Odessa campus features a working pump jack (this is not on a real well—it pumps oil out of a hole made to simulate a well bore) and some working gas processing equipment.
Judi Camerano is the director of instructor-led training for both facilities. The Odessa unit is managed remotely from the Houston headquarters.
“Right now we are offering a lot of classes on natural gas,” she said, “because of the layout we have there [in Odessa]. It’s predominantly operators that attend, though we used to offer well control as well.” The recent rise in natural gas prices has brought renewed interest in the gas program.
She stressed that the facility is open to the public for meetings or internal training. The classroom seats approximately 16 people and includes a break room.
Four times a year they offer two classes: Field Handling of Natural Gas for Operators and Plant Processing of Natural Gas for Operators. “We also offer custom courses,” Camerano continued. “A custom course is basically a particular company that comes to us and says, ‘We’d like this course, but we’d like for you to modify it and tailor its specifics to our needs.’”
Most PETEX client companies are mid-size independents and some larger companies. “Some of the larger companies will utilize the facilities for extended periods of time,” Camerano said. The small to mid-size companies stay for a shorter time because they have fewer employees to train.
She noted that PETEX courses can be suitable to those that are new to the oil industry “all the way to about five years’ experience.
“It’s not uncommon to find entrepreneurs in our classes or someone who is wanting an entrance into the oil and gas industry and wants to learn a little bit about particular topics.” Most, however, are oil and gas employees with 1-5 years of experience.
Changes in technology, changes in regulation, and changes in standards all require employees to be constantly retrained and updated on current information. PETEX teaches most of the API standards and their instructors stay abreast of changes in those standards.
The other main reason for training arises when an employee is promoted or transferred to a new position. “They attend our classes because they have done a lateral move or have taken on additional duties so they come… to learn the specifics about that topic,” Camerano explained.
Although most classes are held at one of PETEX’s two classroom sites, Camerano said their instructors can travel to a company’s site anywhere in the world. “Last year we offered a class in petroleum measurement, and we offered that in Istanbul, Turkey.” Canada is another international destination, an option for a particular client who can afford to pay for the instructors’ travel. Funding the travel of one instructor is still more cost-effective than sending a whole group to Houston or Odessa.
In recent months more and more PETEX courses have been made available online and also for tablet computers such as the iPad. This allows learners to make progress on their own time at their own location. Distance learning is becoming a more and more popular option.
So, while learning itself is not optional in this business climate, the options for doing that learning are expanding to meet the needs of one of the busiest times on record for the oilfield.