The UK oil and gas industry formally opened the new headquarters of its £1.5million skill academy in the north-east yesterday.
Opito – The Oil and Gas Academy has been set up as a hub for promoting the UK as a centre of training excellence within the worldwide energy sector.
Chief executive David Doig said that, despite the tough financial climate and the current low price of oil, skill development must remain a key priority, adding: “As a mature basin, the UKCS (UK continental shelf) is facing immense technological challenges.
“The need for operational and capital efficiency to maximise resource recovery from the North Sea and make the sector competitive in a global market has never been greater. People hold the key to achieving this.
“We cannot afford to let our focus on skills diminish or we will end up in the same situation we were in 18 months ago, when acute skills shortages were constraining our industry both operationally and through costs inflation.”
The new academy, launched in late 2007, is expected to lead to a substantial increase in the number of people being trained to the standards required by the industry.
It has a much wider role than the old training body Opito; developing courses, but also working with schools, colleges and universities to encourage a greater interest in mathematics.
The new headquarters at Minerva House, Portlethen, near Aberdeen, operates as a co-ordinating hub for training delivered at a rapidly growing number of licensed centres worldwide.
It also has enough space for the 44 staff employed by the academy in the north-east, compared with the 18 who worked for Opito in January 2007.
A further eight employees are based overseas.
Industry invested more than £10million in the initiative last year and Mr Doig expects at least as much in 2009. He said: “As an organisation, we have a massive future in the global arena.”
Opening the new HQ, Wood Group chairman Sir Ian Wood said Opito had played a valuable role in helping the energy sector to meet its training needs over the years and Opito – The Oil and Gas Academy was continuing that.
Mr Doig and Sir Ian were both confident the industry’s commitment to training would not suffer as a result of the current economic climate and low oil price.
Sir Ian told the Press and Journal there would be a period of adjustment to the new conditions, but it would not be long before the oil price rose again.
The sector faced challenging times but was unlikely to cut back on investment, he said, adding: “The supply- demand equation is going to swing back to a shortage of energy and a recovery in prices.”
The Wood Group chairman said a more reasonable price of between $80 and $100 a barrel of oil would ensure that most of the hydrocarbon resources around the world could be reasonably exploited in the next 10-20 years.
He added: “The current volatility does not help anybody.”
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