THE petroleum explorers of the future will be given a helping hand to search out the Earth’s remaining oil and gas reservoirs, thanks to a new partnership between the industry and Aberdeen University.
The exploHUB training programme has been set up to equip the next generation of geoscientists with the scientific and technical skills they will need for the hunt.
The director of the new centre, Stuart Archer, said it showed the university would be at the forefront of training and research in the field “long after the last drop of oil has been produced from the North Sea”.
Mr Archer – an exploration and production geologist with many years’ experience in the Atlantic Margin and Gulf of Mexico and in challenging reservoirs in the North Sea – said: “We know that most of the planet’s ‘easy’ hydrocarbons have been found. As a community we need to do something different to access the more complex reservoirs.
“We need a new generation of ‘explorationists’, equipped with the inquisitiveness, skills and creativity required to successfully discover what Earth may still be hiding from us. This is exactly what exploHUB is all about.”
The scheme was officially opened at the university yesterday by the university’s principal, Professor Ian Diamond, and Steve Garrett, manager of Chevron’s European Technology Centre in Aberdeen and president of the Petroleum Exploration Society Great Britain (PESGB), which is funding the IT infrastructure for the new resource and sponsoring a trainee for 2012.
An exploHUB open day will be held on October 28 from 10am-3pm at the Meston Building (South Entrance), King’s College.