Subsea developments continue to escalate in quantity and complexity as the exploration and production companies ramp up exploration of deepwater and ultra-deepwater reservoirs with complex formations in harsh environments with increased challenges. Overcoming these challenges is the job of subsea engineers. Hence there is an immediate need to train and enhance their skills through practical education to enable them to manage and take ownership responsibility of these larger and complex fields at greater depths. In this "Great Crew Change" phase, the subsea industry is looking for people who are not just bright and smart but also be able to do productive work right away the moment they are hired. The challenges and expectations of both the subsea industry and academia are very high in terms of knowledge. So, in this highly competitive world, the need for practical subsea engineering knowledge at the college level is very much increasing in order to prepare the next generation of technical professionals.
In order to meet the subsea challenges and industry needs a new and effective course has been developed to teach flow assurance at University of Houston, the first three credit-hour university level industry-ready course in the US that has been designed to meet direct subsea applications with academic standards. The motivation of this course is to make students acquire the ideas and solution strategies necessary to figure out an industry problem in a classroom setting and hence train the prospective subsea engineers for work in industry by successfully learning the concepts. The flow assurance course provides an understanding of multiphase flow fluid dynamics and analyses, overview of flow assurance and the fundamentals of flow management for subsea production systems. The course benefits include an understanding of basic sciences, engineering and flow assurance principles, as well as their application in the assessment, prevention, mitigation and remediation of flow assurance issues encountered in deepwater subsea systems using state of the art prediction tools.
