Abstract
It is a well-established fact in the oil and gas industry that the workforce is aging and there are fewer people in the 10-15 year experience range each year. The solution to this dilemma has been to hire university graduates and quickly train them to succeed the existing aging workforce. Unfortunately, the very people who need to train these new graduates are the experienced employees who are stretched to keep up with the unprecedented workload in the recent environment of asset development and projects. They simply do not have the time to train and supervise new hires. Additionally, current projects and assets are so large and complex, that companies cannot afford the opportunities to allow these new hires to learn by doing, as a mistake can have huge heath, safety, environmental or economic consequences.
In order to help train these new graduates adequately, the Society of Petroleum Engineer's Projects, Facilities, and Construction Committee developed the Expanding Facilities Knowledge Workshop, which consisted of five cafeteria-style presentations. These presentations covered a range of Facility Engineering basic competencies and were held at various locations around Houston throughout the summer. The sessions were heavily attended and there are current plans to continue the workshop in the future. This workshop can also be considered a model for other disciplines within SPE to help train new graduates in their field.