Offshore staff
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Aramco’s Drilling and Workover (D&WO) training division has opened a new facility designed to double the number of participants to help meet the company’s future skills needs.
The project involved converting a warehouse into a state-of-the art well control school, overseen by the D&WO training division which is accredited by the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training (ACCET).
Aramco aims to keep the programs current, relevant, and educationally sound by maintaining ACCET and keeping other accreditations up to date, as issued for instance by the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC).
The well control training provided exceeds the international standard in various ways, the company claims, citing:
- Increased hands-on training and simulation time performance by at least 36% better than IADC and IWCF well control training providers
- 10% higher certification passing scores
- An additional assessment of Aramco’s well control policies and procedures.
The new school includes what the company describes as two state-of-the-art classrooms, with space for 24 participants, in a facility with four different types of well control simulators and a visualization wall, said to be unique.
With the new investment, D&WO will double its student annual intake. Over the past five years it has certified over 2,500 employees to handle all well control situations and assessed over 500 experienced, new-hire foremen prior to field deployment.
By ensuring that professionals in the field have the proper certifications, the training helps protect against any potential well control situations, Aramco claims.
The school offers five well control courses ranging from introductory to advanced levels for drilling engineers and field personnel, through to supervisory level. It also offers a stuck pipe prevention course.
In addition, the facility provides providing opportunities to field management to simulate and test real operations in a safe and realistic environment before starting drilling, with test data plugged into the system to run scenarios.
The resultant analyses and runs in audio, video, and data formats are said to assist calculated decision making.
08/03/2018
