Technical Agenda

Session I: Why Are We Here?

Session Managers: Najib Abusalbi, Richard Hughes, and Shree Vikas

With a foresight towards 2020, the oil and gas industry will be operating in environments that will require a talented workforce that can adapt or develop new technologies and methods to explore, develop, and produce energy resources. This session will focus on the interests of this workforce, the challenges the industry will present them with, and how can they be motivated and equipped to excel.

Session II: Building the Custom Skillset and Accelerating Development

Session Managers: Susan Howes and Roger Willis

What skills are necessary for petro-tech personnel of 2020 in the “new oil and gas industry”, and how are technical and soft skills addressed in the curricula? A variety of responsibilities for assets in conventional trends versus unconventional plays, as well as in extreme environments, will require different development plans in an organizational capability-constrained environment. We will discuss industry/academia/SPE collaborative solutions to accelerate development and to meet the demands for increasing levels of efficacy required for each petro-tech professional.

Session III: What are the Challenges? Defining the Barriers to Excellence in Education

Session Managers: Ford Brett and John Carlson

To address any problem—or to invent something new—there needs to be a clear understanding of the gap between the current and desired state. Participants will work together to create a clear understanding of what’s likely to prevent the industry—in the broadest sense—from achieving excellence.

Session IV: How Can We Fix It?—Overcoming Barriers

Session Mangers: Mohan Kelkar and Cindy Reece

As gaps and barriers to achieving our vision of industry’s 2020 engineering needs have been identified, this session is designed to:

• Prioritize these gaps as to the most impactful to close with associated effort
• Identify what academia, industry and SPE can do to remove the barriers to close these gaps

Session V: Wrap-Up and Summary

Session Mangers: Bob Chase and Cindy Reece

As the intent of this forum is to publicly document the outcomes of the discussion to help progress industry’s and academia’s thinking and actions in this critical area of future engineering competency needs, this session is designed to:

• Document the key take-aways from the forum
• Capture thoughts on how to possibly progress highest impact recommendations by entity
• Brainstorm any other items of concern that the forum did not address on this topic that are burning issues