Recognizing talent

David Paganie • Houston

Recruiting and retaining young engineers and highly skilled labor has been a challenge for the oil and gas industry. Faced with a period of increasing investment and growth (and an aging workforce), the sector needs to be proactive to attract, retain, and develop the best and brightest minds. Recognition is one way to encourage participation and growth.

In March, PennWell’s Offshore West Africa and Offshore Asia conference & exhibitions handed out awards to industry professionals that excelled in three categories: Young Engineer, Best Technical/Innovation Presentation, and Best Presenter.

Offshore West Africa awards

Young Engineer: Engr. Soala Benibo, Shell Nigeria Exploration & Production Co., “An Innovative Approach to Subsea Technology Concept Selection”

Benibo presented a decision-making process that involves ranking selection parameters and development scenarios, to optimize field development. He pointed to a set of concept selection criteria that has been established to develop a Subsea Technology Assessment Chart aimed at enabling quick decision making. Benibo concluded that, cheaper, widely available and more mature technologies often deliver similar or better business results than competing, less mature solutions.

Best Technical/Innovation Presentation: Steve Worley, Worley Engineers Inc., “Evaluating Stranded Gas Field Development Programs”

Worley presented examples of major floating gas conversion facilities that have been evaluated to mitigate real and/or perceived technical and economical risks offshore. He compared the facilities to published motions of floating oil and gas production units where the same basic processing fundamentals are used with a history of operating in higher sea states. Worley also compared the financial considerations of a large, high yield floating stranded gas facility to single commitment, conventional oil and gas development investments.

Best Presenter: Honorable Tam Brisibe, House of Representatives, Federal Government of Nigeria, “Local Content, the Importance of Human Resource and Training”

Brisibe outlined his requirements for successful human capital management, in light of the many countries that are increasing local content mandates. He referenced a growing trend, which indicates that competent people in the industry are being re-circulated as a result of the lack of investment in training and human resource management. Brisibe called for increasing investments to actively replace the manpower requirements.

Offshore Asia awards

Young Engineer: Engr. Carla Sanasi, ENI, “Decision Model and Risk Analysis for Multilateral Completion Design in a Challenging Deepwater Well in Italy”

Sanasi presented a case study of a new subsea well in the Adriatic Sea to support a new approach to maximize the productive and economic value of drilling and completion in deepwater. The proposed application is a multilateral, intelligent well with gas lift in a sour environment. A probabilistic approach was adopted to assess the uncertainties of the reservoir, well design, and productivity. The analysis led to the right investment decision at a given confidence level despite the complexity of the project under evaluation, Sanasi concluded.

Best Technical/Innovation Presentation: Iain Mackay, Petrotechnics, “Operations Frontline of the Future: Brunei Shell Implement Best Practice to Improve Safety in South China Sea operations”

Global attention on improving the safe and efficient control of work has driven several initiatives into how organizations can provide an improved, cost effective, and safer way of working. Mackay examined lessons learned from the implementation of an integrated common business process in Shell Brunei Petroleum and how this has delivered process standardization and work activity efficiencies for frontline work, while yielding direct benefits in safety performance, increased production throughput, and cost reduction.

Best Presenter: Steven C. Sparling, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, “New Directions in Liquefaction, from the LNG ‘Hub’ to Offshore Liquefaction”

Congratulations to all of the award winners.

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