Petrofac Wins IADC Contract to Enhance Global Competence System for Drilling Community

Petrofac, the international oil & gas facilities service provider, through its Training Services business (PTS), has secured a contract with the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) to enhance IADC’s existing system of competence for the drilling community.

In addition to generic rig positions, the new project will identify Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs) for highly specialised occupations, such as subsea engineers, as well as create formal evaluation process guidelines based on the KSA position requirements. IADC developed the original KSAs and released them initially in 2000. Those first KSAs represented the basic skills and knowledge necessary for competence for 12 rig positions. In addition to job-specific KSAs, the IADC Training Committee also developed a general KSA focused on health, safety and environmental issues.

The KSAs will help to clarify job roles and responsibilities and identify development opportunities to close any KSA gaps that may arise from the evaluation process. The resulting increase in competence levels should minimise the risks from human error, helping to achieve safer, more efficient and environmentally sound drilling operations globally.

The scope of work will be completed in a phased approach. It will begin with the identification of KSAs and the evaluation guidelines for safety-critical positions with well control responsibilities. The programme will then address the remaining non-safety-critical positions.

Petrofac Training Services will draw upon 30 years of competence assurance experience to undertake an exercise to align its own industry and IADC member methodologies and good practices to create an international drilling competency framework.

“This project will enable us to strengthen our on-going relationship with the IADC and its members by leveraging our capability and industry knowledge in developing, delivering and implementing competence programmes for the oil & gas industry,” said Tony Littler, Regional Director, PTS Americas. “Working in step with the IADC, we can help deliver a global competence system for the international drilling community.”

Programmes such as this have become increasingly important as a result of new US government regulations that require companies to define and evaluate the competence of their workforce. Further, such programmes will help address workforce capability challenges by providing a means to evaluate and develop new entrants into the drilling industry.

“The revamped KSAs will provide the industry with a benchmark for globally consistent drilling position requirements, as well as recommend means for effectively evaluating personnel,” said Stephen Colville, IADC president and CEO. “It will also help personnel identify areas where further training and development are needed and point them to resources to help close those gaps.”