Can oil & gas lend a helping hand in bridging the skills gap in emerging offshore energy sectors?

With the winds of change sweeping across the offshore energy landscape, skills shortages in the industry are coming under the spotlight, as the workforce spearheading the transition to low-carbon and green sources is facing an ever-increasing energy skills gap while it tries to navigate the switch to emerging sectors and technologies on the journey to net-zero. This is seen as a potential kryptonite on the road to a sustainable future.  

Options to tackle the wider complications that arise from the competency gap in the offshore energy industry are being pursued to bolster the skillset of the offshore personnel, which are working on the frontline of the energy transition whilst managing current energy demand. Creating a workforce that can handle the pivot to emerging energy sectors – such as carbon, capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) and hydrogen – is perceived to be vital to achieving the Paris Agreement goals for countries around the globe.

While learning from oil and gas can come in handy, many stakeholders, including regulators, governments, and companies involved in offshore energy developments, have put emphasis on the growing need for better alignment and standardisation of skills and training across different energy industries. This points to the necessity of greater collaboration between these standards to ensure that workers can easily transfer their skills and expertise between different offshore energy sectors.

As CCUS and hydrogen make inroads, it is important that training and competencies standards for the offshore energy industry are aligned to avoid the challenges that have plagued the transitioning energy sector workforce up to now. Therefore, a better alignment and standardisation of training across energy industries need to be included in discussions about energy security and the energy transition to avoid further hurdles on the path to a low-emission future.

In a bid to shed more light on the way the evolving energy sector can come to grips with training issues, Offshore Energy obtained insights from RelyOn Nutec’s UK Managing Director, who claims that the initial growth in the UK’s offshore wind sector, which is rapidly expanding, offers lessons that can be used to learn from, but warns against falling foul of comparing two transitions which are not like-for-like.

The UK-wide offshore energy sector already employs over 160,000 people, but Robert Gordon University research estimates that this will rise to around 200,000 people by 2030. Bearing this in mind, Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) recently launched a documentary that whisks viewers on a trip into the personal lives of those trying to decarbonise the UK’s oil and gas industry while expanding into wind, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage (CCS), exploring some of the steps already being taken by the oil and gas sector to reduce its own emissions, such as the electrification of offshore platforms.

Bob Donnelly, UK Managing Director at RelyOn Nutec, commented: “For over seven decades, oil and gas has been leading the way in safety and industrial processes and has been a significant economic contributor. So, it is a given that we would lean on this expertise in emerging sectors like CCUS and hydrogen, but upskilling and relying on an existing workforce will not be the catch-all solution some people hope.

“Better alignment and standardisation of training and competencies associated with these industries will improve safety, increase efficiency and ensure a more compliant workforce for cross-sector working. Now is the time for the energy industry to fly the flag for greater collaboration to avoid complicating standards for all.”

While the initial ramp-up in the offshore wind sector was mostly driven by the oil and gas downturn to bring more profitable energy to the fore, Donnelly believes that the desire and incentive from the current workforce to transition to cleaner energy is less intense due to rising energy security concerns and stable, well-paid jobs in oil and gas.

Even though looking back on the wind boom and the lessons learnt would be useful, Donnelly highlights that it is vital to think ahead to determine how to perform better as new subsectors emerge, since “the workforce must be considered from the get-go. If it’s not factored into initial stages, operators risk their planning, construction, and operations expectations being wasted as personnel supply just cannot keep up with demand.”

Furthermore, Donnelly explains that the lack of consistency in training and certification programmes could lead to skills gaps, inconsistencies in knowledge, and unsafe practices, as it is difficult to evaluate employee competence and ensure compliance with regulations without clear standards.

In line with this, RelyOn Nutec’s UK Managing Director underscores that the offshore energy industry and its new sectors need to work together to establish “clear, training and competency standards that are applicable across the board, ensuring that everyone working in any area of the energy sector has the same level of knowledge of core or transferable competencies and skills required to perform their jobs safely.”

Moreover, the average age of the existing industry workforce is 56, thus, Donnelly is adamant that these workers cannot be the only ones tasked with powering the energy transition. In lieu of this, he underlines that the skills development of “a new workforce that has the appetite to work in renewables will be the driving force behind clean energy.”

“What’s becoming clear is that the siloed way of working that the industry is used to is not the most effective. In actual fact, a successful industry standard for core, transferable competencies, such as working at height or electrical skills, which allows the workforce to work across sectors without knowledge gaps and gives employers confidence, will be key,” emphasised RelyOn Nutec’s UK Managing Director.

In addition, Donnelly points to the need to align standards and training requirements in the face of growing renewable sectors while learning from the oil and gas history and the experience with transitioning to the offshore wind sector. According to RelyOn Nutec’s UK Managing Director, these industries have “a great deal in common,” as high-risk environments despite their differences, since they require skilled personnel to operate “both safely and efficiently.”

“There is significant room for improvement. We’re expecting to see a whole new alphabet of standards arise for working in hydrogen and CCUS, for example, and it’s time we got it right from the start. The industry needs to approach training with safety as one mindset – offering a way of working that instils confidence, and ultimately benefits everyone; from the school-leaver making their way in the industry to the corporate conglomerate trying to avoid fines and increase efficiency,” concluded Donnelly.

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