Oilennium Unveils Fully Interactive Training Course for O&G Industry

Oilennium, a leading provider of training programs to the international oil and gas industry, has developed the UK's first fully interactive classroom-based "Minimum Industry Safety Training" (MIST) course on behalf of Petans Ltd, an established supplier of safety training courses approved by OPITO for the oil, gas and maritime industries.

The MIST course is one of the primary training courses that Oil and Gas UK is promoting to enhance safety within the UK's offshore oil and gas industry. "Given that offshore workers will often be operating in dangerous environments, it's critical that inexperienced employees are trained to anticipate potential hazards and adopt the highest levels of safe industry practice," said Kevin Keable, Managing Director of Oilennium. "The MIST course we designed for Petans is an intensive two-day program, during which participants learn how to work safely and effectively offshore," he added.

Avoiding "Death by PowerPoint"

Petans awarded the contract to develop the MIST course to Oilennium with the specific remit of providing a course that must not result in delegates suffering from "death by PowerPoint."

"The subject matter itself is quite straightforward. The real challenge was to deliver the nine modules of information over two days without putting people to sleep," said Keable. "To achieve this, we worked hard to create a lively learning experience; one that ensures that every delegate will walk away with a solid foundation in safety as they embark on a career in the industry," he added.

Throughout the two days, delegates are kept engaged by being exposed to a wide variety of visuals and short 4-minute videos. Text has been kept to a minimum in order to prevent "information overload." Oilennium drew upon the latest learning technologies by using "audience participation" software to create a fun game show. Delegates will enjoy participating in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?-style quizzes designed to test their newfound knowledge.

New MIST Course to Debut in February 2009

Oilennium delivered the new MIST course to Petans in December 2008, and is currently training Petans staff how to deliver the course for optimum results. Petans will host its first OPITO-accredited MIST course for the public in February at its base in Norwich.

"We look forward to running this exciting new MIST course, which is certain to create a stir. Anything we can do to make learning fun and effective is ideal, and Oilennium has certainly achieved that," said Michael Wilder, General Manager of Petans.

Plans are also in the pipeline to deliver the course at its base in Suffolk, and at client company locations throughout the UK, and onboard offshore installations. The company anticipates that upwards of 800 new delegates may complete the initial MIST course throughout the coming year, and a similar number of existing offshore workers will undertake assessment.

Although Petans has been successfully providing training services to the oil, gas and maritime industries since 1971, and runs over 50 different courses for the workforce, the MIST course developed by Oilennium is the first time that the company has outsourced the design and development of one of its training courses.