The recent success and long term growth potential of the gas business, particularly in Trinidad and Tobago is unlike the oil booms of the 1960’s, late 70's and mid 1980’s. Gas is a much different business with more inherent stability. The expansion has already created a high demand for key technical/business skills and competencies.

In 1999, there was a gross restructuring of the economy of Trinidad and Tobago. Up to 1999 the external dollar revenue was earned largely by oil exports, but in 1999 the country changed to a gas/oil economy with the start of the export of LNG, and in 2003 gas became the major dollar earner. Gas is a much different business with a much greater inherent stability, with contracts for gas chains being 15-20 years. This is a completely different scenario to the cyclic nature of the oil-based sector, which is heavily influenced by the fluctuations of oil price, as Trinidad and Tobago has already experienced.

The offshore development, production, and hydrocarbon exploitation activities just to meet the currently existing gas contracts in Trinidad and Tobago are forecasting staffing needs well beyond 20 years. If the industry's and government’s plans for expansion of gas production from the contracted 2.5 bcfg/d in 2004, to the expected contracts totalling over 5 bcfg/d is realised, there will be a continual demand for these job skills for possibly the next 50 years! Predictions are always risky, but prospects do seem favourable.

Additionally, over the last four decades there has been a steady loss of critical skills from the industry, usually with the older experienced personnel leaving before their skills have been properly ‘handed down’. Succession planning has not been practiced. The largest skill gap for the upstream petroleum sector in Trinidad and Tobago is within the geosciences. The petroleum industry employs significantly more earth science graduates than any other employment sector. This situation is likely to continue with the efficient exploitation of a scarce and valuable resource which will always require a supply of well-trained specialists.

Varied Careers
The professional careers of petroleum geoscience engineers can be varied and so the education has to reflect this. The programme, BSc in Petroleum Geoscience, was brought on stream from conception in April 2001 to welcoming the first students in August 2001 within the Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering. Although the programme is aimed primarily at the oil industry, the education provided offers the prospect of careers in other fields, such as water resource exploration, HSE, upstream technical HR etc. Thus, this unique programme will be suitable to students from any (oil) country in the world.

Technology Frontiers
Petroleum exploration has always been in the vanguard of technological advance, pushing computer power and engineering practice to its current limits. Utilisation of advanced technologies in subsurface imaging such as 3D, 4D and 4C seismic, and commercial software simulation packages, such as Landmark or Geoframe, are playing a critical role not only in the exploration of natural resources, but also in their development and production performance. Significant increases in ultimate reserve estimates and therefore, production and field life have been demonstrated repeatedly as these new technologies have been applied. This has led to an ever-increasing demand within the petroleum sector of Trinidad and Tobago for these new technologies, and for local personnel to process and interpret the data in order to remain economically competitive.

233 Petroleum Grads
The Faculty of Engineering has well established Engineering (Civil, Chemical, Electrical and Mechanical) Degree courses with industrial involvement, validated by the Engineering Institutions. A Petroleum Engineering Unit was formed within the Department of Chemical Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering in 1976. To date some 233 students have graduated from the various Petroleum Engineering programmes, mostly for service in the petroleum industry in Trinidad, and in fact provide the majority of the local trained professionals therein.

Industry Involvement and Support
The Faculty of Engineering therefore had extensive discussions with all the major stakeholders involved in Trinidad’s upstream petroleum industry (bpTT, BG, Petrotrin etc), plus the GSTT (Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago) and the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries in planning of this BSc programme. It was tailored to satisfy the Petroleum Geoscience needs of the upstream petroleum industry in the Southeast Caribbean, and should be their main source of young graduate professional petroleum geoscientists. Additionally, students will be equipped to pursue research elsewhere.

Progress has been impressive. Both the Landmark and Geoframe, huge software packages, have been donated by the companies to the BSc programme. The market costs for these programmes is estimated at over $3 million US. New Petroleum Geoscience/Petroleum Engineering Facilities (Lecture rooms, Laboratories, Staff and Office accommodation) were created from remodelled Petroleum Engineering space and which were funded by Industry at a cost of TT$2.8 million. The BSc Petroleum Geoscience programme has been accredited by the Geological Society of London for 6 years as the academic component for professional qualifications for Chartered Geologist. The accreditation citation praised the design and delivery of this programme, with its very strong and indeed unique, industrial involvement both in its instructional delivery and other support. 68 students have joined the programme. The 2004 intake cohort of 14 had 10 national scholars (of whom 2 were also UWI scholars). The 13 students who graduated from the programme 2004 were rapidly absorbed into the industry by the leading oil and gas companies of Trinidad and Tobago. These Companies have been high in praise of their quality which may be attributed to the uniqueness of their training – both in academia and in industry.