The Petroleum Skills Association, a collaboration of eight oil and gas upstream and downstream companies, is committed to collaborative and sustainable, skill capacity building, for the Petroleum industry.

The association works to a framework that sees three pathways to sustainable skill development.

Our key strategic goals are:

• To lead and participate in wider industry and government forums towards sustainable skill development for the Petroleum industry.
• To actively engage with schools and education to employment programmes relative to the Petroleum industry.
• To design, develop and coordinate resources and activities that raise awareness of career opportunities in the Petroleum industry.
• To develop pre-entry pathways into the Petroleum industry.

Petroleum Skills Association Activities

The Petroleum Skills Association has been operating since January 2009.  It consists of a collaboration between eight companies and education and association bodies.

The association was formed in order to consolidate and bring additional focus to a number of skills related initiatives that had been progressing,  and that dated back to 2006..

A dedicated working group was formed as an executive committee to help steer PSA, and that consisted of members from industry, government and training and education bodies.

Substantial work that has been conducted and is currently under development includes:

2007 industry skills survey published “Exploring the Challenge”

The key finding showed that in a tight labour market, particularly for skilled labour, attracting the necessary skilled people would be a key constraint for continued  growth and development in the local oil and gas industry. The survey concluded that improved coordination was needed for increasing skill capability, and  that increasing activity meant  the demand for skilled labour would also increase, with much of this demand being global as well as local.

2008 economic impact assessment of the Oil and Gas Industry on the Taranaki region and New Zealand

Key findings showed that applying multiplier analysis, the oil and gas industry contributed a total of:

 • NZ$1.0 billion to the Taranaki economy and employed close to 3,000 FTEs.

 • NZ$1.6 billion to the New Zealand economy and employed over 8,600 FTEs.

A key constraint to continued growth of the industry would be lack of skilled labour.

2008 Taranaki industry projections 2006 - 2026 Report

The report outlined that one primary factor driving the projection for oil and gas industry is that both employment and labour productivity will surge. The oil and gas industry is characterised by particularly high labour productivity (GDP per FTE) already, at $900,000 per FTE, compared with $100,000 per FTE for the region as a whole. As a result, strong growth in this industry would push up Taranaki’s average labour productivity very rapidly. This would produce the strong GDP growth projected to 38% by 2026.  

 2008 industry skill action plan "Producing the Talent"

In 2008 the industry skills action plan “Producing the talent” was developed. The Plan identified a number of recommendations to government and industry that sat within a MAKE; FIX; BUY; framework. 

• MAKE being increasing the supply of trained workers through education and training. 
• FIX meaning ensuring effective utilising of existing skills and workplaces and
• BUY being incorporating skilled migrants into vacancies that cannot be filled in NZ.

A launch was conducted in October 2008, where there was good representation and consensus from industry that the plans and recommendations needed to be implemented.

Following this, several industry bodies put forward funding for the implementation to begin and from this the Petroleum Skills Association and its governance body was formed.

2009 Submission to NZ Immigration

Submission for the following occupations to be included on skill shortage list put forward:

• Production manager (manufacturing)
• Petroleum engineer
• Chemical engineering technologist
• Geologist
• Petro physicist
• Geophysicist
• Occupational health and safety adviser
• Earth science technician
• Safety inspector
• Maintenance planner
• Chemical plant operator
• Gas or petroleum operator

2009 Development of first NZ pre-entry process operations training programme.

Operation and maintenance roles were viewed at the most critical shortage at the current point in time.  The association is working alongside industry operation managers and the local polytechnic WITT to develop the first NZ pre entry training programme for process operators.  The training programme is due to commence March 2010.

2009 Development of marketing plan promoting “Careers in oil and gas” to NZ community.

Through engagement with schools and education institutes it was identified that there is very little information available for students, parents, and their teachers as  what career opportunities are available in the oil and gas industry.

As a result, a brochure and website information outlining career opportunities in oil and gas has been produced that outlines job families, occupations, working conditions, salary bands and where to go for education linked to industry employment. 

The association has many exciting projects coming up in 2010 that look at addressing skill development issues for the industry. 

To find out more about the association and our work, visit the association documents page.