New IADC project will enhance competency guidelines for drilling rig personnel
IADC has announced a major drilling industry project to develop enhanced competency guidelines for rig personnel. Building upon IADC’s existing Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA) templates, virtually all rig positions will be covered, with priority focus on safety-critical positions with well-control responsibilities.
The main objective is to provide the tools for confirming proficiency levels of the current drilling work force, developing competence levels for new entrants, and helping to ensure industry accepted levels of competency exist when recruiting. In industry parlance, competency is the ability of an individual to perform a job properly, combining knowledge, skills and behavior, as developed through training and experience.
“IADC is the global leader in developing competency and training programs for the drilling industry,” said IADC chairman Dan Rabun, chairman, president and CEO of Ensco. “This ambitious expansion of IADC’s KSAs represents a step change for safety and competency in our industry. It is another demonstration of the commitment across all IADC members – oil companies, drilling contractors and others – to work together to improve our performance.”
“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,” remarked 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.”
In addition to generic rig positions, the new project will cover enhanced KSAs for highly specialized occupations, such as subsea engineers. By defining key competencies, the KSAs can also form the building blocks of future IADC accreditation and certification programs. IADC is renowned as an accreditor for drilling-industry training programs conducted by oil companies, drilling contractors, oil-field service firms and independent training institutions.
The KSA project will be conducted under the leadership of Steve Kropla, IADC group vice president-operations & accreditation. Mr Kropla’s group also oversees IADC’s accreditation and certification programs.
The IADC KSA templates were originally released in 2000 and 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.
IADC has contracted Petrofac Training Services (PTS) to assist in the effort. PTS will collect data across different industry sectors to develop a list of competence guidelines. The first phase of the project will focus on safety-critical drilling positions with well control responsibilities.
