O&G

Energy Business Acumen Simulation

OilSim Educational Events

PetroChallenge - Educational Events

Simprentis and KnowledgeWorking organise large scale of Oil & Gas exploration educational events together with local authorities and industry.

In these educational events, students from many different schools or universities are divided into teams that compete and collaborate in online learning simulations called OilSim. In each school or university there are teachers that facilitate the sessions; these teachers have been through a facilitator's course beforehand.

Simprentis has pioneered the concept of industry based educational events.  For secondary schools, these are typically targeted at young adults in their final year of school (16-18 year olds) and, critically, who may be making important decisions about future career choices.  Our University events are aimed at all levels of students with a special interest in petroleum and earth sciences including geology, geophysics etc.

These events have proved extremely popular with both students and teachers alike - with the key ingredient of top level support from local and national education authorities.

Simprentis has run many PetroChallenge Events internationally, with over 1000 students and teachers from seven different countries participating in the same event over a two day period. The Simprentis commitment to Education ensures that the oil and gas industry can put its case to the students in an engaging, enjoyable and educating way - and to attract its young professionals of the future.

The purpose of these Educational Events may vary, but a common theme is to provide students with an overall understanding of the oil and gas industry and consider it as a career path.

"We know that there is a connection between knowledge and interest. Therefore one important task for us is to increase the knowledge about the oil and gas industry. By offering to secondary schools throughout the country an educational tool (OilSim) that fits into their curriculum we contribute to increase knowledge about the country's most important industry among students and teachers. We also enable youth in many places in the country to get an extended knowledge about an industry which after all is relatively unknown to them."
Jan Hodneland, director employer policy in OLF (the Norwegian Oil Industry Association)

Among the countries we have organised PetroChallenge educational events since 2002 are:

1. Norway, with the Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF)
2. Denmark, with the Technical University of Denmark and Maersk Oil, and DONG Energy
3. Scotland, with Opito the Oil & Gas Academy, and with the Robert Gordon University
4. Greenland,  with Chevron
5. Faroe Islands, with Chevron
6. Iceland, with National Energy Authority

Every year in January the best teams from each country meet to the international final in London, where the overall international winner is found.

OilSim - Oil and Gas Learning Simulation

OilSim - Oil and Gas Learning Simulation

OilSim is a learning platform for training courses in the oil and gas industry.

OilSim is a dynamic model of the value chain in the oil and gas industry, which enables participants to experience, experiment and ultimately understand what the industry is actually about.

The head quarters of an oil and gas company has sent you out to a remote location to participate in an emerging hydrocarbon exploration industry. Your task is to discover commercially viable volumes of hydrocarbons using the least funds possible. You start with a large sum of money ($200 million), and can apply for more, if you run out of cash.

In order to find hydrocarbons, you must study surveys, acquire licenses, enter into partnerships, lease rigs, and buy well services. Geoscientific companies provide you with surveys, and you pay the cost of the surveys that you acquire. The Government awards licenses to drill. Once licenses are awarded, you must enter into partnerships with other teams, in order to diversify your risk. You can relinquish licenses and leave partnerships.

In order to drill, you must lease rigs and buy well services from a number of providers in order to drill wells. The cost of drilling and the value of the discovered oil fields are divided among the investors of the license according to their percentage shares. Only proven hydrocarbon volumes count when the value of discovered oil and gas is calculated. You need to drill at least two successful wells into an oil field to prove that there is oil.

When you discover commercially viable volumes of hydrocarbons, the headquarters of the oil company provide you with additional funds ($2 billion) in order to build the technical infrastructure needed to produce oil and gas. Your job is to make a plan for this gigantic construction project, that considers investment costs, project construction time, choice of equipment, choice of vendor, and running costs. You may enter and leave partnerships in this proces, in order to diversify your risk.

“Mission completed” is when you have found oil and developed the oil field in the most commercially viable manner, meaning the highest possible return on investment.

Oil and Gas Course Catalogue

Course Catalogue