No. 2, 2010
FORGING OIL AND GAS PERSONNEL
Interview with Viktor Martynov, President of the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas
The I. Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Russia's leading higher educational institution of the petroleum industry, celebrated its 80th anniversary in April 2010. The role played by its graduates has been decisive in all of the achievements of the country's oil and gas workers, from opening up the oil fields of the Urals and Volga area to developing the limitless hydrocarbon reserves of Western Siberia and laying pipelines of unparalleled capacity and throughput. In its time, the university has also trained tens of thousands of highly skilled specialists.
Q: What goals does the university set in training skilled workers?
A: We do our best to give our students knowledge that will allow them to make a good living, provide for their families, and build a successful career - that is, to climb the corporate ladder. The education they get here also helps them move up in society and become productive members of the community, economy, and nation.
How do we achieve this? We follow the labor market and train those experts that are currently most in demand. This extends not just to undergraduate students, but to those with bachelor's degrees and to master's candidates as well, along with students who are here to upgrade their qualifications and to switch their areas of expertise. Along with our main specialized departments, the most important of which is that of technology, we also train economists, lawyers, ecologists, and production managers. Our economics faculty, for example, has been here since the university was founded - that is, since 1930. This is not surprising, since the economic issues associated with oil and gas projects should be resolved by someone who knows what it is all about.
Q: How many students do you have at the university? What is the student body like?
A: At a time when education was being commercialized, we consciously made no move to expand our enrolment. We have around 6,000 students, just as before. Neither has the number of foreign students increased much; there are around 750 of them from 57 different countries, as opposed to the 600 that were enrolled here earlier. The number of graduate students is also about the same, 450. Altogether, we have 7,500 students.
Our students come from all regions of Russia. We have never especially tried to attain 100% coverage; it just turned out that way, thanks to the elevated demand for oil workers in practically all corners of Russia. We have at least one student from each. Oil-producing regions, in contrast to all the others, are as a rule represented by several students.
Q: The university has gone over to a Western model of education. What has changed in switching to four- and six-year courses of study?
A: If you are talking about the university's prestige internationally, and whether our diploma is recognized abroad, nothing at all has changed: our university's reputation is as good as ever. There has been no slackening of interest in it on the part of leading world oil and gas companies, either: they all want to hire our graduates. For example, our university is one of ten institutions belonging to the BP University Partnership Program. The company has set up a grant and a number of scholarships for us. World leaders in the oil industry have established close cooperation with us: Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker Hughes, and others.
Incidentally, our graduates have already risen to the vice-presidency in two of these companies. In other words, our university needs no recommendations. It was the same way even before we had baccalaureate and master's programs. It is harder to transmit knowledge in four years that we earlier transmitted in five, but we have to cover everything in the allotted time. This is made easier by innovative educational programs, including some that were introduced thanks to the participation of foreign companies. There are 51 special programs for students enrolled in either the six-year program or the master's program. They're broken down into narrow areas of specialization, about the same as what happens at a faculty of extended vocational education.
Q: A new educational technique called The Virtual Refinery was recently developed in the faculty of oil refining. Could you tell us a bit more about it?
A: This innovative educational program is designed to help us make the transition to the latest world-class instruction techniques. Not only do we have The Virtual Refinery, we have The Virtual Oilfield as well. The creation of The Virtual Pipeline is the last link in a chain that provides training for the entire production cycle, from exploration and production to the refining and transporting of crude. This will provide integrated training in several areas of specialization at once. If we now train, let's say, drilling and reservoir engineers separately, in the future we will give them the additional skills they need to work with one another and with other associated specialists, even economists and ecologists. So our students will have a comprehensive knowledge of production to rival that of top-level managers and company executives.
Our virtual facilities can be upgraded whenever it's needed, so we have a completely digitalized natural oilfield, with all of the needed models, processes, and parameters. A number of different variants are considered: carbonaceous, terrigenous, offshore, onshore, and so on. You can also vary the depth of production. Right now, let's say, you have a well drilled to a depth of around 3 km, and when the country's production moves to a deeper horizon at 5 to 7 km, we can adjust the training to the same depth as well. Development of the Arctic's hydrocarbon reserves is about to begin, and our students are going to work under Arctic conditions on The Virtual Oilfield. The examples could go on and on.
We have now developed a project for the dispatcher-controlled transport of gas, The Virtual Pipeline. We are doing the same for oil next, and then we are combining the Refinery, Oilfield, and Pipeline into a Vertically Integrated Oil Company. We will have a functional model for a virtual vertically integrated oil company with the possibility of making management decisions and simulations.
