The SPE Engineering Professionalism Committee (EPC) is charged with integrating SPE’s professional activities and practices by engaging in continuous development, internal and external awareness, and updates and reviews of the skills database for worldwide credentialing practices. In line with this charge, the EPC ensures the skills matrices across SPE technical disciplines are contemporary and fit for purpose. This led to the most recent review and update of the SPE Competency Matrices led by Ayasha Nickie, EPC chair for 2020–2021, with inputs from EPC members and other SPE stakeholders. These matrices were approved by the SPE Board at the ATCE21 in Dubai. The essence of this brief note is to introduce the new competency matrices, the implications for young petroleum engineering graduates, academia, training providers, and the oil and gas industry in general.
Purpose of the SPE Competency Matrix
The SPE developed a set of Competency Matrices over a decade ago to help the incoming petroleum engineers gauge their knowledge and skillset to be “better” engineers. Initially, the matrices consisted of the following:
- General Engineering
- Drilling Engineering
- Formation Evaluation
- Production Engineering
- Reservoir Engineering
However, our industry has changed a lot since these were introduced. In order to capture the changes, the EPC as the custodian of these documents, reviewed, revised, and added to these competency matrices through a rigorous process from November 2019 to September 2021.
The overarching objective of the matrices is to support academia, internal and external training programs, and define knowledge requirements. The matrices assist academia and industry in gauging the knowledge of petroleum engineers from entry level up to 5 years’ experience. They serve as the foundation for SPE Certification exam, which increases the level of professionalism among the SPE membership. The matrices are designed to be used solely as a guideline and not meant to be detailed and prescriptive for accreditation standards, hiring petroleum engineers, or curricula requirements. Rather, these were developed by SPE members to assist with the definition of a skilled petroleum engineer.
Changes Made to the SPE Competency Matrix
The oil and gas industry remains critical to global prosperity in many respects. The approved changes to the SPE Competency Matrices reflect, at least, two contemporary issues that affect global economic prosperity as follows:
Digital Technologies. The start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (i.e., Industry 4.0) in 2016 saw a gradual but synchronous integration of physical assets (e.g., rig platforms, flow stations) and advanced digital technologies (e.g., machine learning, artificial intelligence, IoT, nanotechnology, autonomous vehicles, cloud computing) to better support responsive analytics for intelligence-driven decision-making. Industry 4.0 is beginning to fundamentally transform operational business models; and it was, partly, in response to this that the SPE Board approved the splitting of the “Management and Information” Technical Discipline (TD) in 2019 when the “Information” bit was renamed “Data Science and Engineering Analytics” TD.
Sustainability and Energy Transition. There has been historic debate around the issues of climate change and environmental sustainability with laser-focus attention on the perceived contribution of the oil and gas value chain. This is partly underpinned by two global phenomena, viz:
- series of IPCC reports including the latest Sixth Assessment Report released on 9th August 2021, which suggests that “global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century,” and
- the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) September 2021 Air Quality Guideline update, which among others, recommends a reduction in the mean annual concentrations of PM2.5 to ≤ 5 μg/m3 and NO2 to ≤ 10 μg/m3 from 10 μg/m3 and 40 μg/m3, respectively, following the old WHO guideline of 2005.
The SPE is actively engaging stakeholders through knowledge transfer and engineering technology innovations to support alternatives in hydrogen, geothermal, and other renewables. This is part of the wider effort toward energy transition and reductions in GHG emissions.
Therefore, the SPE Competency Matrices as approved by the SPE Board in September 2021 are as follows:
- General Engineering
- Drilling Engineering
- Production Engineering
- Reservoir Engineering
- Completion Engineering
- Health, Safety, Environment and Sustainability
- Projects, Facilities and Construction Engineering
- Data Science and Engineering Analytics
The matrices for Completion; HSE and Sustainability; Projects, Facilities, and Construction; and Data Science and Engineering Analytics are newly added. These eight areas are also aligned with the SPE’s technical directors on the society’s Board. of Directors.
Minimum Competency Breadth and Depth in the New Matrices
The “Minimum Competency Breadth” and “Minimum Competency Depth” column titles remain but the “Above Minimum Competence” column was removed as it was considered unnecessary in the light of the core objectives for these matrices. Below are the definitions for each of the two columns.
Minimum Competency Breadth. What a graduate from a petroleum engineering curriculum should know. Non-petroleum engineering graduates should be competent in these areas to be called a petroleum engineer.
Minimum Competency Depth. What an engineer with 5 years or more experience and knowledge should know within their chosen discipline. At this competency level an engineer should be capable of obtaining the SPE Certification or an equivalent engineering certification in another jurisdiction.
An engineer specializing in one discipline should not be expected to have the same depth of competence outside their discipline. However, it is essential for petroleum engineers to understand and learn from the other sub-disciplines, especially if the aspiring petroleum engineer wishes to progress within the petroleum engineering industry.
Conclusions and EPC’s Short-Medium Term Plan
This short article has outlined the key summaries from the new SPE Competency Matrices as recently approved by the SPE Board. The Competency Matrices are expected to support academia, training programs (internal and external), and the oil and gas industry in general while it defines SPE’s Petroleum Engineering Certification knowledge requirements. Stakeholders should be able to use the matrix to gauge the knowledge of petroleum engineers from entry level up to 5 years’ experience and increase the level of professionalism among the SPE membership. This has become crucial given the new energy landscape that is now emerging and the need for petroleum engineers to be abreast of issues around digital technologies, sustainability, and energy transition, among others.
The update to the matrices will be continuous and will consider other areas in the future, which petroleum engineers should be aware of in this changing environment. This includes solar, wind, geothermal, and other potential energy sources. The EPC will continue to sensitize the wider SPE community through awareness creation events such as article publications, webinars, seminars, and other publicity avenues.
Acknowledgement
We wish to acknowledge the following EPC members who contributed their time and knowledge to the new SPE Competency Matrices as outlined in this article. These include Ayasha Nickie, Alfred Eustes, Stephen Holtz, Linda Battalora, Hisham Almohammadi, Susan Namuganyi, James Funk, Busheng Li, Arman Mukhamedyarov, Babatunde Anifowose, Chinedu Ogwus, Adediran Adeoye, and SPE staff Mahesh Jayaraman.
Special mention must also be made of Bob Pearson, SPE technical director of production and completions; and Erdal Ozkan, SPE technical director of reservoir, the Education and Accreditation Committee of the SPE as well as the Petroleum Engineering Department Heads Association (PEDHA), for their review and feedback.