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Why These Oil and Gas Companies Are Using VR Training

By TrainBeyond | May 17, 2022

Join the oil and gas leaders who use VR to train their employees.

Oil and gas industry leaders are reaping the benefits of VR technology training. These companies spend millions of dollars training their workforce to stay within safety standards. With VR, employees can interact with equipment and experience emergency scenarios without the real-life risks.

The oil and gas industry faces many safety challenges due to the nature of the sector itself. From fires to vehicle accidents, worker safety is a priority for HR and HSE managers. The organization of practical training in the oil and gas industry is also challenging due to high costs, high equipment complexity, high risk, deficient quality, and difficulty to assess.

VR Benefits For Improving Oil and Gas Industry Training

Some VR training benefits include safety, faster retention, experiential knowledge, and ability. This training method is ideal for helping employers gain the necessary mastery and tools to maximize their skills and safety standards on a high level. 

Virtual Reality (VR) offers opportunities that no other training method can support and can be a solution for the issues encountered with practical training. It mirrors different operating environments and situations for the trainees immersion. With VR, the company can conduct practical training on its site without exposing its employees to frequent risks. 

Norwegian petroleum refinery Equinor was facing operational challenges in well planning. They implemented Virtual Reality to overcome these challenges by providing 3D visualization of oil, water, and gas reservoirs. These high-fidelity images accessed via VR headsets, were produced from seismic images.  

This implementation favors Equinor in reducing the time it takes for the processes of discovering new hydrocarbon reserves. It also saves time transmitting the knowledge to the employees to ensure their capability to execute their tasks successfully. 

VR and AR as Alternatives to Practical Training

Virtual Reality improves safety training because of its immersive practice; increasing employee engagement and helping reach the general training objectives. Productivity in operations also sees improvement in communication, collaboration, and coordination. 

With this virtual training method, companies can create, scale and measure VR training content, changing learning and performances across different areas. They can also offer training environments where staff can train without real-life danger, avoiding the high costs and risks involved with real-world training. In the meantime, recent hires can obtain functional experience of their working surroundings before reaching the site. 

Furthermore, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) allow engineers to monitor equipment without being physically present at the location. Also, an onshore support engineer can help a remote oil rig crew member.

What Can You Expect From VR Training?

This form of training encourages a much higher level of emotional engagement from the trainee, accelerates the absorption of information, and improves retention.

The potential for dynamic, scalable VR training in the Oil and Gas industry is evident. VR training requires no interruption of work processes or dedicated personnel assignment or facilities. Therefore, it can be held even for one person at a time when the time comes to pass the certification test.

Custom training or updating the existing training according to new developments in the current operations is another possibility that Virtual Reality provides. 

In short, Virtual Reality gives more freedom in creating programs focused on various operational aspects or particular skills.

Who Is Using VR In Training?

Oil and gas industries have grown each year in automation processes, ensuring the safety of their employees, machinery, and company. Using tools such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to optimize and reduce both time and cost of training is becoming essential.

A virtual drilling rig, for example, could be used for fire training, health and safety training, and employee onboarding. The content can be used multiple times, in many locations simultaneously, and be refined as the authentic environments, machinery, and processes are updated.

These companies in the oil and gas industry have already leaped to digitize parts of their operations with Virtual Reality:

  • Siemens

They practice emergency responses to various accidents and test new facilities in construction’s early stages.

  • Kuwait Oil Company

They believe that such VR training increases the employees’ confidence and, thus, the quality of their work. 

  • Baker Hughes

Their training rooms have been equipped with Virtual Reality headsets to mimic oil and gas sites, providing the trainee with a detailed view of their workplace.

  • BP

They promise a “comprehensive approach to training its workers, combining rigorous standards, world-class instruction, and sophisticated tools”.

  • ExxonMobil

They are using the technology to teach staff about several low-probability, high-consequence tasks ”that are hard to simulate using books and PowerPoints”. 

  • ConocoPhillips

They seek to “attract, develop and retain employees through an on-the-job combination of learning, formal training, and regular feedback and mentoring”.

Conclusion

Virtual Reality training brings benefits such as better formation, knowledge retention and many others mentioned to oil and gas companies.
 
Training in the oil and gas sector can be tedious, especially organizing training for remote workers. Augmented Reality (AR) devices and virtual solutions are readily available to improve and design more engaging training experiences for the oil and gas industry.
 
Top oil and gas companies enjoy a better-trained workforce thanks to Virtual Reality training. If you want to bring training to a new level, we would love to hear about it. We will design a unique virtual reality solution that will match your requirements.
 
Why not join them in their quest for a safer work environment?

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