Bridging the Health, Safety, and Environment Risk Management Proficiency Gap for Future Petroleum Engineers

Health, Safety, and Environment Risk Management performance has become essential in the upstream industry due to the evolving complexity of the processes. In recent years, accidents in the oil and gas industries have resulted in catastrophic consequences as they captured the news and had an overwhelming impact to health, the environment, the financial sector, and social aspects of both the companies and their customers. Health, Safety and Environment Risk Management specialists and professionals play a major role in mitigating both risk and consequences of hazards as they assure that companies comply with different standards and perform best-recommended practices. Most of these professionals are engineers who have undergone intensive training courses by their employer as part of professional development programs. Subsequently, they continue their career path as HSE specialists once they successfully complete the program. Unfortunately, there is a gap where academia lacks the adequate educational knowledge base in Health, Safety and Environment Risk Management to establish the necessary knowledge for potential candidates in that field. This paper defines the establishment of “Health, Safety and Environment Risk Management in the Oil Industry” course in the Petroleum Engineering Department at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Not only it is designed to cover the technical aspects of HSE in the oil and gas industry, but it also enhances soft skills many students tend to overlook such as communications skills, safety awareness, ethical responsibilities, and most importantly, creating safety culture by exposing HSE awareness and knowledge to cater to the oil and gas industry. This course will be the corner stone for establishing a new petroleum engineering focus area where the department tries to expand it into a certificate program by collaborating with other departments on campus which offer different courses on a variety of topics related to HSE