Safety and recruitment challenges receive priority at Australasian Oil and Gas Exhibition

Safety, resourcing and recruitment challenges are some of the important topics that gained priority on the second day of the Australasian Oil & Gas Exhibition & Conference (AOG) in Perth, Australia.

Some of the leading figures from the oil and gas industry attended the conference, which included the final sessions of AOG Conference.

During the conference, leading legal expert in accident and oil spill litigation Gerard Forlin discussed the prevention of major workplace accidents in oil and gas and related industries.

Forlin said that prosecutors are now willing to target senior management of oil and gas companies in cases of major workplace accidents.

"More and more regulators and prosecutors are targeting senior managers and boards in the aftermath of incidents, including near misses," Forlin added.

"This trend is happening in most jurisdictions and applies not just to oil and gas companies, but to all the various contractors and others that work with the industry."

Penn State University Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research (MCOR) co-director Thomas Murphy discussed the applications and success of an innovative new workforce model to assess the recruitment needs of individual resources projects.

"The model differs from others in the oil and gas industry, in that it looks at the employment trends over the lifecycle of a well to more accurately determine workforce needs across the duration of that time," Murphy added.

AOG hosted a special ‘Norwegian Experience’ session, which was attended by about 45 Norwegian companies, while the country’s leading experts and innovators spoke during the conference.

INTSOK Oil and Gas Australia advisor Tore Moe said Australia’s oil and gas operators got an opportunity to learn from the experiences of Norwegian counterparts during the session.

"The challenges the industry faces in Australia are remarkably similar to those seen on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, as both regions have dealt with deep water, remote areas, a lack of existing infrastructure, environmentally sensitive areas and a limited resource pool," Moe added.

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Image: Topics such as safety, resourcing and recruitment challenges gained priority on the second day of the Australasian Oil & Gas Exhibition & Conference. Photo: Courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net.