The largest producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas in China, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), has become the country’s first organization certified to train workers to OPITO safety standards.
Its safety training facility, CNOOC Safety & Technology Services Co., Ltd, achieved the internationally recognized approval this summer and it’s anticipated that more than 1,000 of its personnel will be certified within the first 12 months.
CNOOC is China’s third largest state-owned E&P firm. It has operations in the South China Sea as well as being involved in LNG storage activities within the Tianjin port district of the Bohai Sea. Internationally, it has assets in Asia, Africa, North and South America, Oceania and Europe.
The training center and its satellite facilities are based in the city of Tianjin where up to 40,000 CNOOC personnel are based. It obtained OPITO approval after meeting the strict criteria set out by the global, not-for-profit, skills organisation for the energy sector over a period of 9 months.
The approval will see the company introduce personnel to the specific safety issues and regimes relevant to offshore installations and equip them with the basic emergency response knowledge and skills for travelling offshore by helicopter.
The offshore survival approval includes: the Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training (BOSIET) with Emergency Breathing System (EBS); Helicopter Underwater Emergency Training (HUET) with EBS; and the refresher course, Further Offshore Emergency Training (FOET) with EBS.
CNOOC Safety & Training Services Co., Ltd also gained approval to deliver Basic H2S Training, providing participants with knowledge and understanding of hazards and gas, and appropriate emergency response actions to take should a related incident arise.
More than 200 international training facilities are accredited by OPITO to deliver qualifications to the body’s international standards. Over 250,000 people are trained every year which along with its workforce development frameworks, are currently used by employers across 45 countries worldwide.