VR Training for BP's Greater Tortue Ahmeyim Personnel

Oil major BP has hired Aberdeen-based offshore training company, Survivex, to develop and deliver a four-week training program for the operational personnel on the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim development project in Senegal/Mauritania offshore area.

The contract will see Survivex, which is part of the 3T Energy Group, train BP personnel in safety-critical operating procedures and processes for its floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) and Hub facilities using immersive training technology including virtual reality, augmented reality, and mobile apps.

Also, 3t Energy Group's technology company, 3t Transform is developing a four-week training program, which will include a virtual reality digital twin of BP's facilities, to help deliver an immersive experience of the project. Using the digital twin, the operational personnel will be able to familiarise themselves with the layout of the facilities and learn operating systems and procedures.

Operational personnel will begin training this summer before joining the facilities during facility construction and commissioning. Up to 100 personnel will go through the training programme over the next 18 to 24 months.

Vice President - Global Sales and Strategy for 3t Energy Group, Gavin Taylor, said: "We are delighted and honoured to secure this revolutionary training project with BP. This is blended learning at its very best and will set the standard for the way training is delivered in the future. Learning critical health and safety information through traditional means such as Powerpoint presentations simply wouldn't have been effective enough to achieve our objectives for this project.

"The immersive techniques we use will ensure the crew are fully familiar with all of the project's safety-critical and unique operating procedures and equipment before even setting foot onboard the facilities. We already know through numerous studies that active learning using technology such as virtual reality embeds knowledge and helps knowledge retention. Our bespoke gaming-inspired mobile app will further enhance this by continually testing and assessing knowledge. Ultimately our aim is to embed an unrivaled safety culture through technology-led training, which will be game-changing for the oil and gas sector."

The Tortue Ahmeyim field development is located in the C-8 block offshore Mauritania and the Saint-Louis Profond block offshore Senegal. BP sanctioned the first phase of the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim development in December 2018.

The cross-border development is one of Africa's deepest offshore project at 2,000 meters below the sea's surface. It will produce gas from an ultra-deepwater subsea system and mid-water floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, which will process the gas, removing heavier hydrocarbon components.

Gas will be transferred to a floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility at a nearshore hub located on the Mauritania and Senegal maritime border. The FLNG facility is designed to provide circa 2.5 million metric tons of LNG per annum on average. Total gas resources in the field are estimated to be around 15 trillion cubic feet.