This program is effectively the second stage of the Taranaki Drilling School (TDS) that Greymouth established with a $NZ250,000 grant in July 2005.

Over 100 people, in some cases with no previous industry experience, have graduated from the basic TDS training course and the variety of course modules available has been expanded from the entry level of rig work.

Greymouth chief executive Mark Dunphy told the New Zealand Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference in New Plymouth yesterday that New Zealand’s high level of energy development meant there were “huge demands” on the country’s human capital.

Despite the TDS’s success, New Zealand was still “critically short” of qualified drilling personnel, he said.

He went on to say that until the TDS had been set up, no one in New Zealand had provided state-of-the-art industry training since the days of government-owned Petrocorp about 20 years ago.

“It is critical for our Greymouth business that we provide best-practice training facilities for our graduates,” he said.

“Greymouth is offering graduates with an engineering or similar degree, with or without previous industry experience, the opportunity to join Greymouth through the Pathways to Petroleum educational framework.”

He did not specify what financial assistance Greymouth was offering for this training development.

But he said the program would guide cadets through the various stages of petroleum exploration and commercialisation, from the geological origins of hydrocarbons, to the retail petrol station and electrical power plants.