GE Oil & Gas opens maintenance and training center for the Australian oil and gas industry

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GE Oil & Gas opens maintenance and training center for the Australian oil and gas industry

GE Oil &
Gas announced that it has opened $100 million technology and learning complex
in Jandakot, Western Australia. The complex will support the development of
skills for the oil and gas sector and provide its first in-country support and
maintenance center for the upstream industry. 


This is the
first GE facility to offer the full
range of technical training required to meet both the demands of the resources
boom in Australia and the need to increase productivity in the sectors facing
this rising demand. The company expects to deliver 4,000 training days in 2012
and has already begun to service its major equipment in country.


“Global energy
demand is expected to grow 35 percent over the next 25 years and by 2020
Australia will be the biggest exporter of LNG in the world. Ensuring that
Australia benefits fully from this boom requires us to develop skills and
technical capabilities in country. This investment ensures that we are not only
able to support our customers more effectively but we also support Australia’s
long-term benefits,” said Steve Sargent, CEO and president, GE Australia and
New Zealand.


The latest
Clarius Skills Index, which measures the supply and demand for skilled labor
across 20 job categories, recently found that engineering firms are amongst
those expected to be hardest hit by a looming skills shortage in the Australian
workforce over the next decade.


The service
center will support key equipment employed in liquefied natural gas (LNG)
trains that compress and refrigerate natural gas transforming it into liquid.
GE’s Jandakot center will also provide in-country maintenance, reducing
downtime while parts are serviced overseas and creating a secondary service
industry in the region.


The Australian
federal government and the Critical Skills Investment Fund have invested
AUD$2.67 million towards the training center to build the community of
technical best practice.


It will provide
the necessary skills, training and on-ground customer support for the oil and
gas, energy, mining, healthcare, transportation and water industries helping to
drive synergies across all of GE’s business units.


Chevron Australia is one of
the key energy companies set to train hundreds of its Perth engineering and
technical staff at the GE facility.


As part of the
skills deliver, GE Oil & Gas has partnered with Chevron, Woodside,
ConocoPhilips, Manufacturing Skills Australia, Navitas, ACEPT (Australian
Center for Energy and Process Training) and Apprenticeships Australia to create
a Community of Technical Best Practice.


GE Oil & Gas recently developed the
world’s first commercial ORegen waste heat recovery system, an innovative
technology that enables a gas turbine to produce extra power without any
additional emissions or fuel consumption and no water use.


The waste heat
recovery system will be installed at Alliance Pipeline’s (APL) Whitecourt
Compressor Station about 200 kilometers (110 miles) northwest of Edmonton,
Alberta.


By GreentechLead.com Team
editor@greentechlead.com

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