A cohort of engineers from BP recently spent a day at San Jacinto College's LyondellBasell Center for Petrochemical, Energy, & Technology (CPET) to gain hands-on experience as process operators.
The 18 engineers -- who traveled from Oman, Egypt, Indonesia and Houston -- participated as part of BP's Challenge program. The "challengers" rotate through different disciplines within the company, such as projects, maintenance, operations and technical procurement, to find the right fit for them at BP.
"BP would like to provide our challengers with the best experience possible," said Rahul Bhojani, segment engineering technical authority for BP. "These students have limited experience in the field, so being able to put their hands on the equipment and actually operate it themselves is our goal. San Jacinto College has great facilities and was the right place for them to train in a safe, controlled environment."
The challengers' day was split between training on 16 Emerson Performance Learning Platforms (PLPs) and running the college's 8,000-square-foot glycol unit.
The Emerson PLPs are fully instrumented, to-scale process operations modules that provide hands-on training to upskill students on the fundamentals of the latest automation technologies. The platform introduces and reinforces the competencies essential for fostering skills in digital transformation initiatives and collaborative work processes.
"This was our first time hosting BP Challenge Day, and I hope we can work together more in the future," said Clarissa Belbas, director of resources for CPET. "We discovered that one day is not enough and the engineers wanted more time in our facilities. They received only a small taste of what we can offer in terms of training."
CPET's incumbent worker training program provides convenient and affordable training solutions -- from turnkey to customized -- to meet any company's needs. Training can last from as little as a few hours to as long as a full-semester class in the areas of:
- Process technology.
- Electrical.
- Instrumentation.
- Nondestructive testing.
- Environmental health and safety.
For more information about scheduling incumbent worker training, contact Clarissa Belbas at clarissa.belbas@sjcd.edu or (281) 476-1894, or John Suarez at john.suarez@sjcd.edu or (281) 542-2092.
