Harnessing Multiple Learning Styles for Training Diverse Field Personnel in Conventional Coring Operations

Coring is a critical operation for geologists and petrophysicists to accurately determine the amounts of hydrocarbons in a reservoir. Conventional coring is the acquisition and recovery to surface of a continuous column of reservoir formation material. This important information assists in determining the amount of oil and gas in a rock and the difficulty involved in retrieving the hydrocarbons. Coring requires use of special drillstring with inner and outer barrels. Additionally, the performance metrics for coring are vastly different from drilling. Due to its specialty nature, it is difficult to educate new and inexperienced individuals in coring operational procedures in a classroom environment. To address the challenge, this oilfield service organization utilized a holistic approach to develop a training course for conventional coring. Content required for the course included product functionality, rig operations procedures, and troubleshooting application challenges. The key deliverable was to meet the growing learning demands from younger generations of employees. The solution was to develop a course which encompassed multi-sensory resources including auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning. This methodology was necessary to effectively teach a wide range of topics to a diverse population of field personnel. This paper will provide details of the innovative/new learning activities that engaged the learners and facilitated their training.