Video gaming entices potential Talent to discover the nature of the oil industry.
The world’s need for oil and gas is leading exploration into even deeper waters and ventures demanding precision and cutting-edge technology. It’s a sophisticated, fascinating industry and everybody now has the opportunity to glimpse into what oil and gas exploration is all about.
Maersk Group is launching ‘Quest for Oil’—a free, highly sophisticated computer game that allows players to experience first-hand the stresses and strains of successfully managing an oil company. Playing against a digital artificial intelligence opponent, the game tests players’ ability to understand the key challenges of the oil industry: how to ‘read’ earth layers, how to detect where to find oil reservoirs and how to drill and successfully bring oil to market.
Jakob Thomasen—CEO, Maersk Oil explained, “Most people take for granted that we have oil and natural gas and not many people understand what it takes to find and produce it.”
To master the challenge, players will need to test analytic skills by looking for oil on a seismic map. What does the underground look like? Which layers of earth does it consist of? Where is the oil locked? Players will be tested on how precisely they position the high-tech drilling equipment—always keeping an eye on temperature and pressure—before they can start extracting and producing the oil found. Players have to constantly make the right analysis and decisions and then use the knowledge they gain to play ‘Quest for Oil’.
Inspiring recruitment
Maersk’s aim is to make the oil industry more accessible and to highlight the importance of this vital resource to the world economy. The oil industry suffers from a reputation for lack of transparency and the company wants to change the status quo and engage and educate the public. It also wants to inspire young people to take up a career in the oil industry which is presently experiencing a recruitment crisis in certain regions.
A recent survey by Maersk on the North Sea oil industry found that 70% of employers are ‘struggling’ to recruit quality candidates and the recruitment crisis is ‘set to get worse’. The survey also revealed mass skill shortages across the industry, with 25% of companies failing to find enough engineers. There were also shortages in drilling specialists (38%), subsea specialists (75%), HSE specialists (37%), project engineers (65%) and geoscientists (25%).
Despite advances in alternative fuels more than 6 billion people still rely on the skills, innovative abilities and dedication of the oil industry in providing not only gasoline for transportation or ensuring heating or cooling for billions of households and workplaces around the world, but also thousands of products we use in our everyday life.
Experience the underground
Claus V. Hemmingsen—CEO, Maersk Drilling explained, “New times calls for new measures, and we want to use the computer game to tell the story of an extremely innovative business, which the entire world depends on, in a new and engaging way. We wish to engage in dialogue about our oil and energy business through gamification and at the same time give all interested the best opportunity to experience the underground.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
