Recruitment

Recruitment for TSP-4 was started in September 2009. The future trainees were tested by experienced and skilled team. The recruitment teams were sent to take the test in major cities of Kazakhstan.  New tests and questions were designed for recruitment. Basic test was made more difficult. The test consisted of 3 phases. At the first phase the CV was checked for eligibility to take the test. Afterwards a telephone interview was taken by competent staff, where the future student had to answer several questions regarding their specialties. The next phase was the basic knowledge test, which consisted of 3 sections: Math, Physics and Chemistry. Each section consisted of 20 questions relevant to the section. The last stage was a specific interview with psychologists, where they defined competence of students. Totally, 110 trainees were selected from about 7000 CV from all over Kazakhstan. These include: 40 Process operators, 15 HSE, 15 Instrumental Technicians, 20 Chemical Lab. Technicians, and 20 Mechanical Technicians.

 

Disciplines

The specialists recruited for SP-4 were necessary at that moment for the plant "Bolashak” and for artificial D Island, because of the lack of competent staff. The future specialists will work for NCPOC, the company who will be responsible for all Production Operations after first Oil.

 

Course

The course which the trainees have to pass consists of 4 phases. The first is English Language Course. It is an essential course which trainees have to pass for understanding foreign technical instructors. Then some groups pass through the Foundation course acquiring more specific knowledge. For Foundation BDK and Basic Oil were integrated into the English language curriculum to gradually introduce trainees to studying technical subjects in English.  This also contributed to the reduction of the length of overall training. Also the trainees were introduced team based projects (such as this newspaper) and put Wi-Fi and internet access for all trainees.  It was introduced the Shell Global Technician competence frameworks as the basis of the course structure for technical training.  This meant all TSP-3 training material was revised to bring it into line with the new Competence model.  Also management and instructors took the opportunity to try and make the material more Kashagan specific, as the plant construction was progressing and ‘First Oil’ was planned for the end of 2012. 

 

Other

For On-Job-Training of TSP-4 it is expected the huge majority of it to take place in the Kashagan field. There would be precomissioning activities going on and trainees would not have to go overseas to different plants and facilities as was the case for pervious groups.  The other big difference was that all trainees in TSP-4 were being prepared for jobs with NCPOC, which meant that On-Job-Training would be managed by NCPOC.