Skip to footer

Drilling for (virtual) oil in industry's new online game

An energy and shipping company has developed an online video game to help attract young people to jobs in the oil and gas industry. Players locate and drill into deep oil reserves situated in extreme environments, which vary from the cold, dangerous North Sea, to the blazing heat of the Qatari dessert.

|
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters/File
A man works on the rig of an oil drilling pump site in McKenzie County outside of Williston, N.D. Players of a new online game are faced with challenges that real energy companies must deal with in reality.
  • By Charles Kennedy Guest blogger

Oil and gas companies have begun to struggle to grow due to their inability to find skilled workers; and tactics such as offering large bonuses and building high-tech training facilities, have not helped.

Maersk Group, the giant energy and shipping company, is trying a new technique to train and encourage new work staff; it is offering a video game called “Quest for Oil: A Sub Surface Gaming Experience.”

In the game the player must make similar decisions to an oil executive in the real world. He must locate and drill into deep oil reserves situated in extreme environments, which vary from the cold, dangerous North Sea, to the blazing heat of the Qatari dessert. Gamers must explore the rocks, use 3D seismic maps, secure licenses, use realistic advice from a team of advisors, and reach production targets faster than their opponents. (Related article: NRG Lures Shareholders with Renewable IPO)

The true aim of the game? The players who earn the highest scores could land a job at Maersk! 

The games website states that players play for the “potential for a world-class career within Maersk Group.” Explaining that, “exciting opportunities for passionate and talented individuals exist in in more than 140 countries. Whether in oil and gas, transport, offshore, or onshore, there are hundreds of careers all over the world.”

Gamers will be faced with challenges that real energy companies such as Maersk must deal with in reality. Strategies must be formulated to assess rock permeability, map the best route to crude deposits, and then after using precise drilling, they must determine the levels of CO2 and water to inject into the well to force the oil to the surface.
The game is free to download from here.

Original source: http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/New-Oil-Exploration-Video-Game-could-Land-you-a-Job-at-Maersk-Group.html

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Drilling for (virtual) oil in industry's new online game
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0617/Drilling-for-virtual-oil-in-industry-s-new-online-game
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe