About Aberdeen Drilling School is a global training company providing public courses and customised training and consultancy in well control, specialist drilling, and well engineering since 1982.

We believe in providing training and consultancy services which improve the safety and performance of individuals working in drilling and well services operations worldwide. We provide bespoke training packages, technical consultancy, and we are a market-leading provider of IWCF & IADC accredited courses in well control for drilling and well servicing operations. We also offer awareness training designed to enable non-drilling personnel to engage in effective, value-adding communication with colleagues and clients.

Our Technical Team has world-leading experience across all aspects of well control, pressure control, managed pressure operations, extended reach drilling, and high-pressure-high-temperature wells.

Our in- house technical management, graphics, teaching, and customer service teams strive to create a supportive and engaging learning atmosphere for our customers. Our full-size rig-floor drilling simulators are used to test teamwork and problem-solving skills in a realistic but safe environment.

Throughout the lifecycle of a well, from drilling through to well interventions and ultimately plug and abandonment, we can help you ensure that all personnel, supervisors and managers have access to and maintain the appropriate level of regulatory, technical, and operational knowledge central to running safe and efficient drilling.

All of our programmes are available as in-house training delivered at your preferred location, be it in our city-centre classrooms, your office building, or on the rig with one of our rig-site coaches. Many of our courses are also available as Virtual Instructor-Led Training.

Global Reach Aberdeen Drilling School and Aberdeen Drilling International have training centres in various global locations and we can operate remotely with portable simulation solutions and travelling SMEs.

Since its inception in 1982, Aberdeen Drilling School has conducted training on a global scale. Our instructors have delivered courses and consultancy in more than forty countries, ranging from the arctic of Siberia to the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

In 2018, Aberdeen Drilling School became part of the RelyOn Nutec group (formerly Falck Safety Services). This brought together the complementary technical and geographical strengths of both companies to offer our clients a greater choice of high-quality training and consultancy services in more locations than ever before.

Training courses and technical consultancy offered by Aberdeen Drilling School/Aberdeen Drilling International is continually being adapted to the changing complexity of the industry we service. Specialist courses are being delivered to a client base ranging from graduate engineers to highly skilled oil industry veterans.

Our instructors have considerable field experience, organisational skills, and many have the ability to communicate well in multiple languages. In recent years, rig-site training has been conducted for offshore rigs in Asia-Pacific (Australia, Brunei, Indonesia), the Americas (Guyana, Brazil), and Europe (UK, Norway) and onshore workshops have been run in a wide variety of locations including Alaska, Azerbaijan, Egypt, India, Iraq, Nigeria and Pakistan.
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Training Aberdeen Drilling School offers a diverse range of training courses in the drilling industry, with over 40 short courses available worldwide. The training covers various aspects, including Drilling Well Control, Well Intervention Pressure Control, Non-Technical Skills & Crew Resource Management, Essential Oilfield Knowledge, Plug & Abandonment, Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD), High-Pressure High Temperature (HPHT), Stuck Pipe Prevention, Deepwater Operations, Drilling Simulation, Well Engineering, Drilling Practices & Rig Operations, Workforce Development, and Customised Training.

The Drilling Well Control courses include IWCF and IADC accredited levels, while Well Intervention Pressure Control covers IWCF and IADC accredited courses for different levels. Non-Technical Skills & Crew Resource Management focuses on addressing human factors in the industry to reduce accidents. Essential Oilfield Knowledge offers introductory courses in various oilfield specialisms.

Other specialized courses include Plug & Abandonment, Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD), High-Pressure High Temperature (HPHT), Stuck Pipe Prevention, Deepwater Operations, Drilling Simulation, Well Engineering, and Drilling Practices & Rig Operations. Workforce Development includes progression courses for various roles, and Customised Training allows clients to tailor programs to specific needs. Aberdeen Drilling School emphasizes practical, hands-on training using simulators and real-time incident scenarios, aiming to provide operationally relevant and impactful learning experiences. Their expertise spans over 40 years, focusing on customized solutions aligned with clients' objectives and challenges.
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Simulations With our simulation solutions, you can simulate and optimise your drilling operations – improving safety, operational efficiency, and reducing costs.

World Leading Drilling Simulator Solutions Our state-of-the art simulator systems are used to practice complex operations in a safe and controlled training environment, bringing real-life operational scenarios into your training programme.

• Reduce operational risk by testing procedures and identifying potential issues in a safe environment prior to complex operations, such as MPD and AI well monitoring.
• Increase competence levels and minimise the risk of human error in critical situations by training in a safe and controlled environment
• Reduce non-productive time and substantially improve operational safety and efficiency by refining complex operational procedures before putting them into practice in the real world.

Capabilities Our full-sized simulator models, ADS3-Drill and ADS4-Drill, deliver unique functionality for drilling training with an innovative and realistic, dynamic drilling simulation experience.

  We have 5 service levels of simulation available to our clients:

• Level 1 – Providing a common simulator control system and subsurface application from our training library.
• Level 2 – Creating a replica of the client’s drilling rig.
•  Level 3 – Creating a precise simulated subsurface analogue for the client’s well application.
•  Level 4 – Creating a digital twin of the client’s drilling rig and well operation.
•  Level 5 – Linking the live data stream to our simulator from the client’s well site, which allows us to capture lessons learned and simulate the forecasted future operations.

Our simulators are located in multiple training centres across Europe, USA, the Middle East and Asia. These fixed facilities are equipped with our full-size simulators, offering delegates the opportunity to train with the best solution on the market.

Our portable drilling simulators, ADS1-Drill and ADS2-Drill, allow our clients to train their crews on-site.

You’ll find a sample of our bespoke simulation training solutions below, each one available as a downloadable case study.

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Consultancy  Professional consultancy throughout the well lifecycle Our Consultancy Team has world-leading experience across all aspects of well control, pressure control, managed pressure operations,  extended reach drilling, and high-pressure-high-temperature (HPHT) wells. Throughout the lifecycle of a well (from drilling through to well interventions and ultimately plug and abandonment, we can help you ensure that all personnel, supervisors and managers have access to and maintain the appropriate level of regulatory, technical, and operational knowledge central to running safe and efficient drilling operations.

Working in partnership with your operations teams and office support departments, we can conduct baseline audits of your corporate, operational and regulatory documentation as well as your competency management systems to ensure they meet the very highest standards.  In addition, we are trusted to provide independent advice and arbitration when operational or performance issues arise during operations.

Why you can trust our consultancy services Our Consultancy Services are offered right across the life cycle of well operations. In every case, the expertise of our Consultancy Team can be tailored to address long-standing challenges or campaign-specific issues within your operations. We will discuss your requirements and then propose a scope of work to meet your needs. We can focus on one aspect of the lifecycle or on a combination of activities across the lifecycle. And ultimately we will propose and, where appropriate, deliver solutions to enhance your operations.

Our high-risk consultancy services team has the combination of expertise and experience to ensure that the services we offer can be customised to meet your exact requirements. Operating worldwide, our team can provide professional advice where you need and when you need it. We also support our recommendations with access to the best coaching and specialist training in all operational aspects.
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Competency assessments We complete drill crew competency assessments across all different types of operations, from crewing up new teams through to assessing crew and supervisor competency on complex drilling, workover or well servicing operations. Crew competency assessments can be undertaken on-site with one of our consultants covering drills, interviews and assessments with the use of mobile simulators; or crew competency can be assessed onshore prior to operations commencing. Pre-hire and new-hire assessments are also available and supported by our technical team members who administer and review our online role-specific questionnaires, conduct CV checks and interviews, and/or assess a candidate’s knowledge and skills on our state-of-the-art simulators.

Advice and Arbitration  When things don’t go to plan during operations, our independent advice  and incident investigation services can help you establish what happened and why it happened. Our expert Consultancy Team has the operational experience and simulation capabilities to recreate operational problems and incidents in order to aid understanding and facilitate root cause analysis for each and every well scenario problem – delivering swift, robust and reliable conclusions. We will independently review all operational records, conduct interviews with rig-site personnel, review the incident in simulated real-time using wellsite data, and make informed decisions  to facilitate arbitration between the parties involve

Technical authoring We can provide technical authoring expertise to create new documentation or to write (or even rewrite) specific documentation to meet new regulatory requirements or industry standards.  We have successfully completed technical authoring projects for major international clients including corporate drilling policies and operational procedural technical documentation.

Compatibility audits With many decades of experience in rig-site operations, in supervisory and managerial roles, each member of our Consultancy Team is highly skilled in performing comprehensive rig equipment audits, against defined criteria and specifications, to ensure the compatibility of the hardware that is to be used with the operational requirements as well as local and national regulations.