As oil and gas prices rise, there is a steady increase in enrollment of pipeline safety classes offered in Oklahoma City at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Transportation Safety Institute.
Mike Baldwin at the Institute located at the Mike Monroney Federal Aviation Administration center has noticed the recent surge in interest.
“It’s now up around $50 a barrel and we’ve filled up our class in November and December. Our class in January is nearly full but there’s still some space available,” he explained in a recent interview with OK Energy Today. “I think as the price per barrel rises, you have more companies that are willing to invest in training.”
The Safety Institute has been located in Oklahoma City for 45 years and Baldwin is the Senior Strategic Innovation Officer there.
“We teach them how to inspect and have a safety program to insure that their pipelines are as safe as possibly can be.”
The classes are not only aimed at pipeline safety but toward those pipeline safety personnel who have fewer than 1 years of industry experience. The January 10-13 class on liquid covers accident and other reporting, jurisdiction and rural gathering lines, construction, welding, breakout tanks, control room management, corrosion control and spill response. The three and a half day class costs $1,895.
More information is available at www.tsi.dot.gov.
Listen to Jerry Bohnen’s interview of Mike Baldwin.