For the next 10 years, managers working in the Chinese gas industry are likely to attend a Perth-based executive education program to learn about the global gas industry from management, business and financial perspectives.
Business schools at the University of Western Australia and Curtin University are joint providers of courses which will be run at the new Australian Centre for Natural Gas Management, located at Curtin’s business school in the city.
Funding for the program was made possible under the Australia China National Gas Technology Partnership fund, a by-product of the $25 billion liquid natural gas sale to China in 2002.
The education program, which has been developed to meet the specific needs of the Chinese gas industry, includes: English language training; advanced management education; specialist training in the gas industry, including competition policy; analysis of production at the NW Shelf; and visits to pipeline operators, distributors, major industry users and regulators in WA, Victoria and Canberra.
It will be a seven-month program and trainees will receive a joint UWA/Curtin Executive Management Certificate (Gas).
Director of the UWA Institute for International Development and UWA project manager Professor Paige Porter said the first eight Chinese managers started the course earlier this month and will be here until November.
The project manager at Curtin is Cisca Spencer, who is also coordinating the course.
“The eight include senior managers from the LNG receiving terminal now being built in Guandong Province, senior managers from power generating companies and officials responsible for energy policy from the government,” she said.
“In addition, two universities in Guangzhou are also responsible for training that will take place inside China - Zhongshan University and South China University of Technology.
“That training will be larger in scale and will have substantial technical components as well as management education.”
The chair of the Australian Centre for Natural Gas Management board is Arthur Dickson, who left Shell at the end of April, after 40 years with the company. He was the former president of Australia LNG and was seconded by ChevronTexaco for a senior adviser role for the Guandong project.
