| Abstract |
Qualified technicians with high school (SMK/SMU-IPA) background are the spearheads in the geothermal business in all phases including exploration, development and production operation. Their role and responsibility are to collect good field data, which subsequently will have to be checked and validated by their supervisors for Quality Control. It is obvious that successes in the development and daily operation cannot be achieved without contributions from those qualified technicians. Unfortunately, training program for preparing such qualified technicians receives less attention or is not discussed much in seminar – discussion is mostly for college-graduate level. The fact the need of such qualified technicians at each geothermal field of 55 MW size is about 300% higher compared to that of college educated professionals. Estimate of the number of qualified technicians in the next 5 years ranges in the 1,000, to fill positions available with the 19 new green field IUP companies and 5 developments of brown fields which still have the potential of about 3,250 MW. Taking advantage of hiring available local technicians is a good decision since it may develop a mutually beneficial to both the company and local community. Unfortunately, most of the local technicians are not familiar with geothermal activity, hence, they need to be educated and trained with financially supported by the developer or the company that will operate the geothermal field. This education can be viewed as Corporate Social Responsibility of the company that obviously will be appreciated and supported by the local community who feel that the company has participated in developing their area. The success and years of experience at Akamigas Cepu in preparing programmed training of oil and gas technicians for government or industries, serve as good examples. Because the demand for qualified technicians is so large and urgent ( more than 200 annually), the training should not be done at Akamigas Cepu alone, but be made available also at polytechnics associated with several Universities in provinces in Java and other islands. To have a common perception, such as in preparing syllabus, management, training infrastructures emphasizing more on practical than theoretical aspect, all candidates of the polytechnic instructors must receive training/coaching at Akamigas Cepu prior to their assignments. Akamigas Cepu, for its best expertise, should provide training in drilling, production operation and reservoir engineering. As for training in exploration it would be best to model on the Pusdiklat Geologi Bandung and training for operational and maintenance of power generation PLTP at Pusdiklat PLN (Persero).. |