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The Mexican government is reaching out to universities on the other side of the globe to build the skills its energy sector needs.

As one of the world¡¯s leaders in hydrocarbon production, Mexico is now looking to close a potential skills gap ¨C and it aims to learn from Scotland¡¯s experience with the North Sea oil boom. The government¡¯s Secretariat of Energy has therefore selected two Scottish universities ¨C Robert Gordon University and the University of Aberdeen ¨C to work with it, as well as Imperial College London and the IFP School, a French graduate engineering college.

RGU, for example, will collaborate with the Mexican Petroleum Institute, the National Polytechnic Institute and the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education to develop a master¡¯s in drilling and well engineering, a master¡¯s in offshore oil and gas engineering and an MBA in oil and gas, respectively. Aberdeen will deliver a joint LLM programme on oil and gas law with the Universidad de las Am¨¦ricas Puebla, while linking up with Mexican research institutes on projects devoted to thermally assisted enhanced oil recovery, monitoring the integrity of subsea infrastructure and hydrocarbon law.

It is hoped that the lessons that Scottish universities learned in the era of North Sea oil will prove useful for longer-term capacity-building and forging tighter links between national governments, trade bodies and industry associations.

matthew.reisz@timeshighereducation.com