Oil's growth hurt by staff shortage: Statoil

By Simon Webb

LONDON (Reuters) - A shortage of specialist personnel is hampering the expansion of the oil and gas industry as it strains to meet rapidly growing global fuel demand, the head of Norwegian oil and gas producer Statoil ASA (STL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Wednesday.

Companies cannot increase investment or bring forward expansion plans as they simply do not have the manpower to do so, Statoil's CEO Helge Lund told the Reuters Global Energy Summit.

"I'm quite skeptical that the industry can run at much higher capacity than we do today," Lund said.

"We are in some sort of dilemma because a lot of people, our most experienced people, throughout the oil and gas industry are taking their pensions at the same time as all of us are making quite aggressive investment programs and project development programs."

Lund said producers were struggling to replace those leaving and to recruit even more staff to meet expansion plans.

The workforce shortage is a more long-term impediment to growth than the immediate global shortage of rigs and high prices for raw materials, which has driven up the cost of new projects, Lund said.

That is adding to the already large investment needed to start output from new oil and gas fields that tend to be in areas difficult to access, such as the Barents Sea, Lund said.

So far, Statoil has not been forced to delay or cancel plans for new projects due to lack of staff or rigs, he said.  Continued...