St1 Refinery improves competency management with Rego

Images: ©St1 Refinery

St1 Refinery develops and refines liquid fuels in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company has a processing capacity of 30 million barrels of crude oil per year – which is 11,500 tonnes per day. This equals approximately 25% of Sweden’s total oil product demand. The refinery also produces sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and renewable diesel (HVO).

To better manage and develop the company’s competency assets, St1 Refinery adopted the Rego HSEQ software for competency and shift management in 2024. The process involved an analysis of the current state of competency and drawing a roadmap of development steps and the target state. St1 Refinery’s Head of Training Svante Sjölander finds Rego to be beneficial in improving both the transparency and stability of competency management.

Systematic competency management is an investment in the staff

Part of St1 Nordic Oy, St1 Refinery AB in Gothenburg, Sweden employs more than 200 oil industry experts in production and facility maintenance. Its main products are petrol, sulphur-free MK-1 diesel and other middle distillates. St1 Refinery is one of the world’s most energy efficient oil refineries and the first refinery in Europe to acquire the environmental certification according to ISO 14001:2015.

In addition to environmental aspects, the company invests in its staff and competency. Adopting Rego has been an important step in the process.

“Competency management is an absolute necessity for us. It allows us to ensure the safety of our operations, in addition to bringing environmental and economic benefits,” Sjölander says.

St1 Refinery’s competency management covers a number of formal and informal competency requirements. When a new operator starts work, the company needs to have a structured onboarding and training plan for at least 2.5 years ahead. This way, the operator knows what is expected of them, what requirements they have to meet and what training they have to undergo.

Above all, it is important to have a joint plan to ensure that employees are able to succeed in their demanding work. This also allows them to be trained as effectively as possible.

“There are easily 10-15 competency areas that each operator needs to cover – from firefighting and gas testing to work permits. Much of this education is now carried out in Rego,” Sjölander says.

Rego gives structure, speed and transparency

In 2024, St1 Refinery adopted the Rego HSEQ software to better manage its overall competencies and daily shift planning. There was a risk of competence gaps due to many operators having retired and the fact that new operators did not stay as long as previously.

“We needed a renewed way to educate our operators. We wanted to speed up the learning curve and improve the transparency of our requirements and training.”

ST1 Refinery wanted a system that would allow everyone from leadership management down to operators to see the education level and all the competencies needed at both shift team and individual operator level. This way, it would be possible to ensure the staff’s required and uniform level of education and competencies to run the complex refinery.

“Rego has given us – our operators, shift managers, the competence department, our operating department manager and the Refinery leadership team – a very good tool to educate operators via a structured path. It is an easy way to monitor our operators’ competencies and education. It also creates visibility for possible future competence gaps and helps our shift managers to react in advance so that we don’t end up with shifts that have too low education and competencies,” Sjölander says.

Experienced consultancy brings added value

St1 Refinery had invested in competency management in many ways even before Rego, but what the specialised software now adds is structure and transparency. This allows management and supervisors as well as employees themselves to stay up to date on the requirements and the status of the various competencies needed at the refinery.

Qreform’s Executive Consultant Tommi Leppänen has led the collaboration on the service provider’s side. He says that St1 Refinery had clearly invested in competency management before but that they had realised things could also be done in a more structured and efficient way. They were ready to further develop the process and solution together with an open mind.

”St1 Refinery has been willing to develop and to openly listen and use our expertise in competency management. They saw the benefits of systematic competency management and have been willing to work towards it. This makes them an ideal organisation to work with, Leppänen says.

St1 Refinery opted for Rego HSEQ due to good word from within the industry. Currently, well over a hundred people use the system at the refinery.

“Overall, our shift managers have been very pleased with the system and we have also got positive feedback from operators. After using the software for a while, we now have a much better and more transparent view over shift education and competencies,” Sjölander says.

As for cooperation with Qreform in general, Sjölander has been content. In addition to the Rego software itself, the consultancy provided by Qreform has proven helpful.

“The consultancy has been very useful and it has surely shortened our software implementation time. The cooperation has been very good, and Qreform has responded and taken action very fast every time we’ve asked,” Sjölander concludes.