BP has opened a new $20 million (£13.9 million) training and development facility in Louisiana to secure more jobs for Americans looking to work in the oil and gas industry.

The Daily Comet reports that Mary Landrieu, the Democrat senator for Louisiana, said that the new Houma Operations Learning Center would enable the state to ensure that the rewards of the offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico were reaped by local citizens.

Richard Morrison, BP's vice president of production in the region, added that the centre would meet the growing demand for highly specialised offshore crews that could carry out increasingly intricate exploration and production engineering work.

"We can no longer rely on hunches, intuition, to push the limits of exploration and production. The Gulf of Mexico's energy future requires a well-trained, competent, efficient workforce," he said.

The lynchpin of BP's operations in the region is the Thunder Horse platform, a leading-edge facility designed to process up to 250,000 barrels of crude per day fed from a network of 25 subsea wells.

It is the largest production facility in the Mexican Gulf.

5th Global Education and Training event for Oil and Gas: Exploration and Production