The relevance of the study is due to the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standards to information technology skills of educational process participants, changing the strategy of personnel training for high-tech industries, which allows to increase the level of professional competence while getting higher education. The aim of the study is substantiating and testing the innovative approach to teaching major courses in training the professional personnel for the oil and gas industry in the context of digitalization of economy. The peculiarity of the suggested approach is activating practice-oriented training based on using the possibility of digitalizing some components of industrial processes in the university educational process. The example given in the article includes simulating a real industry-specific task, aimed at teaching students as specialists possessing tools for checking hypotheses in the operation of a chemical and technological system, knowing peculiarities of data processing in the oil and gas industry. The suggested approach enriches the traditional methods of teaching by using modern information technologies and advantages of the virtual approach in simulating real industrial processes.