O&G is an industry that really values your communication skills as you will need to work in a multi-disciplinary team. If you are a geologist, you will work with Drlling, Petrophysics etc to get your data, your interpretation of that data (your structural maps, your faults, your interpretation of where the good reservoir is located) will be used by the reservoir engineer to plan their wells, to do their business plans etc. You will need to defend your interpretation, you will need to convince your peers and superiors that the well which will cost USD10 million minimum will be a good well etc.

Networking (I think I've said this soooooo many times in this thread) is extremely important as in this industry technology is king and if there is a vendor out there who has a better technology that can save your asset team money, you need to know how to contact that vendor. The SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) are one of the most respected and (a must joined society even for geologists) active society in the O&G industry. Check-out their websites and join if you can.

One of the first boss I had when I joined the industry had this to say ... your university degrees sets you up for the interview but networking in this industry sets you up for your career.

Experience counts. In this industry as I mentioned before, your salary or your value to the industry increases in 5's. 5 year experience, you are valuable to outside companies (vendors etc), 10 years experience, you value increase 2 fold as you can now demand 10K USD minimum from Overseas Operators, 15 years experience, your value jumps again and once you reach 20 years, you've got mojo ... headhunters will be calling you everyday and I know of a close friend who is currently negotiating a package worth a minimum of USD600K a year (he's aiming for USD700k) with a minimum contract of 2 years (he's aiming for 4 years). That's close to 9 million ringgit for a 4 year contract.

The industry has a very long term view. It takes at least 5-6 years to develop a field that has just been discovered (i.e. if you discover the field in 2011, the first oil/gas will only be produced in 2016/2017 or maybe longer) so if you are a fresh grad, you need to have a long term view of your career as well. I'll be in my 15th year in May next year (it'll be 15 years in my CV once 2012 comes over anyway ....), I'll be happy with 6 million for a 4 year contract.

There is a big project currently being undertaken by one of the biggest oil company in Malaysia. They require a lot of experienced technical personnel and the manpower cost has shot up drastically. A good friend of mine whose company handles a lot of manpower sourcing said that the price for each new manpower contract has doubled in the last 5 years. The industry is facing severe shortage of technical personnel and with 100/barrel oil, even paying a good technical personnel USD60K per month is reasonable. His company won a couple of manpower contract before worth RM200 million for 3 years so now he says the same contract would cost the operators RM400 million.

You'd be surprised to know that O&G operators value stability more than counting pennies. The opportunity cost of not having the right personnel during a development campaign is more expensive than the manpower contract.

As for your question about sales engineer vs. sales executive, I'm not sure as I'm a technical person but I have dealt with them before, I would day that the sales engineer are the one with some engineering background that goes to the client with a proposed technology or design, the person will need to know the science/engineering behind the product he/she sells while the sales executive are the one who decides on the cost/price and the discount to be given and handle all the contracts

One of my best friend is a sales executive. He makes tons of money from the commission and his main virtue, he has a lot of network, he knows almost everybody in the industry and he is not shy in asking me for technical questions if that will improve his sales pitch. You need this kind of person as well, he is the enabler. He left his previous company to join another company and his ex-company is suffering as the company now has "no face" to represent them. The new company keeps getting contract after contract because they've dealt with my friend before, they know that he delivers in whatever he promised (or his team will).

What is the pay for this GEES program? What is GEES program anyway?

It is narrow but as long as you network around and get some knowledge of how your metering data is used (which is bloody important by the way), you'd be able to boraden your horizon and go far.

Excellent attitude. Gain as much experience as possible and network network network. PGCE (Petroleum Geology Conference & Exhibition) is coming up soon and this is a big one so go visit and network around. Lot's of freebies as usual.

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Added on January 10, 2012, 12:52 pmYour cousin is going into a good prospect. I'm a petroleum geologist and as ICDeadpeople mentioned, it's one of the highest paid jobs in the industry, comparable with petroleum engineers etc etc.

Be prepared to drown yourself in the ins and out of rocks & minerals and make super sure that he knows the fundamentals of structural mapping. He/she will do just fine.

This post has been edited by azraeil: Jan 10 2012, 12:52 PM

I have no idea what is the difference between M.Engineering vs MSc.Engineering but if you have the opportunity, go for it. Some company do require you have a post graduate degree or some have more preference for post-graduate degree holders.

Most people in the industry though will go in as a fresh graduate then gain a couple of years of industry experience, and then decide if they want to do post grad degree ...

See, something new I learned today

I don't have a masters degree by the way .... just a lowly BSc

Naaahh .... I'm done with studying (for a Master's degree or PhD I mean). Once you have 15 years experience, employers do not look at whether you have a Masters or PhD degree anymore.

Most likely not. If it's a non-technical such as for Geology/Reservoir engineering, the interview session will probably be the same as any other companies.

Herriot Watt is a premiere Petroleum Engineerig school. A lot of Petronas staff got their Masters/PhD from HW. If you can get Ken Sorbie (I think that's his name) as one of your professor, you will be doing great too.

Not really, but if HW does offer distance learning then I would suspect that the quality is the same as they will want to maintain their reputation.

Some of the reservoir engineers in SLB also support their software side (ECLIPSE and Petrel RE)

Subsurface degree (PE/RE/Geology/Geoscience) are offered in selected universities only. The main RE/PE students locally comes from UTM. There is also a reason why people look at UTM as the first cut-off (in terms of selecting for interviews I mean), A LOT of seniors in the O&G industry came from UTM so there is a strong Alumni bias as well. UTM started their PE/RE program a long time ago and most seniors/managers would have come from UTM or knows someone who graduated from UTM.

Same thing for Geology degree from UM/UKM/USM.

Yes very good. Quite an established Operator as well in Malaysia. Most of their blocks are in the MTJDA area (Thailand-Malaysia border).

It will be difficult for you to get an internship in another country.

This thread is more than 2600 post, should be v3 already.

Petroleum Engineering. The subsea people if they are installing some subsea equipment will need to know the pressure of the reservoir, the type of hydrocarbons that are being produce etc etc ... how much gas is in the oil, is there any water coming up in the system etc

Petrophysicist are involved in a lot of operational work. If you have a well drilling, be prepared to come to the office at 2AM in the morning when the logs come in. During the initial phase (first 2-3 years) you will be exposed to the operational side of things (going to the platform and observing the drilling and logging operation). You will also need to know about what the drillers do, what kind of mud they are using and what kind of tool they are using as all these will affect the logging data.

A lot of my friends are petrophysicist and they are extremely in demand. If the company is doing data review of potential blocks etc, then the team they sent will definitely involve a PP.

Once you reached 5 years, then you're marketable to a lot of companies (not necessarily the big operators) but basically you will start having options. Once you get to 7 years (late 20's early 30's) then some big overseas operators will start looking at you with interest. You will get some opportunity of being an expats in the middle east/Australia etc. Once you break 10 years, you are extremely marketable. Once you reached 15, people call you (headhunters etc) and you basically just need to tell them what you want in terms of Salary and Benefits

But you cannot coast when you are trying to get experience. Get involved in as many projects as you can handle during the first 5 years. Tell your boss that you are willing to take difficult projects and you will deliver and you should be able to get the experience you need.

If you're in drilling and you're a drilling engineer, then after 3-4 years you're already marketable.

Drilling is a hot commodity and since you are a petroleum engineer, you should be able to get into drilling without any issues. As a petroleum engineer you have a lot of options. You can be

1. Production or Completion Engineer - also in demand
2. Surveillance Engineer
3. Reservoir engineer - just below drilling engineer in terms of demand
4. Simulation engineer - a specialized branch of reservoir engineering and considered the prince
& kings of reservoir engineering - so this is also in extremely high demand.

I always tell my little brothers to go for petroleum engineering instead of geology because the option for them is much wider.

RE/PE are also usually the one who leads the team and therefore are more visible to managent and usually given the upper management posts in big operators.