I am relating to you the situation 5 years ago, I know they have changed the salary scheme for technical professionals. The starting pay for fresh grads has increased to 4K now. When I joined the company, it was RM2050 per month, so that's doubled after 15 years. They also implemented during my last 2 years there the technical allowance for specific skill groups such as SKG9, SKG10 (G&G and Petroleum Engineering) where you get a range of allowances for your technical skills (900 for Senior Execs, 1300 for Staff and 2500 for principal etc etc)

When Dato' Shamsul came on-board 2 years ago, he drastically changed the remuneration scheme, those in the technical ladder or in certain critical skill groups are got a 30% pay raise and (I'm not sure about this), a bump in bonuses and skill allowances (though I've heard that have been removed ... not too sure).

My colleague who is at the same skill level as me is earning close to 17K a month now so that was close to 2.5 times the salary when I left 5 years ago so they have changed a lot nowadays.

They have even allowed for ex-Petronas to return on a contract basis (3 years contract IIANM) and the salary is upwards of 30K and above per month. The previous CEO had some sort of vendetta against ex-staff where there is an unwritten rule where any subsidiary is NOT ALLOWED to hire ex-staff (this must be against the labor law but it was done nonetheless). That unwritten rule has been abolished as per the new CEO.

True. And even if ONG is sunsetting, there is still other unconventional resource that currently picking up rapidly, like coal bed methane and shale gas. So its always opportunity out there. Just you need to be in the right discipline.
Even right now im working in cbm field for client in Australia. A bit different but quite interesting.

I wouldn't say that. Easy oil is getting harder and harder to find and demand for oil is extremely high right now so that's another reason why the price has quadrupled in the last 6-7 years. I remembered 7 years ago when oil price was trading in the 25 USD range and 13 years ago it was trading at USD10 range. A lot of those skill engineers are retiring so getting skilled people is becoming harder thus due to supply and demand, these skilled people are getting paid higher and higher.

When I was in a task force in Petronas, you can see the almost 1-1 correlation with regards to the price of oil and the number of attrition in the skilled personnel that we had. By the time it was 2006, Petronas had lost a total of 1500 skilled personnel to the Middle East/Europe/Other IOC oil companies

Now the Middle East companies re concentrating on Petrochemicals and I know of an entire department (from the managers downwards) that was poached. It was a Cut & Paste operation ... the entire department became the new department in the new company but triple the pay ....

Really? Well I might know you also than. Can give me a clue where are you working at?

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Added on October 10, 2011, 1:46 am
7 years I know of but not 5. I have a couple of ex Petronas with 7 years that joined my company. Then again, they are really excellent candidates (both of them worked under me )

There are several reasons why people leave. Supply and demand in the first place (so there is a pull factor) where the salary on the side is insanely high not to mentioned that they cover the education for your children (let's not get started on the state of our education system). There's the push factor as well, when I was in Petronas, the salary was pathetic. I was one of the first person in Petronas building a 3D geological model (heck even the book published by Petronas, the Petroleum Geology of Malaysia has my model as the front cover) but I have no savings, 2 small kids and an HR that refuses to accept the fact that they were paying peanuts while paying 10 times the amount for expats who does nothing but TALK. They keep saying that our salary was on-par with TNB, Telekom etc (funny how they don't compare even with ExxonMobil Malaysia). After a while, people got sick for being taken for granted by the company. In 1998, it was unheard of if Petronas people leaves for a contractor or operators, by 2005, it was a flood (me included). I remembered one HR GM sayign that if one leaves, there are 10 people who can replace him/her. When I left, they had to hire 3 expats to do what I was doing .... clever company don't you think.

Now, as mentioned by some other posters, Petronas has realised their folly (penny wise, pound stupid foolish) and they have change the remuneration scheme. Tier 1 personnel (Geology/Reservoir Engineers/Drilling Engineers) are on a different remuneration scale (just like what I recommended in the Corporate Strategic Study which was tossed by the then CEO) and they are doing much better, I'm told that some 7-10 years experience people are still leaving the company and that's mostly due to the push factor I guess (slave driver of a boss etc etc)

Anyway, I cherished my time in Petronas, it was a place where I was able to networked and gain tremendous amount of experience which allowed me in the end to get the job that I am doing now.

Ha ha... thanks! I was called to be interviewed as geologist, but during interview I told them Im a geomodeller. So they interviewed me as geomodeller instead.
Met many petronas staff during this recruitment drive. And many of them also successful. So petronas will loose abunch of good guys again.
But I have to say, the adco payscale is not that good. I reject their offer twice before they gave me a number that I can consider.

Regret for not choosing geology..