Been working for more than 10 yrs before I went freelance.

Which college are u from?
Hehe...I think u never have that experience of stressing out for assignment and exam to get A in your life...
I'm not comparing Public Uni, for my Uni, if u don do well in your asg, u will definitely get C and below...

Although u do well in asg and u think u know answering all the qn in final, it does not mean u can get A.
It depends on how many minor mistakes you made in your calculations for your final.

Hav u had that experience of doing asg from early morning of 6 till midnight 1 or even 3 (worse case: never sleep) for  consecutive weeks (non-stop)? I bet you never hav tat experience even during your form 6. ( if you hav tat, i think you can understand how hard v survive here.)

that is the culture of studying in USM chemE...sigh...
If you don complete asg perfectly, u will for sure get B and below...

FYI, we are always called study freak in our campus by other schools...wat to do? the policy of USM chemE...

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Added on February 11, 2009, 12:44 am

Mott MacDonald has a variety of services including OnG consultancy firm...
they hav done a few mega porjects in Malaysia.
For instances, the KL monorail is designed by them..,
The Johor, Asia petroleum hub (that will b the largest petroleum hub in Asia [if not mistaken]) is under construction in Johor asia [ iskandar development project]
SMART project for the traffic.

http://www.mottmac.com/projects/?id=7575

They are more like FEED, EPC designing company..the fields they involved are rather wide.

I think the 2 employees you saw should b engineers working on some projects for offshore or related projects.

Guys what do you think about this?
1) Subsea Engineer with one of the biggest Operators around. Based in Miri. Salary about 2x more than Option 2 below. Less travelling, more office based.
2) Completion Engineer with one of the Big 4 service companies. Based in KL. More travelling around the region due to hands-on nature of the work.

Which one would you choose? Cheers.

6 to 9k? Don't you think its rather small?

it's not a wise decision to jump a boat now during this recession. better stay with present company at least until mid 2010.
btw, i won't work 4 shell ever even if they can pay me a lot.

hmm, what make you say that for shell?

Well, Im not a project engineer so I cant say how much. But if you are an engineer in O&G sector and you've been offered that kind of salary as an expart which is basically almost similar to a fresh graduate geologist with master in australia, than I think its rather small.

Well honestly, we would be better off if the offer giver provides us with more information.

But MYR 9k = AUS 3.7k. Not too much for project engineer with some experience. This basic salary is from my own personal experience in the upstream OnG industry.

So far I've never seen or met 'experienced' Project Engineer in my company getting anything less than RM12-15k /month. That's r local permanent staff, local but outsourced contractually on project basis wud of coz gets more. Expat?? ...  no need to mention. They r responsible anything from BFD, conceptualization, FEED, etc until... to the commissioning and handing over, regardless upstream or downstream.  Yeah, wud tend to agree 6-9k is a bit on the low side, at least compared to my company.

Well perhaps you can share with me the scope of downstream project engineers.    I am too always willing to learn more about the industry. My experience with downstream is my friend's dad who is a mobil supply chain guy. 

@TS: Would be better if you could give more details of the offer.

(iDk @ Mar 15 2009, 06:49 AM)
Your company is main con, sub-con or owner side? and the most important question, is your company located in Malaysia? and same as the project engineer position in malaysia? And how long was it ago?

Operator, or going by ur definition, owner. Miri. Current going rate.


Added on March 15, 2009, 7:03 am

Long story short, all depends on which side you are at, project engineer act as bridge in between people (solve the problem from design stage all the way to site, or one leg kick). By right, most of the things can be done from office, and need not to go site, they have no business at site. So project engineer actually consider is a safe, steady, city live job.

At least that is for me who look at it from sub-con side. Not sure about main con, fabricator, or owner side. Again by right everything is possible to be done from office, and no need to relocate to some hell hole site.
How about you? Mind share some of your upstream job scope and experience? icon_question.gif I am too always willing to learn more about the industry.

It should be almost similar regardless of the project scale, office job, scoping and spec'ing the equipments etc. Only go to site during, installation, commissioning and SAT.

And what makes you think the 6-9k is clean cut money as you mentioned? I always see offers that give you the gross package, unless it stated otherwise or you yourself demand it to be net during negotiation.
And i dont think its right to say that office job pay is way less than offshore job. Alot off this desk job pays well too. Its the amount of responsibility and  task that define the pay package, not just the work environment alone.


So Do I. And for a company who looks for project engineer from other country, Im pretty sure they are looking for someone with decent experience, not a fresh-grade that they need to teach.
Again, I wouldnt really know as Im not a project engineer. It just I happen that I knew some of them during some projects that i involved with.

Lets just say that i have a decent 'personal experience'.
Anyway, offshore, onshore, site, office, doesnt matter. All are trying to earn decent living.

There's a very small difference paywise working on or offshore, the offshore allowance. The amount is different from 1 company to another, and that depends on what's the rotation, 2 and 2, 3 and 1, 4 and 2, etc.. Hell, there's so much permutation in that. At the end of the day, its up to personal preferences, some wud overlook the allowance to stay at base day in day out, some wud take the money and go offshore... Those who r shore-based but yet required to go to site as and when required, well the difference is negligible as compared to those who stay put permanently at base.

1 thing tho, the community/circle (whateva u wanna call it) of OnG in Malaysia is very small, regardless whether u r owner, main con, sub con, everybody tends to know everybody.. so, if u play ur game well, the possibilities r endless.

@IDK: I dunno what to say. You have worked for Petronas before as field engineer. I assume its on offshore rotation duty. You would know what upstream means...

Upstream: Exploration, drilling and completions, production/process (basically getting the oil out from ground to land)

Downstream: Service stations, motor oil, industry petrochem etc. (letting products reach the masses)

Project engineers are office based but do not confuse it being 'downstream'. And they can be richer than the company man in cases.

The benefits of being offshore is the hazard pay + you don't spend shit offshore. If your basic can be more than his basic + hazard, there you go (as ICDeadPeople is trying to say) office guys can earn more. As with depster666's comment on his company, office guys paycheck quite high.

My personal experience? The office guy (project engineer) my team teleconference with every morning earns more than the company man here. Yes, wonders of satellite comm.

Last I heard you left P3t already. Are you still in OnG or other industry?

That exactly what im trying to say. Simply put, why managers get high pay? Because they have to make decision. And who do you think making all these decisions about where to drill, what kind of completion to use, how many wells to optimize production, what kind of production forecast the company should aware after certain period of time? The deskjob people, G&Gs, REs, PTech, petrophysicist.
I have work with service industry, operator and consultation. So I can safely say that these people behind desk do earn alot.
I never say offshore job earn shit. All I want to do is explaining/correcting IDK perception that working behind desk in O&G earn nothing compared to people who work in offshore. Somehow he kind of offended when i said people doing desk job can earn comparable with people in offshore. Im pretty sure IDK is experience enough to talk about offshore part, but I dont think he knows the whole thing about upstream.
And IDK, if you really believe that these desk-sitters earn shit, well, I cant say anything. Hope you are matured enough to listen to other people experience and not limiting your view only to the offshore side of the industry.
As for me, I'll settle with my 'shitty money' desk job as you describe.....

prj eng?? i think ur job scope is chase dwg from design dept

u can try. If u can, do tell me the hotspot, lol. Though I think he meant for u to call taxi or someone to pick u up once u come back from offshore. Also due to salt sea breeze and potential drop of thousand ringgit iphone down into the deep blue, it would be advisable to keep it onshore or in the offshore LQ.

Camera restriction is mainly due to flashes which may cause explosion (thus flash disabled is a must) if there's gas leak. But most time it's to prevent the shutdown due to sensors. U definitely do not want to cost Shell millions just cause u wanna simply take photo for memory sake. If they catch you, they will definitely report you, and u do not want that.