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Opinion: It’s Not Business, It’s Personal

The crash in oil prices has, by many different accounts, cost America about 100,000 jobs. And that number is very likely to rise if things continue to spiral downward.

But when you just looked at that first sentence and saw the number 100,000, did you put a face to it, or did you skim over the number as if it was just another statistic?

A hundred thousand is a lot. It would fill AT&T Stadium in Dallas. It’s roughly the population of Beaumont or Abilene, and just slightly under the population of Waco.

But the thing to remember is that it isn’t just a number. It’s people. Every single one of those jobs lost represents a dad, a mom, somebody’s son or daughter, or even you or me. I don’t know many people (come to think of it, I don’t know anyone) in our industry that hasn’t been laid off at least once in their lives. In my 40+ years in the business, it’s happened to me four times. Each time carried with it the dread of having to suffer through the drive home, trying in my mind to figure out what to tell my wife, not to mention the “walk of shame” (no, not that one), when you’re carrying the vestiges of your career at Xxxx company down the hallway and out to the parking lot, while your former co-workers watch from the windows above.

But as bad as that is, at least for me, the thing that rivaled getting laid off was having to lay one of my employees off. I have had to do it many times. When I worked for a large, billion-dollar offshore services company, times got tough during the last downturn. I got a call from Human Resources telling me to send three of my employees down to HR, and they would break the news to them that they were being let go. I said “no”. If their lives were about to change drastically, that news should come from me, the person who shared their successes and failures over the years, not from someone they didn’t know in HR. When I told each person individually, we cried, we reminisced, I offered to help them get jobs at other companies, and it seemed to make it a little easier on them.

But I think things have changed in recent years. Employees find out about layoffs through the media, social or otherwise. Don’t quote me, but I’m guessing that back in February, when Weatherford announced that it was cutting 8,000 jobs, a lot of those people affected found out about it first either on the news, in the paper, or on Facebook or LinkedIn. And if you scroll through the scores of news stories that appear each time a company starts slashing, one quote almost always appears: “It’s not personal, it’s business”.

We’ve all heard that before. Companies have an obligation to their shareholders, and the bottom line, and they have to cut costs to keep the bean counters happy. And that’s understandable. The oil and gas industry has put food on my table for decades, and I understand the importance of a healthy bottom line. But in virtually all successful companies, it’s the people that make a bottom line healthy. That’s personal.

There’s a great line in the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail that Tom Hanks tells to Meg Ryan, just after his behemoth big box book conglomerate put her little bookstore out of business. He utters that infamous line, “It’s not personal, it’s business”. Meg’s reply is classic: “What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn't personal to you. But it was personal to me. It's personal to a lot of people. And what's so wrong with being personal, anyway? Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal”.

My laying people off, and my getting laid off were very personal. Many times it can lead to better things. Many times it won’t. But the most important thing to remember for HR people, executives, directors, managers, and anyone else who will ever find themselves in the situation of having to lay someone off is, it’s not business, it’s personal.

Nobody knows when (or even if) oil prices will regain their upward momentum and companies like the Weatherford and the Halliburton will be able to bring back some of the people who were casualties of this most recent round of layoffs. But if and when they do, please try to remember that 100,000 isn’t just a number. It’s you. And me.


http://oilpro.com/post/11495/opinion-its-n...tm_medium=email

Not everything is gloomy during downturn. We can go shopping a bargain asset

Spot on...On the receiving end its very personal. Every digit in the 100,000 statistic is an actual person thats works to earn a living.

Tough year to come: Murphy Oil’s John James on Malaysia’s oil market

http://www.theoilandgasyear.com/interviews...ias-oil-market/

March 20, 2015

Murphy Oil vice-president for Malaysia John James speaks to TOGW about the current dynamics in Malaysia’s exploration and production sector, including the challenges posed by deepwater development, the upstream gas market and the impact of global oil prices. US independent Murphy Oil operates Malaysia’s first deepwater project, the Kikeh field, along with seven production-sharing contracts in the country.

What are the obstacles to deepwater development in Malaysia?

Deepwater projects always face challenges, especially nowadays with the continued fall in oil prices. In the current market, capital-intensive projects such as new enhanced oil recovery projects and new deepwater developments will probably be scaled down or deferred. The biggest challenge ahead is to continue exploration and production on a restricted budget, which must include cost cutting measures.

How will the oil price slump affect Malaysia’s upstream sector?

We’ve been through this before and prices have historically rebounded. In 2009, we saw a similar drop from $150 to $40 per barrel, but it quickly improved. This time it probably won’t recover quite as quickly, but eventually it will get better.

In general, 2015 will be a challenging year, but at the end of the day this will make companies evaluate everything they do in terms of cost and priority, making them more efficient and selective.

What impact will lower oil prices have on deepwater exploration and production?

As a result of low prices, companies have to look at ways to cut costs and make their future plans economical, either through operational efficiency or through capital and operational expense reduction. This applies to everybody in the industry, not just international oil companies.

We are also seeing more consolidation in the market today. Last year, Murphy Oil sold 30 percent of its working interest in oil and gas assets in Malaysia to Indonesia’s Pertamina for $2 billion. While people may have interpreted this as a sign of our decreased investment in the country, the move was in fact intended to consolidate our assets and look at other opportunities in the region, including Malaysia.

How is upstream gas development supporting Malaysia’s position as a key LNG exporter globally?

In Sarawak we developed an infrastructure offshore, near the Malaysia LNG facilities, to provide feed gas to the Malaysia LNG plant in Bintulu. As a result of offshore gas development, there is sufficient feed gas for the continued expansion of MLNG.

Another important development that will contribute to Malaysia’s status as a key LNG exporter is two floating LNG projects. The first, PFLNG-1, was commissioned for the Kanowit gasfield off the coast of Sarawak, and will be the first floating LNG facility in operation anywhere in the world. Petronas is developing the second facility, PFLNG-2 in block H, a deepwater block offshore Sabah in which Murphy is operator and holds a 56 percent stake. Murphy will be providing Petronas with the gas that will be processed at the floating LNG facility.

Are tiebacks from existing fields supporting production from otherwise stranded assets?

By using existing infrastructure, economies of scale come into play, and this is what makes this strategy so attractive to oil companies working both onshore and offshore. Operators in Malaysia have been able to successfully bring new discoveries on stream using existing infrastructure. To illustrate this point, at the Siakap North and Petai fields, a subsea tieback allows production to flow to the Kikeh floating production, storage offshore vessel, stationed at the Kikeh deepwater field.

Previously, Murphy worked with partners to complete a two-well tieback that provided early production from the Gumusut-Kakap field to the Kikeh as part of a joint venture with Shell, US-headquartered ConocoPhillips and Petronas. Tiebacks support stranded assets and can also make use of the spare capacity at floating production systems, before full field development is achieved, and a floating production system comes on line, and this is what happened at Gumusut-Kakap.

Working on fields near your existing production is always easier. We have used this development strategy in our shallow-water projects off the coast of Sarawak at the West Patricia, on blocks SK309 and 311.

About the company: Murphy Oil entered Malaysia in 1999 to work on the West Patricia field off the coast of Sarawak. In 2007, the company began production at Malaysia’s first deepwater development, the Kikeh field. Even after the 2014 sale of 30 percent of the company’s working interest to Indonesia national oil company Pertamina, Malaysia remains one of Murphy Oil’s key markets, making up 40 percent of its net production in 2013. The company holds PSCs in seven offshore blocks in Malaysia, including blocks K, H, SK 309, SK 311 and SK 314A.

For more Malaysia features and news, click here

I personally blame Saudi Arabia and private fracking oil producer at USA, and also over production capacity by Russia too.

Currently the market is flooded with lotsa source of cheap oil due to overproduction by non OPEC members. It will takes some time to recover and looks like this downturn will be the worst one.

Embrace for more shitstorm ahead.

You may PM/email me your CV. I can help you to secure jobs in Downstream since you are an experienced grease monkey on Upstream before right? Have you secure a new job lately?

The keyword in your sentences is an INTERN. If you ask about working condition and such... I dont want to live in this world anymore liao...

They are good small EPC subcon for Rockwool installation, if you want to built a LQ offshore or small LQ like a cabin for Topside you gonna use Rockwool. Besides, they did get a small subcontract job for DD and EPC of process skid - upstream and downstream project.

Kalau kau tanya pasal intern allowance aku libas punggung kau. I know the benefactor behind SS Innovations personally, he is my BFF lulz.

I think many people here misunderstand why companies hire intern.

dont know,dont want to know or dont care?

Since I believe this reply is quite harsh in nature so I will reply to you in the same manner just so you know where you stand.

People are not slaves unless you want to be one.

Everyone is hired in a company (i mean proper for profit company-yes I am a capitalist) to serve a purpose often directly beneficial to the company either through financial or resource gain. NO company hires intern just to teach them.......name me one if I am mistaken I can easily disapprove by asking you to review their tax filing.

1. Malaysia gives companies tax exemptions for structured internship programs (main reason why most companies start internship programs)

2. Companies need people to do the menial job(eg: data entry) which mat-senior yang ego sangat biasa tak nak buat.......very common, I think this is no.1 reason in Malaysia

3. Reduce risk of hiring a wrong person (interns who will go on to become employees) or actually to review talented potentials.

4. Strained department budget or poor profit margins hence unable to hire on a fulltime basis.

and others.

So my advice is don't devalue yourself too much because it will show the lack of confidence. Nanti industry complain pulak fresh grad semua takde confidence.

Eh last time they brought high-tech machinery from Germany. I believe by now the machinery should be in working condition, right?

This post has been edited by BillySteel: Mar 20 2015, 11:59 PM

hoho kaler merah kelabu asap...(due to mandi dgn pipe dope n mud )

fuu murphy...saya berterima kasih masuk kan well bonus saya. walau pon sikit saya syukur. harap dapat kerjasama lagi di well2 akan datang en.murphy.

indeed tuan..benefited people/company with good cash in hand! we probably will hear some M&A soon...

i've been a part of management team that need to let go some crews due to no rig contract. i found it very hard to do it but it is what it is...we did it very simple way but in professional manners.

i will meet sarjan tomorrow night..he's here for rig visit...

Sheeba Jennet
HR Manager at Petrofac

Contracts Manager vacancy at Petrofac, Sharjah! Candidate must be degree qualified with minimum of 15 years related experience, must have led a team of contracting and procurement personnel, should have executed at least three major Oil & Gas Projects with a value of more than US$ 1000 million. Only candidates who meet the requirement & ready to join by 1st May 2015, may send their CVs to sheeba.jennet@petrofac.com

Norsuhaila Nudin
Senior Consultant at Perfect Data Sdn Bhd

Looking for : HSE Officer (senior executive) - based in Pengerang, Johor - a certified OH&S Officer (green book holder) - relevant tertiary education & min 5 years practical experience in manufacturing environment with ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001 management systems would be a distinct advantage - good command of English & bahasa & knowledge of computer - interested candidates kindly email your CV in WORD FORMAT together with current photo, current salary + benefits, expected salary & notice period to mn.norsuhaila@perfectdata.com.my

OPEC Faces $750bn Losses From Market Share Strategy

posted 4 days ago

http://oilpro.com/announcement/713/opec-fa...-share-strategy

ooo trs eh?

untung la ada bonus....kami ni masih menaruh harapan

ni bukan bonus aku lol. naseb ja pi rig murphy dapat my comp bg bonus ke tdk this year end ke tdk x tahu.

Okay my following request might be funny. Whoever deal with dump truck business around Kuantan and Kerteh area please let me know ASAP. Do PM or email me at mohdyakup[at]gmail.com

Urgent due to current need of my project. The request just came from my project team.

Bro yakup, do you know any vacancies for Project or Process Engineer with 7 yrs exp downstream?