The problem is the position is a big vague. I have a friend who is a senior planner and his job is basically to analyse the production rate and to compile from all relevant department all the necessary information for him to come up with how many rigs are required for the next financial year, the next business cycle etc etc. It involves a lot of powerpoint presentation and excel spreadsheets.

As for the working environment in Carigali Hess, I would assume that it would be similar to Petronas.

honestly... follow ur passion instead ur paycheck..

trust me, it's not worth it.

doing what u're passionate abt will make u & ur life better. money will come along the way..

doing smthing u resent for the sake of money is just miserable..

Bonus in PETRONAS (not sure about Carigali Hess) have several tier. The General Bonus is the same across all discipline, be it if you are in HR, Finance or E&P (Geology/Petroleum Engineering). The second tier bonus is the Merit Bonus which is based on your performance review. If you are deemed to have exceeded the requirement, then you will be given a 2 rating and will also get Merit bonus in the range of 1.5-2 months extra bonus on top of the general bonus. Your increment is also much higher (close to double the increment of the normal performer). If you are deemed to have done an outstanding job that year, you will be given a performance rating of 1 and the merit bonus is in the range of 3-4 months bonus on top of the General bonus and an increment of close to 12-15 percent of your basic salary.

Be reminded that all this is in PETRONAS. I do not know if CHess does the same thing.

Only non-exec has contractual bonus and they are usually around 2 months. For executives, the annual bonus (or general bonus) are based on the performance of the PETRONAS Group. So if they make 60 billion in net profit (like last year) then everyone (executives) will get an annual bonus of 4 months (that was for 2011).

So if you performed (getting a perfomance appraisal of 1 & 2), then on top of the 4 months bonus, you will get an extra merit bonus of 2-4 months so in theory, you can get up to 8 months bonus.

Next year is also looking good, PETRONAS has made 25-30 billion in net profit for the 1st 3 months (this year the finacial year has been changed from the 31st of March every year to the 31st of December) so Dato' Azhar expects PETRONAs to make the same amount of profit eventhough they will only report revenue for 9 months instead of the usual 12 months. Expect at minimum 3 months annual bonus for next year.

A planner for plant shutdown with knowledge and exp of using primavera draws a salary of 16k a month. My last project was optimal's shutdown and that was what the planners were getting.

from a banker to a planner ? That's a rough one. It's not easy to plan for shutdown. Primavera is just like a timeline based program. During shutdown they will be a lot of planned work and coordination, for example like machinery, electrical and instrumentation works. Not forgetting logistic supports, raw material and shipment planning.
I was involved in a major shutdown in 2007, making an extra SGD$25K in 45 days, exclusive of monthly salary. 

There's a lot of "planner" position in the O&G industry. My experience is in the Upstream side of the business so I'll explain some of the work done by "planners" on that side.

My friend has a degree in Petroleum Engineering and they usually also do some planning in terms of looking at the production profile (i.e. how many barrels of oil can the field produce) and then compiling all those reports from all those fields and then coming up with an analysis on how much production can the company produce quarterly, yearly etc etc. The busiest time will be near the business cycle period (some companies do it in October, some in March, depends on the company)

If you are in the Banking line that I suspect you will be doing what my friend is doing. He's happy doing it, it's not as technical as he likes it to be (he was doing simulation model before) but I guess he's okay with it.

Carigali Hess has a big operation in the JDA area and with the USD15 Billion Sour Gas development project coming up, I guess they will need several planners to come up with their business plans on how much it will cost, how much production the can expect etc etc.

Hope that helps. Change is hard, but once you make it, it's easier to do it again.

No problem. Glad to be of help. I'm pretty sure part of the JD will involve doing some economic analysis as well (sinking cost, hurdle rate, IRR etc etc) and that is probably why they are looking at getting some experienced personnel from the Banking industry to have a go at it as well. Petroleum economics is slightly different (especially i you are dealing with Gas) so you might want to have a read on Petroleum Economics as well.

I would not know the exact detail but PMU was working with coming up on a proposal for developing the acid gas field (which is basically gas field that has a high concentration of CO2, H2S and other contaminants). The big 15 billion dollar project in the JDA is probably the main target. Project management is basically that, you will probably be responsible for making sure that the operators are following the proper schedule, within the agreed costs and all those things that come with PM jobs

PMU is the Division in PETRONAS group that is responsible for approving ALL development plans by the Operators. PMU is like the Ministry of Oil (since Malaysia does not have one) and they monitor/cover ALL the operators in Malaysia. PCSB is an operator similar to ExxonMobil/Shell/Talisman etc so they too have to present their work and get the approval from PMU.

Good Luck. I'm not privy to how the interview session goes with CHess. My headhunter is also pushing me to go to CHess but we'll see. I would recommend you read-up on the Oil industry in Malaysia (probably have some articles in the inetrenet) or maybe if you have the time look-up for Datuk Paddy Bowie's Book on Petronas - A Vision realized (I think) (thoughI'm not sure if it's relevant to your interview)

Have an idea about Petroleum Economics and also how the Gas Market works in Malaysia which is probably relevant since that's the concentration of what CHess operation is on.

Good Luck!

Previously the so called benefits was one of the reasons HR was very reluctant to make the salary competitive. I was in a task force that mentioned that this "invisible" benefits was doing more harm than good. It is better if you raise the salary scheme (especially for the technical people) by 40-50% and let them decide on what benefits they want. I mean car loans in Petronas was at 4% revolving interest (which is equivalent to 2% fixed rate on the amount of loan Petronas was giving out) and the market outside was giving around 2.2% fixed rate ... what do you like better, a 30% increase in salary or getting the car loans internally ...

Same goes with the housing loan, yes the rate is a bit higher outside, but if your salary is high enough, not only will it allow the company to retain good skilled people but it will attract people from the outside to join as well.

Took them 5 years to implement ... by that time, I was gone (fed-up to see that nothing was being done .... not until my initiative leader became the President/CEO of Petronas) ...

Anyway, I still say that working in Petronas is a lot of fun and I would not hesitate to return there (maybe when the kids have gone to college) to "berbakti" to the nation again I guess.

Good luck. Yes, CHess as one of the operators hsould have a good training program and knowing your background you should be able to get a grasp on all the terminalogy and the system real fast.

As for salary, as I said before, it's a personal thing. I just received an offer for RM70K (and my wife still think that it's not so good .. sheesh) but a 10-12K offer for you may be satisfactory. What I always say is that think about the future potential and go from there.

Yeah, probably....someone being paid by $1000 will think $5000 is a lot, but for those who get paid $5000, they always think that it's not enuf....expectation different when we already reach there.

The test is usually associated if you went for an interview with PETRONAS, Carigali Hess is a completely different company than PETRONAS (Though Carigali is part of the PETRONAS Group) so that is one of the reason I think you didn't have any test during your interview.

As for reading material, go for Petroleum Economics books (maybe from the net or from Kinokuniya if they have it), a little bit of fundamental of Petroleum Engineering (no need to read-up on the scientific stuff) maybe understand about the production forecast and production profile (production decline etc) and Risk Management/Analysis in the Petroelum Industry.

The books obviously are expensive. Have a look at http://store.spe.org/ and there are several books on decision making in the Oil and gas industries etc. Planners are usually associated with Petroleum Engineering so once you're in the planner line of work, you'll most likely be joinig the SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers). The society has tons of materials that you can buy (papers/publication etc). I'm with a company that has unlimited download of SPE Papers . Go to OnePetro.org and do a search on any title that may be relevant to you. PM me the SPE paper number and I'll download it and pass it to you if you are interested.