Saturday Star 08-05-18 – Job Opportunities

May 20, 2008

Another week, another scan of the Saturday Star newspaper. Here’s a list of job ads in the paper:

  • Qatargas is looking for Rot Eqt Eng, Fac Eng (hey, my kind of post), Proc Eng, APC (I guess automated process control) Eng. You can apply via email here.
  • SapuraCrest is looking for a whole mess of engineers, that is (long breath) Field Opns, Struc, Pipeline, Naval/Marine, Plan, QA/QC. CVs to be submitted here no later than 31st March.
  • Schlumberger is looking for engineers. CVs to be submitted here.
  • Petrofac is looking for a deputy prod manager & senior operations engineer. CVs to be submitted here,  or fax to HR & Admin Manager +603 2300 2371 (hah, how do you know this isn’t my number?)
  • ExxonMobil is looking for a drilling engineer, though I suspect you can get more money elsewhere. Submit CVs by 31st May, 2008. 
  • And of course, IGL Process Solutions is looking for high paying work, preferably of a 6 month duration.

Happy hunting. Let me have some feedback if you find this list useful. Even better, spread the news. PayPal donations welcome.

I put in a free advert for my favourite chicken rice place, Chee Meng. Go, people, go! I’m waiting for their loyalty card to come out…

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Pricing for Engineering Services – Profit Sharing Model?

May 19, 2008

Here’s an idea I got from other businesses. They charge out their services according to the benefit the client receives. An example are energy conservation consultants. They get paid a portion of the energy savings realised by their client.

Imagine translating that into the oil and gas industry. Here’s an example. Say a separator is designed for 100 thousand barrels per day (kbd) of crude. Later, this turns out to be a bottleneck preventing a production increase to 105 thousand kbd (not an unrealistic value). If you use a profit sharing model (say 10% of the production increase), then this translates to 5,000 x 10% x USD50/barrel (I’m using low values here to make a point) =  USD25k a day.

You can pretty much do whatever cost analysis you want. If you think how much you charge using the Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning (EPCC) method, how much would you get? For debottlenecking a process by changing vessel internals, prob USD500k, of which about 30% would be profit (I’m guessing nos. here).

Which profit model would you like? And if you work for a production company, you should be proud in the rate of return the company gets from you.

At another level, profit sharing is pretty much in vogue for the independent Malaysian oil and gas companies. Profits are shared by issuing stock to employees. Examples of companies that do this are Talisman and Newfield. Examples of companies that do not are ExxonMobil and Shell.

10 Comments | business opportunity, engineering, Malaysia, oil and gas | Tagged: , | Permalink
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Globalisation – Losing Engineers to Affiliates

May 18, 2008

I hear a lot about globalization, usually just before (or after, seeing I’m the last to know) colleagues and friends leave Malaysia for pastures green (dollars), tan (sand) or red/white/blue (choose your country).

Say you are an international company with a setup in Malaysia, and have affiliates and branches overseas. If an engineer wanted to quit, but you persuaded them to join up another affiliate in another country instead, would you consider that as a headcount lost to attrition, or take credit that the engineer is still ‘with the company’, and not really a loss.

Some items for discussion (let’s call the displaced engineer a floater):

  • Organisation – headcount = organisation – headcount, the way I understand it. A floater out of sight is out of the organisation’s mind.
  • Does the floater earn extra income for the original hiring company, ala MLM?
  • Now the org. company is short of an engineer earning revenue. Does the mother ship (i.e. headquarters) give it a discount or credit that it has generated a floater?
  • Is the floater ever coming back? In some organisations (in Malaysia, I guess ExxonMobil and Shell are two examples), the floaters are meant to come back higher up the management chain, bringing expertise and maturity to their home countries. How does that work for consultants or engineering companies? Oversea companies tend to be older and more established. Would management skills gained elsewhere and applied locally cause companies to be top heavy, to many chiefs, not enough workers?
  • Is there any guarantee that the floater will not use the foreign branch as a lauchpad to get a larger renumeration, as they probably now have PR status, or resident status. The floater can quit the overseas company and get more money (I call this a floater with a motor).
  • Do you get a lot of expats floating from other affiliates to Malaysia? It doesn’t seem very cost efficient to bring them in, unless they have skills that they can transfer (hah, tech transfer is a topic for a later blog).

Maybe we should all be floaters.

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IEM OGMTD Talk – Reservoir Fluids

May 17, 2008

On Saturday, 10th May 2008, I attended a morning tea talk arranged by the Oil, Gas and Mining Technical Division of the IEM, of which I am the SecTreas. The talk was entitled ‘Overview of Drilling and Completion Fluids’. The speaker was Engr. Anwarudin Saidu Mohamed, currently a Coordinator for South East Asia Region with Drilling Fluids, a division of Baker Hughes Inc.

My colleague, Hui Hin, wrote up a summary of the talk. Visit her site to read her write-up.

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Gaslift and Coffee Makers

May 16, 2008

Wata\'s coffee maker

Us being engineers, after the installation of the first coffee maker in my offices (my personal machine Moulinex type W70, my office), the discussion wandered round to how exactly it worked.

Wikipedia - Gas Lift diagram Digressing, gas lift as defined in Wikipedia is “one of a number of processes used to artificially lift oil or water from wells where there is insufficient reservoir pressure to produce the well. The process involves injecting gas through the tubing-casing annulus. Injected gas aerates the fluid to reduce its density; the formation pressure is then able to lift the oil column and forces the fluid out of the wellbore.”

As far as I can tell, gaslifting is the only method used in the South China Sea, at least among the Malaysian platforms. Possible reasons are that it’s cheap (gas is always produced with oil out there in the deep blue) and gas is available at higher than required pressures. This is because gas is taken from the export gas line, which is compressed to transmission specs. As this is above gaslift pressure requirements, an additional booster compressor not needed.

The method used mainly on onshore wells is lifting oil with pumps, either mechanically driven (remember the donkey pumps seen in the background in Beverly Hills Cop II?) or electrically driven submersible pumps. Both require power, which is a premium offshore, but might be as close as the local power grid onshore.

 

Regressing back to my coffee maker, I find that the cold water reservoir is about the same level as the coffee pot. Hot water has to drip through the filter on top of the pot, and produce that black gold. So, how is the water sent up about 15cm? Definitely not with a pump.You’d hear it running, and pumping a hot two phase mixture is a good way to claim warranty about every other month.

Looking round, I find an article that explains that the hot water is carried up from the cold water reservoir through a pipe by rising bubbles of water vapour (formed by boiling water at the bottom of the pipe). This, and the reduction in density due to a liquid-gas mix, is the same process as a gas lift, though cheaper, on a smaller scale and smells a whole lot nicer.

So, oil and gas engineering principles may be found as close as your nearest cuppa. 

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Interesting Fatwa for Chemical Engineers – Part III

May 15, 2008

Continuing from Part I and Part II, (The original article may be found here)

Ruling on using materials to which “animal glycerine” has been added

Question:

What is the ruling on using materials to which “animal glycerine” has been added, such as toothpaste, shampoo and body moisturizers. What is the ruling on mono-glyceride and di-glyceride, which are added to some kinds of bread? Is the basic principle that one should check or ask about the source of these materials, and find out whether they are animal or vegetable? Is checking on these things regarded as a kind of going to extremes? How should we respond to those who say that the basic principle is that a thing is permissible so long as it is not mixed with anything haraam? Or those who say that religion is easy and we should not go to extremes or ask too much?

Answer:

(…)

Thirdly:

If it is not known whether the animals whose meat is permissible but need to be slaughtered properly in order to become halaal were slaughtered according to sharee’ah or not, then the basic principle is that they should not be used, because the basic principle with regard to slaughtered meat is that it is haraam unless it is known that it is halaal. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) forbade eating game meat that had drowned in water because it was not known whether it died as the result of being hunted or from drowning. And he (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) forbade eating game caught by a dog whose owner had released it and mentioned the name of Allaah when releasing it, but he found other dogs with him. The reason for that is that it is not known whether it was his dog that caught it or the other dogs.

It was narrated from ‘Adiyy ibn Haatim (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “If you release your dog and mention the name of Allaah, if he catches something for you and you find it alive, then slaughter it; if you find he has killed it but has not eaten any of it, then eat it. If you find another dog with your dog and it has been killed, then do not eat, for you do not know which of them killed it. If you shoot your arrow and mention the name of Allaah, then (the game) vanishes from your sight for a day, and you only find the mark of your arrow on it, then eat if you wish, but if you find it drowned in water, then do not eat it.”

Narrated by al-Bukhaari (5167) and Muslim (1929).

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:

… The ruling remains in effect unless there is evidence to the contrary, such as the ruling on tahaarah (purity), the rulings on breaking wudoo’, the ruling on remaining married, the ruling on possession and the ruling on commitments, all of which remain in effect unless there is evidence to the contrary. This principle is indicated in the hadeeth in which it is said concerning hunting: “If you find it drowned, do not eat it, for you do not know whether the water killed it or your arrow,” and “But if there are other dogs with him, then do not eat it, for you mentioned the name of Allaah over your dog, not any other.”

Because the basic principle concerning meat is that it is haraam, and there is some doubt as to whether the condition that makes it permissible was fulfilled or not, the game remains haraam as it originally was.

I’laam al-Muqawwi’een (1/339, 340).

Fourthly:

If the substance is artificial or of vegetable origin, it is permissible to use it in these products unless it is harmful or poisonous either in and of itself or when added to other substances.

Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:

There is nothing wrong with lipstick, because the basic principle is that it is permissible unless it becomes apparent that it is haraam. … But if it becomes clear that it is harmful to the lips, because it dries them out, then in this case it is not allowed. I have been told that it may dry out the lips. If that is proven then one is not allowed to so something that will harm oneself.

Fataawa Manaar al-Islam (3/831).

(continued)

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Job Opportunities in Kerteh with TCOT/PCSB

May 14, 2008

I notice that many of my readers are searching for opportunities in Kerteh, especially in the oil and gas sector. One such opportunity is with the Terengganu Crude Oil Terminal (TCOT), as the operatorship is being taken over by PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd (anyone remember when they were all housed in Wisma Peladang? Anyone remember Wisma Peladang?). My original post is here.

Anyhoo, If you think you have the appropriate experience and would like to work with Malaysia’s national oil company, you may contact the PCSB PMO (I think) HR Department. Please call the HR Department at 09 866 77 22 and request for Awang Zul or Lala. I suspect PCSB is looking for technicians and engineers.

Please refer back to my blog. Maybe I’ll get a few Imperial credits out of it.

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Jabba’s Den – Exclusive Scoop

May 13, 2008

Jabba is building himself a fan base. Some have even said that Jabba and Wata are the same person, kinda like Sidious and Palpatine. Nah, Jabba’s office is nicer, as the photos below attest:
Photo of Jabba\'s den

and

Jabba\'s fan mail

Notice Jabba endorses Casio calculators. Later he will send Bib Fortuna over there to collect the royalties if he is a good mood, or all their assets if he follows SOP. And let them retain their lives.

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Saturday Star 08-05-11 – Job Opportunities

May 12, 2008

Another week, another scan of the Saturday Star newspaper. Here’s a list of job ads in the paper:

  • IEV is looking for an Operations Engineer. You can apply via email here.
  • Qatar Petroleum is looking for a whole mess of engineers. CVs to be submitted here, though I hear the package isn’t that impressive.
  • RasGas is looking for measurement engineering specialists, mech eng specialists and Snr rotating eqt eng. CVs to be submitted here. I believe RasGas is a JV, one of the partners being ExxonMobil.
  • Murphy Oil is looking Graduate Trainees, surprise surprise. I thought they only went for senior staff, and paid big bucks for them. Times must be a-changing. I also remember one of their senior staff saying, if you quit from Murphy, you’ll never get back in. CVs to be submitted here.
  • Here’s a new one, though I think I have heard of them before. GL Konsult (“We VALUE and Enhance TALENT!”) is looking for everyone. I would say that they are either starting operations, or are a manpower supply house. Anyway, forward a detailed resume with photo here.
  • Shell is looking for graduates. Head to their website and follow Students & Graduates → Gradutes → How to Apply → Register & Apply Now → Register.
  • And of course, IGL Process Solutions is looking for high paying work, preferably of a 6 month duration.

Happy hunting. Let me have some feedback if you find this list useful. Even better, spread the news. PayPal donations welcome.

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Professional Engineer – CE Update

May 11, 2008

I was in Port Dickson on the 21st to 23rd March 2008, contributing to a workshop to prepare a question bank for the Competency Exam, CE (I know, this was a while ago, I just found my notes).

The proposal is that all engineers applying to sit for the Professional Assessment Examination (PAE) after April 1st, 2008 with have to take the CE. It is targeted to have the first CE in June 2008, with at least three sittings per year.

The current outline of the paper is that it will split into 2 parts, a 3 hour general paper and a 3 hour paper related to the candidate’s engineering branch.

The general paper will cover The Engineers Act and Regulations, OSHA and Environment Quality Act (EQA). The branch paper will cover Uniform Building By-Laws (UBBL), and codes and standards pertaining to the engineering branch.

  • The general paper will consist of 2 sections. Section A will be 30 true/false answers, while for section B, the candidate has to answer 15 out of 20 subjective questions.
  • The branch paper will present 30 questions, out of which 20 need to be answered.

Note: I do not take responsibility if any of the above is altered. Ask your friendly IEM rep.

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