Saturday Star 2009-09-12 – Job Opportunities

September 14, 2009
  • First off, Synergy is looking for 5 lead safety engineers and 3 lead process engineers. Visit the Synergy website for contact details. And safety specialists. Ah, heck. If you have more than 5 years experience in O&G, apply. If you have less than 5, send a donation to the offshore account, and still get abuse.
  • I see AP Recruitment has a full page spread. Must be the start of booming times in Qatar. The are usually associated with Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Gas. Wonder why the don’t mention their client here? Anyhow, jobs are available for Maint Eng (Electrical), Planning Engineering Specialist (Shutdown). The rest are technician posts. Apply here.
  • Shapadu is recruiting for Mech & Piping, Elect & Instr, Planning, Structural & Construction, Comm Eng. Email here or here. I know these guys as an offshore construction group, though I tend to pay attention to who actually works for a company rather than the company name. That’s the nature of construction contracts, if the PSC likes you personally, then you swap coveralls and work for the PSC’s flavour of the month.
  • And Kebabangan Petroleum Operating Company (KPOC to friends) has a two-page spread. I presume they are now moving into detailed design / fabrication? Anyhow, the posts that they hope to fill are: Offshore Installation Manager (OIM, PIC, Platform Supv), Snr Proj Eng, Snr Proj Eng (Mat & Eqpt), Electrical Reliability Eng (is TNB offshore?), C&I Reliability Eng, Snr Contract Specialist (this is where you make your money by, ahem, creative means), Metering System Reliability Eng (not many of them around), Piping Eng, Mech Reliability Eng, LQ project eng (please don’t make it dorm style), Proj Eng, Planning Eng, Cost Eng). Please apply here, or snail mail to: Kebabangan Petroleum Operating Comp Sdn Bhd, Level 52, Tower 2, PETRONAS Twin Towers, KLCC, 50088 KL, Malaysia.

No makan-makan recommendations this week. I did have an iftar at the Bluewave Hotel, Shah Alam though.

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Posted by Wata

Optimal – A Fully PETRONAS Company

September 9, 2009

I can’t find this news on any Malaysian news site. I first read about it in the TCE:

TO further ease its debts, Dow Chemical has agreed to sell its stake in Optimal to Malaysian partner Petronas for $660m.

 I pulled an extract from Project Finance International (subscribers only):

Dow has recently sold its entire stake in Malaysia-based Optimal Group of Companies to Petroliam Nasional (PETRONAS).

From Optimal’s history page, there are only two investors, UCC (now part of DOW) and PETRONAS.

I remember when Optimal was sucking up the Kerteh workforce with higher pay and better compensation. They opened up an international school in Kerteh, to cater for the (highly paid) expats who came in for the first 2 years. They also closed the school when the expats left, so you know it wasn’t meant as a service to local staff, even those who could afford it.

So, does this mean that the current Optimal salary, wages and benefits (SWB) will be in line with the rest of PETRONAS? Is there going to be an exodus of talent from Optimal to … don’t think there are other high-paying jobs around the KIPP (Kawasan Industry Petroliam PETRONAS), so we’ll see another exodus overseas.

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Saturday Star 2009-09-05 – Job Opportunities

September 7, 2009
  • Petrofac is looking for a reservoir engineer. Send you application here.
  • Talisman is looking for a Team Lead – Exploration Dept. Apply here, and visit their site.

Latest food site? I had iftar at Selero Negori, Subang.

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Saturday Star 2009-08-22 – Job Opportunities

August 24, 2009

First of all, I would like to say: Ramadhan Mubarak.

  • First off, Synergy is looking for 5 lead safety engineers and 3 lead process engineers. Visit the Synergy website for contact details. And safety specialists. Ah, heck. If you have more than 5 years experience in O&G, apply. If you have less than 5, send a donation to the offshore account, and still get abuse.
  • SGS (not Shell Global Solutions, which is a whole other article) is looking for a flow assurance engineer. Send your application here.

For this week, I would suggest eating at Sindbad’s, a Middle Eastern restaurant located on the East Wing, Subang Square Business Park, SS15.

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IEM OGMTD – Drilling Seminar

August 20, 2009

The Oil, Gas and Mining Technical Division of the IEM hosted a one day ‘Drilling Engineering Overview’ seminar on August 5, 2009. It was conducted by Mr. Abdul Razak Yakob and held at the Wisma IEM, attracting 21 participants.

Razak started out with an icebreaking session with the participants, enquiring as to their backgrounds and what the participants wanted to get out of the course.

He then kicked off his seminar with an overall background to the topic. He described the differences between onshore and offshore drilling, and presented photos of various drilling rigs available in the market. He introduced the rig management structure, showing a slide summarizing the various personnel manning the drilling operations.

Razak then discussed the different mechanical parts that make up the drilling equipment, whether on the rig floor or the support peripherals. Among the different equipment that were described was the Christmas tree, drill bit, drilling fluids, casing and cementing. An introduction to interpretation of logging results formed a part of the seminar, giving the participants a taste of analyzing well data. To provide some feel as to the information technology involved in drilling, the software suites used for data management, engineering and facilities integration was shown.

He then moved on to describe the well life cycle stages, which is construction, implementation, analysis and improvement.

Razak introduced the participants to the economical side of the operations, showing some shocking numbers. He then scared the living daylights out of us by providing some insight into the hazards associated with drilling.

Directional drilling was the next topic of the day.

A quick overview of drilling analysis was provided.  Participants were reminded of their undergraduate statics courses, where force balances, and torque plays an important part of the analysis.

Casing design was touched upon. This section covered the types of casing integrated into a well, and design considerations.  The importance of a correct cement job was discussed, as well as the analytical tests  to ensure the cement has the correct properties for the job.

Last but not least was more detail into the drilling fluids, and the required properties for different types of jobs.

The participants were from a mix, covering well grounded engineers who wanted to network and share experiences, to water wellbore engineers looking to see how different types of drilling technologies may be applicable to similar circumstances. And it is always a delight to see Razak in full flow.

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Safety Notice – MLNG fatality

August 18, 2009

Strange I have to go to an overseas website to get the news. It was reported by Bernama as well.

At the Malaysian Liquefied Natural Gas plant in Tanjung Kidurong, Sarawak, 3 workers were overcome by gas while inspecting a large gas pipeline there, 1 of them has died, the condition of the other 2 in hospital remains unknown. 5th August 2009.

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Saturday Star 2009-08-15 – Job Opportunities

August 17, 2009
  • First off, Synergy is looking for 5 lead safety engineers and 3 lead process engineers. Visit the Synergy website for contact details. And safety specialists. Ah, heck. If you have more than 5 years experience in O&G, apply. If you have less than 5, send a donation to the offshore account, and still get abuse.
  • Siemens “I won’t sell the future for quick profits” is looking for a Sales Manager, AP and Bid Manager, AP, presumably looking for some kind of profit. Send email here or apply via the website.
  • QP, ever dependable QP, is looking for a Maintenance Planning Engineer, Head Tech Support, Mech Eng, Rot Eng. Send email here, or visit the QP website. Did I tell you that QP’s SWB (salary, wages, benefits) package is something to be sneezed at?

Hmm, no particular place to recommend this week. So, let’s go back to the ever faithful Chee Meng’s. Last fling before Ramadhan?

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From The Star – Transpeninsular Pipeline

August 16, 2009

Dateline 2009-08-13 taken from the Star:

The US$7bil Transpeninsular Pipeline (TPP) project that was to take off nearly two years ago may yet become a reality as a Chinese party is said to be keen to take a stake in the project with a shareholding agreement expected to be signed as early as tomorrow.

Malaysia - Transpeninsular Pipeline

Malaysia - Transpeninsular Pipeline

Maybe Synergy can propose doing the flow assurance for this pipeline… nah, it’s single phase, any university student who stayed awake during the compressible flow lectures should be able to do this.

You can subscribe to an online version of the paper at the Bluehyppo site, follow links to e-browse.

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Operator Training Simulators – Intro and Marketing

August 13, 2009

Here’s a little something that I wrote,

you might want to play it note for note…

Enough 80s already.

Operator Training Simulators

Operator Training Simulators (OTS) train operators on fundamental plant operations and improve their ability to optimize plant performance with the same simulation tool. OTS mirrors the exact look and feel of a plant, captures operator best practices, provides a standardized, level training ground to evaluate operator performance and enables operators to exercise best practices.

Sample - Condensate Stabilizer OTS

Sample - Condensate Stabilizer OTS

The model is capable of simulating the following operations:

  • Start-up operations
  • Normal steady-state operations
  • Normal shutdown operations
  • Emergency shutdown operations.

In addition to the above operations, the system is capable of simulating operations dictated by process disturbances and equipment failures introduced by the instructor.

The core element of any training simulator system is the simulation model of the plant unit operations and process controls. The UniSim system provides the ability to construct simulation model without computer programming knowledge by providing a library of building block modules used for simulating the behavior of devices such as pumps, columns, heat exchangers, valves, compressors, vessels and DCS control points. Major equipment types vary significantly from one plant to another. This variability is not generally in the overall functionality of the equipment, but in specific details such as geometry, configuration details, piping, service, etc. This variability greatly affects the operation of the equipment and hence the dynamic simulation of that operation.

Honeywell USO

Honeywell USO

The approach used in the UniSim system is to model the operation of such equipment using modules that are more fundamental. These modules contain a mathematical engineering model (based on first principles of chemical engineering) of the equipment type including heat, material and momentum balances, thermodynamic and operating equations, both algebraic and differential. Each equipment types can be further defined using equipment parameters that customise the module to reflect the actual operating and physical characteristics of the device.

The Instructor Station (I/S) is the control center of the simulator. The I/S allows access to the simulator’s special features, which do not exist at the actual site. These include:

  • RUN, FREEZE and RESUME execution of the process model and control system representation in a completely time synchronized manner.
  • SAVE and RESTORE model states for future retrieval.
  • EXECUTE the model FASTER or SLOWER than real time.
  • Introduce malfunctions.
  • Initiate scenarios.

The I/S interface also lets the instructor monitor the progress of the training session with lists and trends of process and control system variables.

Honeywell USO

Honeywell USO

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PETRONAS Contractors Forum 2009 – My Summary

August 12, 2009

Yesterday was the photo session, today I’ll provide my views on the presentations and discussions. As I didn’t bring in any recording devices, the piece below focusses on what interested me.

I arrived late, so I missed the Welcoming Speech and Keynote Address. My apologies.

First talk I attended was an introduction to PETRONAS’s inhouse steady state process simulation software, iCON. The talk was given by Mr Shahrul Azman Zainal Abidin, Principal Engineer GTS. I have seen this presentation and derivations of it over the past 5 years (starting in 2004/5, when it was called PetroSIM), so nothing spectacular there. You can go visit the VMG site to pick up a brochure of the civilian version of this package. I was interested to note that they are working on a dynamic version of the package.

After the tea break, we were treated to an application of how iCON was used to investigate and optimise onshore gas receiving facilities, of which LCOT was one. What was interesting to me was that the result of doing the work inhouse resulted in a cost saving of RM382k (±10k), which give me a baseline as to how much to charge for a reasonably simple network, and 3 operating cases. Woohoo! This portion was presented by Mr Muzaimi B A Talib, Staff Engineer PCSB.

We went through an overview of the famed PETRONAS Technical Standards, led by Ir V.R.Harindran, Custodian Engineer GTS. Too bad they weren’t giving handouts, as it was an interesting trip down memory lane. Some items I took away from the presentation was:

  • PETRONAS subscribes and sends representatives to a lot of governmental and international standards bodies.
  • The PTS are designed to be ‘fit for use.’
  • There is opportunity to challenge the PTS during project execution.
  • PETRONAS is looking towards getting user feedback on the PTS. By feedback, I assume they mean something structured and ISO 9001 traceable, as opposed to shouting at the PTS on the engineering floor.

There was next a presentation by Mr Alex Zulkarnain B Zulkarim, Senior Manager GTS. His concern was the quality of engineering expertise in PETRONAS, especially among the junior rank and file. Items he touched on were:

  • PETRONAS wants to be seen as a savvy buyer (there go my generous markup margins).
  • PNAS needs to upgrade its technological expertise and has acknowledged that work needs to be done.
  • There is a proposal to station PNAS engineers in the service providers office as part of enhancing their technological skills.
  • His remit was pretty much focused on developing PNAS engineers, not Malaysian engineers.

After the crowd was tranquillised with lunch, came the contractors’ point of view. Ir. Rozali Ahmad, president of MOGEC, presented on MOGEC’s aims, intentions and events calendar. But all this was blown away by the list of challenges the engineering companies have when faced with PETRONAS as a client. You’ll have to get the list from MOGEC, if they ever own up to presenting it in the first place.

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