Hui Hin explains her trip offshore … in pictures.
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Young Engineer Visits Offshore
October 4, 2008
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Posted by Wata
Eid Mubarak
October 1, 2008It’s a change of pace today. Malaysia celebrates the first day of Shawal, so I’m taking the day off. Please remember that there are a lot of engineers and technicians out there producing hydrocarbons to keep the nation running.
Pool Sukajadi Hotel, Bandung
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Posted by Wata
Hopes high for release of second MISC vessel and crew
September 30, 2008Taking straight from Malaysia’s The Star:
PUTRAJAYA: Hopes are high that negotiations with Somalian pirates for the release of the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation (MISC) vessel MT Bunga Melati Dua and its crew members will be successful.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said yesterday that negotiations for the release of MT Bunga Melati Dua were still ongoing following successful talks for the release of MT Bunga Melati Lima.
Abdullah said: “All its crew members have been released and the vessel is now heading to Djibouti (East Africa). The crew members are all in good health.
“A medical team from the Defence Ministry comprising doctors, medical assistants and counsellors are providing assistance to the crew.”
…
MT Bunga Melati Dua, with a crew of 29 Malaysian and 10 Filipinos was hijacked on Aug 19 in the Gulf of Aden where rampant maritime piracy is taking place.
One of the Filipino crew members was killed when he was hit by a stray bullet.
Ten days later, the MT Bunga Melati Lima, with 36 Malaysian and five Filipino crew members, was also hijacked while sailing from Yanbu, Saudi Arabia to Singapore.
Malaysia has sent two warships, the KD Lekiu and KD Inderapura, and an offshore patrol vessel, the KD Pahang, to escort MISC ships sailing in the risky waters following the two hijacking incidents.
The last paragraph is a bit strange. Didn’t Malaysia and Indonesia complain when the US proposed to escort marine vessels throught the Melaka Straits using armed vessels and personnel?
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Saturday Star 2008-09-27 – Job Opportunities
September 29, 2008Let’s see what the Star has in store for us this week:
- Global Process Systems(GPS) is looking for engineers, among those listed are senior process eng, junior process, mech eng, structural, piping and a lot of designers. Emailand web presence available. I have the impression that GPS KL could do with a lot more growth and expertise if it wants to grow up from package suppliers to compete with the EPC boys.
- My company, Pöyry, is advertising for people. We’re trying to go multi-discipline, hence the mess of senior positions open to you for the taking! Please join, we would be so happy, and maybe someone can teach me non-process stuff (I reaaally don’t get electrical).
Hey, is that it?
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Offshore Equipment
September 27, 2008If you had to figure out what the ID number and service of the item below is, how would you go about it?
Offshore Equipment - corroded
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Fasting – Offshore Style
September 23, 2008Taken from The Star:
For oil platform workers off Terengganu, work must go on
By NURBAITI HAMDANTERENGGANU: For most people, the Hari Raya holidays are the time to spend with family and friends.
But for a group of workers, the end of the fasting month will have to be marked some 240km off the Terengganu shore in the middle of the South China Sea.
They are the staff of Exxon- Mobil’s Lawit A oil platform who are tasked with ensuring that petroleum production is not disrupted.
Operations supervisor Jawead Allahrakha, 50, said whatever happens, the work must go on.
“We are sacrificing our Hari Raya so that other people in the country can celebrate,” he said, adding that 90% of the 81 platform crew are Muslims.
He will be one of 45 people who will spend the first day of Hari Raya on the oil platform.
The rest were lucky enough to get leave to celebrate at home.
Chef Hanizul Hamzah, tasked with feeding those on the platform, said a sense of duty makes him carry on.
Hanizul has never celebrated Hari Raya at home since he started working at the platform in 1999. But this year, he hopes he would be home in Kota Baru for the festivities.
“Being able to serve the crew with the best meals I could cook makes it all worth it.
“Good food makes people happy,” said the 46-year-old from Kelantan.
His main concern at the moment was making sure there was lemang and ketupat for the crew as it would just not be Hari Raya without these favourites.
For maintenance worker Sulaiman Samsudin, 55, the platform has become a second home.
“I have celebrated Hari Raya 12 times here. It was hard initially to be so far away from my family in Perak,” said Sulaiman.
He said some of the younger crew members would lock themselves in their rooms because they were too sad.
“But this is life at the platform. Being one of the seniors here, I would talk to them and try to make them feel better,” he said, describing the crew as his ‘family.’
Mechanical worker Nazman Muhammad, 35, from Kelantan, shared a way to deal with home sickness.
“The important thing is not to be alone. You need to keep yourself occupied,” he said,
Nazman said he would also re-enact the first morning of Hari Raya once he got back home onshore, even if it was the 15th day.
“With the decorations still hanging and food served, my wife and I would treat the day as if it was the first day of Aidilfitri,” he said.
(Did I mention I was part of the Lawit Design team?)
2 Comments | engineering, Malaysia, oil and gas | Tagged: ExxonMobil, Lawit | Permalink
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Breaking into O&G Control Systems
September 16, 2008I guess you might have heard of the Large Hadron Collider hacker break in. It made me wonder as to whether this can happen to offshore control and safety systems. Here’s my thoughts on the topic:
- You need a doorway to hack into a system. Most (all that I’ve seen) offshore systems are standalone, and don’t have LAN, let alone Internet connections. Heck, for most of the DCS the only way you can transfer data is via 3.5″ disk (or was that 5.25″?). No USB ports, no CD drive. Maybe an RS-232 port, but you have to be on site to break in.
- If there is a web interface, you can be pretty sure that the PC acting as a gateway has the usual bells and whistles to prevent unauthorized entry. This assumes that the link allows two way communication.
- Even if you found a door, the architecture of a DCS is pretty specialised. Those who have hacked Windows, Macs, Linux systems will find their knowledge useless here. You won’t find published available APIs, object structures, weak kinks in the software, even a typical programming language. It’s all process loops, logic controls, and stuff. There’s no need to support third party development because, well there is no third party.
- You might just get into the DCS, but the worst you can do is shutdown the platform. All the safety stuff is handle by the safety systems, which have triple redundancy, programmed PLCs, etc. I’d like to see someone hack remotely into that.
BTW, the above comments are based on my own limited knowledge of DCS / Safety system setups. There’s someone out there who can correct me.
My version of security? You have to reach 10,000 points in a Tetris game before you get access to the guts of the machine.
2 Comments | engineering, oil and gas | Tagged: DCS, hack, Large Hadron Collider | Permalink
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What to Bring Offshore
September 14, 2008I have a team of people going offshore soon. What should they bring offshore along with them, to make their stay more comfortable? What don’t they need to bring, and will be supplied by the onsite catering crew?
- Toiletries – at least bring a toothbrush and toothpaste. Soap is supplied offshore, but maybe you want to bring your own stuff. If you travel offshore by chopper, there’s none of this ‘put liquids in plastic bag and not more than 500g’ restriction. Also consider if you want to use the towels provided, or bring your own.
- Telephone services – If you ask the radio operator or OIM (offshore installation manager) politely, you can use the commercial line to get in touch with the office or home (BTW, you might want to give the commercial line number to your family and office so that you are more contactable). Other platforms have a call rota at night, 5 minutes per person to call anywhere you want (I do mean anywhere). An additional service provided at EMEPMI assets is that some phones have been set up such that you can use the iTalk service to call home. Bring a prepaid card.
- Slippers/Flip flops – Bring a set, as you are not allowed to where your dirty, heavy, manly working boots in the living quarters.
- Multiport adaptor – If you are bring electronic items offshore, you might want to use one of these to maximise the use of the limited number of free power sockets.
- Ladies – bring your own items. Note that sleeping quarters are not locked, so expect cleaning staff to barge in at all times.
- Pens and paper – I usually bring more pens then I need. Pens have a nasty habit of either slipping out of my pockets unnoticed, or waving bye-bye before they slip out and fall through decking into the sea. Is ink toxic? Same goes for paper, a difficult commodity to find offshore. Strangely enough, photocopy machines are a rare breed as well.
- Cellphones – Some airports (Kerteh) don’t allow you to take your phone offshore. Park it with the friendly man who runs a handphone deposit service there. Other assets (Talisman) allow you take it with you, though they disembowel the thing (remove the batteries) before allowing you to get on board the chopper flight.
- Ciggies – no sundry shop offshore. Bring your own.
Have fun.
Central Processing Platform, offshore Terengganu, Malaysia
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Posted by Wata
ExxonMobil – Instep MOU
September 11, 2008Signing of MoU between EMEPMI and INSTEP
On September 3, 2008, EMEPMI signed an MOU with the PETRONAS Institute of
Petroleum Technology (INSTEP) to develop a technician training curriculum
for Upstream Production Operations.
Zan Noor Ismail, Operations Manager, signed on behalf of EMEPMI while
Khairul Azman Yasin, PETRONAS Management Training Berhad CEO, signed on
behalf on INSTEP. Grace Choo, EMEPMI SHE Manager and M. Sazali Salim,
INSTEP General Manager witnessed the signing.
Since 2002, EMEPMI has been utilizing INSTEP facilities to train field
technicians. The MOU will expand this relationship for the benefit of
both parties as follows:
- INSTEP will gain access to proven training curriculum developed from
ExxonMobil’s worldwide vendor pool and calibrated against ExxoMobil
global standards. - EMEPMI will be able to leverage on INSTEP as a proven training
facility and training provider to help rebuild competency levels in
the current workforce as well as for training of new trainee intakes.
The signing of the MOU marks another milestone in the ExxonMobil and
PETROANS partnership. The training curriculum developed through this
partnership will contribute towards building a competent local workforce
not only for ExxonMobil but also for the Upstream Oil & Gas Industry in
Malaysia.
Ceremony Signing EMEPMI INSTEP MOU
(I thought EMEPMI had been sending technicians to be trained at INSTEP for a looooong time already.)
6 Comments | business opportunity, Malaysia, oil and gas | Tagged: ExxonMobil, Petronas | Permalink
Posted by Wata
Saturday Star 2008-09-06 – Job Opportunities
September 8, 2008Sorry for skipping a week. I was out of town. My next few post will have some photos I took on my trip.
Another week, another scan of the Saturday Star newspaper. Here’s a list of job ads in the paper:
- Optimal is looking for a Kerteh-based Chemist. Emailand web presence available. A lot of people moved to Optimal when it first started up, though I think the renumeration package isn’t as good nowadays. However, it’s still better than PETRONAS because Dow Chemicals is running interference.
- ExxonMobil is looking for a safe/ risk engineer. Submit CVs by 20th Sept, 2008 at the local web page.
- Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) is looking for a senior project, process control, process consultant and senior safety engineer. There is a walk in interview on the 18th to 22nd October, 2008 (tempting, tempting) at the JW Marriot, between 0900 to 1700. You can apply via email here.
- MISC has some positions, though with the recent hijackings, they might expect a drop of takers.
- Shell is looking for some downhole people and well people: Offshore Completion and Intervention Supervisor, Offshore Drilling Supervisor, Well Completion Design Engineer, Well Eng, Well Opns Eng. Head to their website and follow Professionals & Apply → Job Search → Region → Asia. Closing date’s Sept 21st, so run to your nearest netbook.
Jalan Sukajadi, Bandung, Indonesia
Leave a Comment » | engineering, Malaysia, oil and gas | Tagged: ExxonMobil, MISC, optimal, sabic, Shell | Permalink
Posted by Wata
Wata - Malaysian Oil and Gas Engineer 