Much riding on Petronas’ project

November 1, 2013

Dateline 2013-09-07, Malaysia Chronicle:

 The bulk of that comes from the national oil company, Petronas. Over its lifespan, Petronas has accounted, at times, for up to 50 per cent of the government’s annual revenue.

These exclude the various economic spin-offs from its investments and business activities. It provides, directly or indirectly, tens of thousands of jobs, hundreds of millions of ringgit in business opportunities and other value-added services.

With its huge operations built over the years in Malaysia and around the world, Petronas has emerged as the 25th largest oil and gas company in the world, the 68th largest company in the world, 12th most profitable globally and most profitable in Asia.

Much of the success comes from its investments in various upstream and downstream petroleum activities and prudent management of its financial reserves.

There are not many state oil companies that have been as successful as Petronas.

Petronas needs to step up investments to expand its operations, weather the vagaries of global petroleum prices and boost its earnings to ensure its financial sustainability and that of the country’s economy.

That was the rationale behind Petronas’s plan, announced last year, to turn Pengerang in Johor into a vibrant petroleum hub in Asia, rivalling Singapore.

…

 


Marketing Rounds – Lifts at the Twin Towers

October 31, 2013

You know, I’m not a fan of the lift indicator lights in the Twin Towers.

Plus points:

  • Matches the facade of the buildings

Negative points:

  • When the indicator light is lit, it doesn’t stand out from the surrounding ambiance light.
  • The light is flush and parallel with the wall, so it is hard to see if you are at a distance and looking at the light at an oblique angle.
  • Reminds me of a 70s seedy movie marquee

Here’s a comparison:


Suggested App – Flow Xpert

October 30, 2013

Hj Razali Ibrahim of GTS sicced me onto this app. It’s meant for us measurement folks. To quote the website on the capabilities of the full package:

Fluid Flow calculations and thermodynamic property calculations using the Spirit IT Flow-Xpert package allows you to use validated software on your iPad, iPhone, in a modern web-based environment or your favorite spreadsheet program for these detailed calculations.

So, head to your favourite app store (iOS iPad, iPhone or Android, not available in Symbian or champagne).

Now, Spirit IT, where is the free SmartCen Supervisory Computer I, ahem, ‘ordered’?

On another note, I would like to register Persatuan Pekerja-pekerja Buruh Jurukur dan Agihan. Who’s with me?

 

 


Shout Out – One-Day Seminar On Drilling Engineering

October 30, 2013

This is a shout out for the IEM. My Technical Division will be  hosting a seminar on the 13th November, 2013. It’ll start at 9:00 and is worth 6.5 CPD hours.

Drilling Engineering Overview shall present the audience with the knowledge and arts of drilling wells, especially in Malaysia. It shall be presented in a way that is comprehensible to the engineers who are with or without the oil and gas background. The objectives of the seminar are to provide exposure to audiences on the drilling practices and issues as well as to familiarize the audience with an appreciation of a Drilling Engineer’s work scope.

Ir. (you gotta stress the Ir.) Hj. (even worse, you gotta spell it out) Razak Yakob has been in the oil and gas industry for 16 years working for companies such as ExxonMobil, Halliburton, and Talisman Energy. His core expertise is in Drilling Engineering but the working experience spans from development and exploration, technical support, training, finance and consultation, As a consultant, he has worked in countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Algeria and others. Currently, he is an independent consultant providing consultancy services for Drilling Engineering at PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd. He was a graduate of Colorado School of Mines in the United States with a degree majoring in Petroleum Engineering and a minor in Mechanical Design.

Register here or download the form here. A map to Wisma IEM is presented here.


IEM Shout Out – Talk On Introduction to Measurement

October 30, 2013

This is a shout out for the IEM. My Technical Division will be having a talk on Wed, 6th October, 2012. It’ll be at 5:30 pm at Wisma IEM. Note that no CPD points will be awarded, but I think the talk is important enough for you to attend.

Measurement is an important part of the oil and gas industry. The industry focus has mainly been on improving safety and optimizing production, but without accurate and credible measurement, there will be an unacceptable level of uncertainty in the amount being produced. This uncertainty may translate to commercial disputes, or improper management of available reserves.

This presentation will provide an introduction to measurement. The session will be broken down as follows:

Part 1: Introduction to Measurement (approximately one hour)
Part 2: Why Measurement is Important (approximately one hour)

The presentations are part of TUV NEL’s ‘Free Flow Measurement Training’ series.

Gilbert has worked in the Engineering Industry since 1966 progressively developing a career path, which included a Managing Directorship in a specialised Flow Measurement Consultancy Company. The majority of his career has been concentrated in the area of flow measurement, allocation, sampling and analysis in the Oil and Gas Industry. His current role is developing a Flow Consultancy business for TÜV NEL in the Asia Pacific Region.

Chris is a flow measurement consultant at NEL in Glasgow, Scotland who specialises in the oil & gas industry. He has approximately 5 years experience at NEL and works predominately on consultancy for the oil & gas industry. Chris has in depth knowledge of flow measurement technologies, allocation and measurement uncertainty. Chris has been the technical lead on several high value projects during his time at NEL. Chris’s knowledge and expertise were exploited in the NEL led Joint industry Project researching measurement techniques for high viscosity fluids. He was also responsible for the modification to the NEL oil flow facility to incorporate high viscosity fluids up to 1500 cSt. He has presented technical papers on flow measurement at several conferences around the world, including Calgary, Kuala Lumpur, London and Oslo. He has also represented NEL at the Energy Institute HMC-1 meetings and been part of the Oil & Gas Focus Group steering committee.

You can register here, and flyers for the above and other events may be obtained here.


Academician lashes out at deputy finance minister’s attempt to fool people

October 29, 2013

Dateline 2013-09-06, The Malaysian Chronicle:

An academician today takes deputy Finance minister (DFM) Ahmad Maslan to task over what he described as untruth explanation on oil prices in Malaysia compared to neighbouring countries.

Attempting to soothe public anger over the recent fuel price hike, Ahmad pointed out that Malaysia is the 8th lowest in the world in terms of price of fuel after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Iran and Nigeria.

“Are we trying to deny the fact that the price of petrol in Brunei, Qatar, Bahrain, Algeria, Sudan, Libya and Oman is cheaper than Malaysia? Why Ahmad did not disclose the petrol prices in those countries?” UKM School of History, Politics and Strategy lecturer Dr Mohamad Agus Yusoff responded to Ahmad’s reasoning in a Facebook posting today.

…


Saturday Star 2013-10-26 – Job Opportunities

October 28, 2013

Happy Budget Analysis Day!

Buy my recommendations, or through my Amazon store. Where are those corporate sponsors? Or throw donations at me. I need RM360 to get The Star ePaper.

  • I’m looking for a senior process engineer, 7+ years experience. Send your cv here. Also looking for technical safety persons, metering / measurement engineers and other seniors you think will catch my eye.
  • Sadara is inviting chemical professionals. A whole page advert. Email them here, or here, or visit their site.
  • PBJV are looking for people. Examples of positions are construction engineer, electrical engineer, turbo machinery engineer (rare commodity), safety office (wow, even inanimate objects can apply), commissioning engineer, mechanical/piping engineer. Email them here. Don’t forget to leave me a tip.
  • Here’s an interesting one. UMW Oil & Gas is looking for a head, drilling academy at Batu Rakit. Has INSTEP subbed out this training program? Email them here.

Help me (and you) increase my cloud presence. Pleease use some form of cloud storage, so if you lose your laptop with those oh-so-important reports, be assured that (with Internet access) the files are still accessible. Use my referrals for Dropbox, MiMedia,  SpiderOak, MediaFire, Ubuntu One, Sugar Sync.

Break the Low Yat stranglehold! Support Newegg Malaysia, or check Amazon’s International Shipping. Yeah, baby!

Let’s go back to basics, the quanta of it all:

  

Alice in Quantumland: An Allegory of Quantum Physics, The Wizard of Quarks: A Fantasy of Particle Physics, Scrooge’s Cryptic Carol: Visions of Energy, Time, and Quantum Nature

The IEM has a coffee table book out, Engineering Heritage of Malaysia (no, it is not Datuk Seri Samy Vellu’s bio). Visit here for details.

Food?I had lunch at Chakri Palace, KLCC. Blooming expensive. Anyone want to treat me to dinner there?


Rising cost a challenge for O&G industry, says Shell

October 27, 2013

I would like to be an acceptable part of the rising cost.

Dateline 2013-09-06:

Shell Malaysia, the Malaysian arm of Royal Dutch Shell plc, said costs are escalating to an extent that the profitability of some of its projects could be threatened.

“The projects will be threatened by very high cost. We need help from the Malaysian services industry to be more competitive in terms of their cost,” said Shell Malaysia chairman Ian Loh in Miri yesterday.

Loh was speaking to reporters at the official opening of the company’s Asia Pacific Wells Learning Hub in Miri, Sarawak.

He said the oil and gas (O&G) industry in Malaysia is facing a challenge on costs which requires them to find innovative ways to reduce these costs.

…


IEM Shout Out – Talk On Introduction to Measurement

October 26, 2013

This is a shout out for the IEM. My Technical Division will be having a talk on Wed, 6th October, 2012. It’ll be at 5:30 pm at Wisma IEM. Note that no CPD points will be awarded, but I think the talk is important enough for you to attend.

Measurement is an important part of the oil and gas industry. The industry focus has mainly been on improving safety and optimizing production, but without accurate and credible measurement, there will be an unacceptable level of uncertainty in the amount being produced. This uncertainty may translate to commercial disputes, or improper management of available reserves.

This presentation will provide an introduction to measurement. The session will be broken down as follows:

Part 1: Introduction to Measurement (approximately one hour)
Part 2: Why Measurement is Important (approximately one hour)

The presentations are part of TUV NEL’s ‘Free Flow Measurement Training’ series.

Gilbert has worked in the Engineering Industry since 1966 progressively developing a career path, which included a Managing Directorship in a specialised Flow Measurement Consultancy Company. The majority of his career has been concentrated in the area of flow measurement, allocation, sampling and analysis in the Oil and Gas Industry. His current role is developing a Flow Consultancy business for TÜV NEL in the Asia Pacific Region.

Chris is a flow measurement consultant at NEL in Glasgow, Scotland who specialises in the oil & gas industry. He has approximately 5 years experience at NEL and works predominately on consultancy for the oil & gas industry. Chris has in depth knowledge of flow measurement technologies, allocation and measurement uncertainty. Chris has been the technical lead on several high value projects during his time at NEL. Chris’s knowledge and expertise were exploited in the NEL led Joint industry Project researching measurement techniques for high viscosity fluids. He was also responsible for the modification to the NEL oil flow facility to incorporate high viscosity fluids up to 1500 cSt. He has presented technical papers on flow measurement at several conferences around the world, including Calgary, Kuala Lumpur, London and Oslo. He has also represented NEL at the Energy Institute HMC-1 meetings and been part of the Oil & Gas Focus Group steering committee.

You can register here, and flyers for the above and other events may be obtained here.


Extract from “The Will to Compete”

October 26, 2013

Describing the early interactions with oil & gas producers:

“I remember in 1976 hearing with awe at a briefing given by a Major Oil Company on oil trading, distribution and logistics that their budget for transportation and logistics was Ringgit 350 million a year in Malaysia alone. Now what could we do with a Ringgit 10 million grant that was the sum total of our capital at the time?” (Muri Muhammad)

You know you want this book, purchase it here.