New to Oil&Gas? Oilfield services?

Hi all!..introducing a blog to share all experiences, skills, technologies, life and money in O&G industry. Some people still really new and might not really understand very well about O&G. Well as for sharing I will contribute some ideas, opinions and views to those who got some misunderstanding, lack of knowledge about this field to be clear in their mind. Hopefully anybody who’s visiting this blog could try to contribute theirs also for our own good.

For the beginners, generally O&G can be divided into Upstream and Downstream. Either one of it should be divided as the picture below. Client (Oil company) is for PETRONAS..Shell..Exxon..BP...bla2..and Services company are such as Schlumberger...Halliburton...BJ..etc..clients they have oil and gas field and how to produce it..they will ask the services company to do it..so client just collecting money from the oil or gas produced instead of doing hell hard work as what services company does..so..people in services company will earn a lot of money instead of people in client company because of the hardship and highly technical skills..so which want do you prefer..ask yourself..each of them got pros n cons...always keep that in mind. In this blog will focus more on upstream as I started my career there. But those who are from the downstream side are welcome to contribute anything here as to share to everybody.

Joining O&G?

To enter this O&G industry you are not necessary to have only engineering degree (some people still got confuse on this), it’s just like any other companies which has supporting department to the operation department such as IT, Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain, HSE, etc..but most of the people who leads in this department especially in Oilfield Services (OFS) are people from the field (field engineers, specialist, etc..).

Below are some example of pros and cons between both working in oil and services company which should subjected to the company’s terms and policies.

For those who wants to join OFS especially in operation department, if you wanna be in top big five service company such as Schlumberger, Halliburton, BJ, Baker, Weatherford its quite hard because they are looking for 3 pointers fresh grads at the beginning to be selected for an interview...even some of my friends got 2.99 still been rejected, well same goes to oil company...the reason is they expected that 3 pointers candidates can be a fast learner while doing the job and won't fail any kind of training school provided..for instance in Schlumberger, even there are some Schlumberger field engineer trainees were terminated during the training because they failed the exam. Don’t worry about kind of engineering background..once u enter O&G environment or others..you will learn from zero actually no matter in which segment they put you in..they just need your engineering aptitude and of course attitude to start everything..but keep in mind.. 3 pointers doesn't mean you could be 100% accepted in top big companies but no worries..you could try and I think most of local services company would consider something with that pointer..but sorry to say that person would be the last to arrived..simple word..last option..my advice..just give the hit..and try your luck.

How’s life? Money?

Talking about life is something I could say very subjective right? Any industry, working condition, working area, one should determine their own life (work-life balanced) whether goes bad or vice versa. It’s hard to physically judge by the nature of work as people’s life couldn’t be noted into numerical statistics I guess. Those who work in oil company their life would be much easier, safe and clean environment compare to services where risks are everywhere, harsh, dirty and oily condition where small mistake could ruins everything when comes to multiple catastrophic situation. Safety is the greatest priority. If you think it’s not safe, STOP the work! One simple rule of thumb; once, my senior told me on the first day I’m on the offshore platform,”Don’t put your hand where you don’t want to put your dick to”.

Money? Well this is my less favorite question when people ask me about the salary. Well, no pain, no gain right? As you put your ass in this field, simple rules; high risk high pay, hell hard work high pay (but sometimes not). Bear in mind, not only O&G could help you become rich people…a lot of chances out there to be rich dude!

Current situation

Just some info for the current situation in O&G due to economic downturn recently where some companies already and may reduce their manpower as the business seem kind of slow in certain areas. Services company some of them really reduce their employee and some more likely to just keep their employees but freeze the hiring temporarily (goes to top big five companies).

From some trusted source, Shell and Petronas will start laying off their people so soon. What a big surprise for big oil company I guess!