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CRAFTING YOUR CAREER | INTERVIEW WITH STEVEN FARRIS | BENEFITS OF HIGHER EDUCATION
The Magazine by and for Young Professionals in Oil and Gas VOLUME 11 // ISSUE 1 // 2015
NAVIGATING the INDUSTRY
A Guide for Recent Grads
Producing solutions.
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Aera encourages a healthy balance between
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Veterans are welcome to apply. Aera is an equal opportunity employer.
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GEOLOGICAL TECHNICIANS
INFO MANAGEMENT & TECHNOLOGY
YOU WON’T JUST TAP OIL RESERVES
CAREER POTENTIAL.
YOU’LL TAP YOUR FULL
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ContentsVOLUME 11 // ISSUE 1 // 2015
3 What’s Ahead Comments from 2015 TWA Editor-in-Chief Tony Fernandez.
4 President’s Column 2015 SPE President Helge Hove Haldorsen reveals the eight dimensions to focus on
in plotting your way to career success.
7 TWA InterActWays for TWA readers to stay connected year-round.
8 TWA InterviewSteven Farris of Apache Corporation shares his industry experience and
offers advice to young professionals entering the oil and gas industry.
10 AcademiaJust entering the oil and gas job market? Heriot-Watt University’s Eric Mackay
tells you how to carve out a career and create a niche for yourself.
12 Economist’s CornerStart a career or study further? Matt Balhoff of the University of Texas at Austin
and Larry Fiddler of Halliburton Consulting debate the pros and cons.
15 ForumA step-by-step guide for students and young professionals on navigating the
oil and gas industry.
18 Pillars of the IndustryImran Butt of Baker Hughes talks about why young professionals should be
pumped up about a future in the oil and gas industry.
20 HR DiscussionExperts and industry professionals chart the road map for career growth.
23 SPE 101Find out the various ways SPE can help the future generation of oil and gas
professionals.
24 Technical LeadersIndustry leaders Janeen Judah of Chevron and Kendra Lema of ConocoPhillips
talk about what makes a person good leadership material and the
opportunities available in the industry.
27 Soft SkillsHow to prepare yourself for your next promotion.
29 Tech 101Tim Duggan of Skynet Labs shares his insight on the importance of data
intergration in oil and gas modeling.
32 A YP’s Guide to...Young professionals guide recent graduates to the career opportunities available
in the US, Canada, and the UK.
34 YP NewsflashNews on YP events from the Bangalore, San Joaquin Valley, and Warri SPE sections.
36 Your Best ShotWinning photos from job locations.
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TWA EDITORIAL
COMMITTEE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFTony Fernandez, Jefferies LLC
DEPUTY EDITOR-IN-CHIEFJarrett Dragani, Cenovus Energy
TWA A DVISERDavid Vaucher, Alvarez & Marsal
LEAD EDITORS
Amber Sturrock, Chevron
Angela Dang, Colorado School of Mines
Anisha Mule, University of Tulsa
Harshad Dixit, Halliburton
Henny Gunawan, Schlumberger
Islin Munisteri, BP
Jenny Cronlund, BP
Madhavi Jadhav, Schlumberger
Maxim Kotenev, CGG Veritas
Paulo Pires, Petrobras
Rita Okoroafor, Schlumberger
Rob Jackson, Mountaineer Keystone
Shruti Jahagirdar, Shell Technology India
EDITORS and ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Aman Gill, Nexen ULC
Ankit Agarwal, Schlumberger
Asif Zafar, Halliburton
Batool Haider, Stanford University
Carter Clemens, BP
Chieke Offurum, EOG Resources
Colter Morgan, Chevron
Craig Frenette, Cenovus Energy
Dane Gregoris, ITG
David Sturgess, Woodside Energy
Dilyara Iskakova, Hess Corporation
Hao Sun, Chevron
Islam Ibrahim, Gupco
Ivo Foianini, Halliburton
Jakob Roth, Schlumberger
James Lloyd, Mayer Brown LLP
Kristin Weyand, ConocoPhillips
Li Zhang, Devon Energy
Marjan Jamshidi, ConocoPhillips
Matthew French, ConocoPhillips
Michael Stratton, Accenture
Muhammad Taha, NED University
Nazneen Ahmed, Apache
Oyebisi Oladeji, Schlumberger
Rodrigo Terrazas, Total
Sara Davila, MHWirth
Shubham Sharma, Indian School of Mines Dhanbad
Thomas Shattuck, Wood Mackenzie
Thresia Nurhayati, Halliburton
Tiago de Almeida, Universitário de Barra Mansa
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3Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
What’s Ahead–From TWA’s Editor-in-Chief
Setting the Foundation With
the Bricks From Others:
Advice for Recent GradsTony Fernandez, Editor-in-Chief, The Way Ahead
elcome to the �rst TWA issue of 2015! Our goal for
this issue is to provide an all-inclusive reference for
entry-level graduates as they begin their careers,
so it is jam-packed with terri�c early-career
guidance from industry leaders. Think of your career as a tall
building: the stronger the foundation, the taller the building
can be built. I especially urge you to read 2015 SPE President
Helge Haldorsen’s eight dimensions to a successful career in the
President’s Column.
Throughout your �rst few years in the industry, the advice
that you acquire will replicate much of what is in this issue:
continue your technical education, �ne tune your “soft skills,”
and build a mentorship network, to name a few. While these
are all vital for a prosperous career in oil and gas, I defer
to the words of our authors on these topics on the following
pages. Instead, I’ll “give forward” four pieces of advice that I
was once given, which have had the most profound impact on
my career.
Finding the Yin for Your Yang
According to Facebook COO of�cer Sheryl Sandberg, “the most
important career choice you’ll make is who you marry.” Having a
spouse who supports—and revels in—your career choices can
be reassuring and a fuel for con�dence. Only by making sure
there is compatibility between your and your partner’s domestic
dreams and that both are secure in your roles (whatever
those may be) can the whole be greater than the sum of its parts.
Too often, individuals fail to recognize the importance of this
complementary partnership, but keep in mind that choosing
a spouse will arguably also be your most important �nancial
decision, lifestyle decision, and parenting decision. Never
thought you’d get love advice from an SPE journal, did you?
Field Experience Adds Legitimacy
Perhaps the most enticing early decision you will want to
make is to decide between a managerial or technical career
ladder. I urge you to avoid making a premature decision;
the single most de�ning characteristic of every successful
engineer executive that I’ve witnessed is their ability to make
decisions based on their own vast operational expertise. By
leveraging their own individual experiences, they’re able
to steer their career exactly where they want it to go.
Field experience can also be the most effective way an
engineer can road-test a role. It is perfectly natural early in your
career to be undecided about your discipline of focus; all the
disciplines look (and are) rewarding in their own way, so it can
be hard to choose one for the rest of your life. While this decision
will take some time to crystallize, the invaluable experience you
will gain along the way will forever pay dividends. Being able to
articulate your thoughts in the technical jargon of the other team
members because you walked in their shoes at some point in
your career can be an indispensable weapon.
Always Have Control of Your Career
I am not the prototypical engineer, meaning I never took the
classical engineering curriculum in my undergraduate degree
or had the types of internships that are typical of résumés in
our industry, so I spent the �rst years of my career addressing
my perceived weaknesses (through rotational assignments
and coursework) seeking self-validation through any
means possible.
In retrospect, my sentiments were unfounded—everyone is
different, and that’s just �ne—but they serendipitously fueled me
to assess and address my actual weaknesses. Self-knowledge
is a powerful tool. By continuously evaluating your strengths
and weaknesses, you’ll be able to plan your future around your
strengths while at the same time identify any potential weakness
that could be an Achilles’ heel for your career.
In line with this assessment, it would be to your advantage
to create a list of short-, medium-, and long-term career goals.
Then, by comparing those goals with your self-assessment you’ll
be able to create an action list of steps to take to best position
yourself for success.
Utilize SPE—A Lot
I can’t count how many times the �rst sentence upon my
meeting someone is, “Do you know such-and-such person?”
It is unquestionably the industry’s icebreaker of choice and
speaks to the interconnectedness of the oil patch. For being such
a global industry, it sure does feel small and intimate, and you
can use it to your advantage.
Every volunteer role that I’ve had within SPE, from the
local chapter to the international level, has yielded not only
professional contacts but also lifelong friends. While the
technical motives are obvious, by maintaining an activity level
within SPE, you’re also sowing the social seeds that will bear
fruit in bushels later on in your career. Remember that the
next time you’re caught on the receiving end of the industry’s
favorite icebreaker.
With all that said, congratulations on graduating!
These are exciting times of limitless possibilities. By taking the
bricks others offer you from their foundation, you’ll be ahead
of the curve toward realizing your wildest dreams. Now the
fun begins! TWA
W
4
President’s Column
am often asked by young professionals how they should
navigate their careers successfully in the exploration and
production (E&P) industry and what the most important
dimensions to focus on are. Firstly, I encourage them to
be authentic, true to themselves, really stand for something,
and harness their unique perspective and differentness as their
secret career weapons.
Over the years, I have compiled eight dimensions (D) that
are key to navigating job success as measured by respect,
validation, reward (salary and position), relationships, and a
feeling of achievement and satisfaction stemming from a sense
of purpose. As you review the H3 Spider Plot score yourself and
re�ect on your score. Is your score by design or by accident?
In general, I recommend that you never stop being a student
because, as a wise Asian quote says: When the student is ready,
the teacher will appear!
D1—HAVE A SENSE OF PURPOSE
Start With Why, a book by Simon Sinek, points out that the
motivational sequence should be “why,” followed by “how,”
followed by “what.” There is no stronger engine inside us
than when we care about our job and have a strong sense of
purpose. Always look for the “why” inside you, beyond your
paycheck. In my experience, when you �nd it, you will feel
different. Remember, you are an important part of an industry
that helps 7.3 billion people get their energy every day for
heating, cooling, lighting, mobility, and transportation. Even
in a competitive workplace, you can �nd inspiration in helping
others. That sense of purpose makes you see the bigger
picture even early in your career. What you do is not just a job;
even in a small way, you are changing the world.
D2—BE PASSIONATE
People who exhibit passion or �re in the belly, a “can do”
attitude, and a “now-is-good” sense of urgency are much
more motivational, likable, and fun to be on the team with than
grumpy, glass-half-full people. In most companies, being
a passionate champion playing to win is how you succeed
in the Darwinistic �ght for attention and funds. You can do
that by reducing complexity and by �nding a simple way of
explaining your idea and goal. That does not mean that you
alone have all the answers. On the contrary, humility as a
balance to strong passion and willpower is essential. With
this, you invite the perspectives of all those around you in.
Nobody doubts where your end zone is, but to get there is a
team sport.
D3—KNOW YOUR STUFF, BE A TEAM PLAYER
You have to keep yourself updated in your �eld—master
the tool kits of your discipline. You have to follow research
and grow in wisdom in your discipline and outside it and
keep “connecting dots” and speculate about the next big
thing. Capture, adapt, and apply the many things that you
“honestly stole” from the outside. Be proactive and push
for improvements that lower costs, boost rates, increase
ultimate recoveries, reduce the overall risk picture, and lift
value creation. Refuse to sugarcoat or in�ate forecasts and
estimates to get something sanctioned. Instead, insist on
seeing the upside or good risk in the project (GRISK—doing
better than the expected case) and the downside or bad risk
(BRISK—doing worse than the expected case). In his article
in the Journal of Petroleum Technology (October 2014), Neeraj
Nandurdikar showed that the industry’s ability to forecast
is dismal and that this is an area where you can help your
company and the industry improve. The ability to row in
synchrony with many disciplines toward a joint goal is an
essential trait to have if you want to succeed in the industry.
You can be a catalyst for the new, “the 2.0,” and be a huge
source of innovation. Even if we have warned against discipline
“silos” for 20 years, we still work too much in isolation. Let
us make 2015 the year of massive cross-discipline thinking
and collaboration.
D4—BE CURIOUS, INNOVATE
In his book, The Corner Of�ce: Indispensable and Unexpected
Lessons From CEOs On How To Lead and Succeed, Adam
Bryant investigates the types of personal traits that took chief
executive of�cers to the corner of�ce. Surprisingly, the top trait
is “passionate curiosity.” These individuals ask questions about
everything all the time because they really want to understand.
They start building a huge archive of information or “dots” in
their minds and then BANG!—innovation happens when they
connect two often unrelated pieces of knowledge. The future
of the industry depends on relentless “creative destruction” of
E&P. Choose to be curious, ask questions—it can take you to
the corner of�ce!
Navigating Success in the E&P
Industry: The “BIG 8” on Your
Career Compass
Helge Hove Haldorsen
2015 SPE President
I
5Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
D5—BE COURAGEOUS, TAKE RISKS
There is no way around it: You have to be courageous
to succeed. You have to become comfortable being
uncomfortable. Expect to meet resistance; you will always
have those who defend the way we did it last time and
hence, proposing another way will take courage. To become
a champion playing to win, you have to prepare really well
and train because it is all in the preparation! But, you also
have to step out of your comfort zone and sweat it out. Say
to yourself: I stand tall inside, I have a great message, I can
do this, and then con�dence arrives. Being courageous also
means taking a risk on hiring someone unique, and being
brutally honest and candid about something that is not good
enough, rather than pushing it under the rug. By taking some
personal risks you create your own luck.
D6—NETWORK, BUILD TRUST, COLLABORATE
It bears repeating. You are much more valuable for your
employer if you have a huge network. Where do good
ideas come from? You alone in the of�ce? Probably not. You
are more likely to get good ideas at an SPE conference.
That is where you can �nd a network, which equals
possibilities and opportunities. Trusting relationships,
that is, people who are more than acquaintances, are also
key. These are people you really admire, hit it off with, and
want to see as often as you can because you learn so much
from them.
For some, business always equals war. However, in many
situations, collaboration is now the new way to compete to win.
In my view, this soon will make companies increasingly hire for
attitude and train for skill. Here is where your SPE membership
is critical. It makes you a member of a team of 143,000 on a
mission to share! Another bene�t of volunteering in SPE is that
you get the opportunity to take on leadership roles often earlier
than you do in your company. In this way, you may already be a
seasoned leader when you get promoted in your company.
D7—NEVER TAKE A LEFT!
What gets you �red? That you don’t remember how to solve a
differential equation or how to compute the net present value?
Of course not. People get in trouble for not being ethical, for
being corrupt, for not being respectful, for not following the
company values, and for not valuing and respecting diversity.
I put it this way: Never take a left. You come along in your daily
work (and in your private life) and all of a sudden, you arrive
at a fork in the road: You are going to the left, but left is the
corrupt, unethical, and zero integrity way. Even if you are going
left, take a right three times and then you are going left. It may
take a little longer, but it is the right thing to do. You followed
your company’s rules and procedures, and you followed your
5
4
DO YOU THINK
HSSE-SR AND
OPERATE IN 4E (Energy,
Economics, Environment,
and Education)?
A STRONG SENSE
OF PURPOSE=YOU?
PASSIONATE YET
HUMBLE=YOU?
VERY STRONG
IN YOUR FIELD AND
A GREAT TEAM
PLAYER?
VERY CURIOUS?
DO YOU ASK “WHY NOT”
“WHAT IF” AND
“HOW”?COURAGEOUS,
RISK TAKER=YOU?
NETWORKED XXL,
SPE MEMBER, VERY
COLLABORATIVE,
BUILD TRUSTING
RELATIONSHIPS=YOU?
HIGH ETHICAL
STANDARDS; NEVER TAKE
A LEFT=YOU?
4
5
1
3
2
7
THE H3 SPIDER PLOT
8
6
3
2
1
A
B
6
President’s Column
conscience. By never taking a left, you safeguard your personal
license to operate.
D8—THINK HSSE-SR IN 4E
Going forward, navigating energy success means thinking
health, safety, security, environment, and social responsibility
(HSSE-SR) in 4E.
E1=Energy (in our case, oil and gas) production:
Oil demand will grow from 92 million BOPD today to
115 million BOPD in ExxonMobil’s 2040 scenario. This
assumes that we are working hard to improve another E
too: Ef�ciency! Natural gas demand will grow perhaps even
more than projected today if it substitutes more deeply for
coal if the planet is to stay below the +2°C rise above pre-
industrialization levels. Between 2014 and 2020, 670,000
wells will have to be drilled to keep up with global oil and
gas needs. I predict a new technology in�ection point with
automated drilling, big data, the Internet of everything,
and arti�cial intelligence in the �eld helping us improve
our practices.
E2=Economics: Currently, the competitiveness of the
industry is challenged due to increasing �eld complexity,
high costs, and low oil prices. On your radar, you should
never accept status quo, always push for incremental
and radical improvements to improve your company’s
competitiveness, and be entrepreneurial.
E3=Environment: This really is a key dimension;
sustainable development is the only acceptable way as
is local stakeholder engagement. You cannot be a great
global company unless you are a great company locally
where the bit hits the rock. Also, if a CO2 fee or tax is
introduced in many more countries, it will be very smart
to be ready with a low average number of CO2 pounds
emitted per barrel produced.
E4=Education: We need to continue to educate the
public with facts and engage face to face with all our
local stakeholders to earn their trust and to maintain our
license to operate. We need to go to our schools in the
neighborhood and tell about how energy is the greatest
challenge facing mankind, what a wonderful industry it
is, and what a force for good we are. Engaging with these
young students and making them the next generation of
energy professionals will give you a lot of positive energy
and sense of purpose as you make a difference in
someone’s life.
So, there you have it: my eight dimensions for
you to navigate success inside and outside. I wish
you good luck. Remember that the past is history, the
future is a mystery, and the present is a gift—that is why
it is called “the present.” Enjoy every day if you can, and
try to make sure there are no ordinary moments—just
extraordinary moments. TWA
Communicate. Collaborate. Connect. Expand your network when you join
SPE Connect—your virtual destination
to meet, collaborate, and discuss
technical challenges and resolutions
in the E&P industry.
www.spe.org/go/connect
Scan here to download the free app.
Technical challenge:
initiated in Houston
discussed in Dubai
solved in Moscow
7Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
TWA InterAct
TWA on Social Media
Hello TWA readers and welcome to our � rst issue for 2015!
This issue features some great articles for recent graduates
as well as some excellent interviews and technical topics
for all of our avid readers. As always, we like to remind
everyone of our social media presence:
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Don’t forget to check in on the SPE TWA social media updates
and share some thoughts with us about your � rst steps in
navigating the energy industry as a recent graduate.
TWA Tweets
Don’t forget to read the article from our past
editor-in-chief!
!41&5IF8BZ"IFBE���0DUPCFS�����
Incoming and outgoing, right, editors-in-chief looking dapper
at an @SPE_Events wedding! Congrats Andrea!
!41&5IF8BZ"IFBE����4FQUFNCFS�����
What does it really take to call yourself a “professional”?:
http://fuel� x.com/blog/2014/09/30/what-does-it-really-take-
to-call-yourself-a-professional.
!41&5IF8BZ"IFBE����4FQUFNCFS�����
Want to improve your business acumen? Take some tips from
Gordon Ramsay: http://fuel� x.com/blog/2014/09/17/want-
to-improve-your-business-acumen-take-some-tips-from-
gordon-ramsay.
!41&5IF8BZ"IFBE���4FQUFNCFS�����
One impact of the NA shale production—The Atlantic: http://
www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/what-if-your-
small-town-suddenly-got-huge/379536
Interesting LinkedIn Reads
“7 Things Employees Wish They Could Tell Their
Boss About Salaries,” Jeff Haden, Aug 14, 2014.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140814124101-
20017018-7-things-you-wish-you-could-tell-your-boss-about-
your-pay.
“What Predicts Success? It’s Not Your IQ,” Daniel
Goleman, July 17, 2014. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/
article/20140717120528-117825785-what-predicts-success-it-
s-not-your-iq.
Are you interested in joining the TWA
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TWA Interview
8
What attracted you to the oil and
gas industry and how did you
get started?
I won’t pretend to have planned the
career I’ve had from the outset, so
to some extent accident and luck
played roles.
My dad was in the energy sector—
he was a �eld superintendent for Gulf
Oil Company for 30 years—so I grew
up around the industry.
I went to Oklahoma State University
(OSU) and got an accounting degree.
After I graduated, I specialized
in tax work for companies and
individuals, many of whom were,
not surprisingly, in the energy
sector. I ended up taking a job with
a highly successful man in Tulsa who
helped me get to know the industry
quite well.
Can you recall any individuals
who made a lasting impact on
your career?
I have been lucky to have learned
from quite a few talented leaders and
good people.
I played football at OSU and it was
the team’s academic adviser who �rst
suggested I get an accounting degree.
Finance is the foundation for so many
business decisions, so I bene�ted from
that early guidance.
I once had a tax partner who said,
“Just because your voice gets louder,
it does not increase the quality of your
argument.” That has stayed with me;
even when my voice does get louder, I
remember that the focus has to be on
the right answer.
I also owe a great deal to Mick
Merelli, one of my longest-term
mentors and a great friend as well.
Mick’s career included time as
president and then as a member of our
board here at Apache.
Mick had exceptional people skills
and an ability to distill issues down
to the basics. He was famous for his
observation that, “You don’t have to
get everything right, just the important
things.” I bene�tted from my time
with him.
Finally, I have learned a lot from
Apache’s founder, Raymond Plank.
Raymond was and is a larger-than-life
individual from whom I learned many
things including how to focus on the
big decisions.
How has your background in
�nance in�uenced your approach
to corporate decision making?
I believe having some kind of �nancial
grounding is important to being
successful in business.
Of course, it is important to
make more money than you spend
over time to survive in the business
world—we don’t need an economic
background to get that. But �nancial
training helps you separate out the
emotional elements of decision making
so you keep clear in your mind which
parts of a conclusion stem from
�nancial, tax, or accounting variables
and which conclusions are in�uenced
by other elements.
Many smaller decisions are all
about the data, but the bigger the
decision, the more emotion there is,
so this focus matters especially in
this context.
Starting with a �nancial assessment
also helps with risk analysis of where
each decision may lead.
Steve Farris
is nonexecutive
chairman of the
board of directors
for Apache
Corporation,
an oil and gas
exploration and production (E&P)
company established in 1954. Most
recently, he was chairman, chief
executive officer, and president
of Apache Corporation before his
retirement on 20 January. Apache
has operations in the United States,
Canada, the UK sector of the
North Sea, Egypt, and Australia;
its headquarters is in Houston.
Farris was named chairman of
Apache in 2009, upon the retirement
of company founder Raymond Plank.
He was promoted to president in 1994
and chief executive officer in 2002.
From 1994 to 2013, Apache’s assets
have grown from less than USD 2
billion to more than USD 60 billion,
daily production has increased from
approximately 108,000 BOEPD to
approximately 760,000 BOEPD, and
proved reserves have increased from
330 million BOE to 2.6 billion BOE.
Farris joined Apache in June
1988 as vice president of domestic
E&P and was promoted to
senior vice president in 1991.
Prior to joining Apache, Farris
was vice president of Terra
Resources. Before working at
Terra, he was executive vice
president of Robert W. Berry, Inc.,
an independent E&P company.
Farris is a founding member and
serves on the executive committee
of America’s Natural Gas Alliance,
co-chairman of the U.S.-Egypt
Business Council, a member of the
MD Anderson Cancer Center Board
of Visitors, and a member of the Fund
for Teachers Board of Directors.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from
Oklahoma State University.
G. Steven Farris Nonexecutive Chairman, Board of Directors,
Apache Corporation
9Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
What distinguishes good from great
corporate leaders in oil and gas?
You have to have respect for the person
sitting across the table. Having respect
for someone doesn’t mean you have to
get along with them, but, honestly, great
leaders focus on issues, not personalities.
Another wise individual told me, “never
underestimate the person sitting across
the table, he or she may be as bright as
you are.”
Great leaders have to be good at
fostering their teams, let their people
be all they can be, and give them lots
of hugs. They also have to want to win,
and they have to be competitive.
What are some challenges to
attracting and retaining talent?
How can companies overcome
such obstacles?
For entry-level people, salary is the
most important factor when making an
initial decision. When I �rst joined the
workforce, I received four job offers
and I accepted the one that offered the
highest annual salary—the difference
was USD 500!
For retention, it’s generally not
about the money but a collection of
other workplace variables. People
need to feel like they’re contributing
and making an impact. It’s about
feeling good about where they
work and feeling like they have
some personal responsibility to
do something.
You have been with Apache for
more than 2 decades. What has
the journey been like and how has
Apache changed in that time?
It’s always been a fun industry even as it
continually changes.
In the late ’80s, Apache Corporation
managed limited partnerships for
others and their own account. When
I came to Apache in 1988, they had
just �nished rolling up the limited
partnerships to concentrate on being an
independent energy company. My �rst
year, we were just focused on hiring the
right people.
We continued to grow and evolve.
When I became president in 1994,
we were focused on growing our
international business while keeping
North America’s production �at, as
this made economic sense in that
time frame.
In 2009, that all changed and we
decided that it made more sense to
focus back on North America. At that
point, North America represented
only 30% of our portfolio. From 2009
to 2013, we grew that percentage
to 62%.
This shift, of course, was by design
and we’re currently in the process
of focusing our business on our
tremendous North American assets.
Many of our E&P peers are also doing
this, as these have over time become
two different businesses.
We don’t pretend to have a crystal
ball that is better than others—we
didn’t recognize the beginning of this
change in 2009, but by 2012 it was
obvious. So that’s where we are today—
and we continue to look ahead for
whatever new shifts may be developing
in our ever-changing industry.
What can young professionals do
to stay adaptable to a constantly
changing oil and gas industry?
Keep your head down, and work hard.
Just try to make yourself invaluable to
the company.
Focusing on doing the job you have
well is better than spending your time
raising your hand for your next job.
Your boss recognizes who does a good
job. Even if they never tell you, 99% of
the time they recognize talent.
What is the outlook for a petroleum
engineer entering the industry
today?
Young people have a lot of opportunities
at very young ages in our industry. Sixty
percent of Apache’s work force has been
with us for less than 5 years so there
are continual openings for good people
to advance.
Junior petroleum engineers have
great careers ahead of them, mainly
because in our business (and at our
company) the best answers win and
everyone takes on real responsibility
very quickly.
This is a very exciting time to be
a petroleum engineer. The order of
magnitude of the data available today
versus what was available 10 years
ago is just phenomenal. I can look
up any �eld in the world and know
what’s happening in that �eld. I used to
look through pages and pages of SPE
papers, and now they’re all online at the
click of a mouse.
The rapidly evolving ability to
process and analyze this exploding
amount of data is equally exciting.
The integration today of reservoir
engineering, geoscience, and
economics is much different than
it used to be and creates great
opportunities for creative people. You
used to have a geologist identify a
prospect, an engineer would assess
the potential reserves, and then take
it up to planning to run economics.
That’s all done in real time now and
the possibilities it creates for nimble
companies are vast.
What are the challenges in the
oil and gas industry a graduating
engineer should be prepared to
face?
Just as the availability of large amounts
of data is exciting, it can also be
overwhelming. The importance of
those data is what you really have
to understand, because you can get
bogged down in it. My advice to young
folks is to look at all the data you can, but
don’t get bogged down in them. You still
have to make sound engineering and
geologic decisions, based on real data.
Worldwide, everyone is focused on
Continued on page 19
10
Academia
Planning your career trajectory in an
industry rich in promise for someone
with technical ability, a willingness to
work hard, and an eye for opportunity
involves several important steps.
Perhaps the � rst thing to realize is
that your degree does not make you
an expert…expertise comes through
experience. Your training will have
exposed you to concepts, made you
think about the applications and
implications of those concepts. But
expertise comes through experience,
and in the oil and gas industry, that
generally entails dealing with real
� eld systems. As you emerge from
university with your degree certi� cate
in hand, a spot of humility and an
eagerness to observe are required.
Every oil and gas � eld is different, and
you’ve got lots to learn from each new
one you work on.
So, how do you go about using
your skills, your natural talents, and
your training to best effect as you
embark on your working career?
First, think about what “best effect”
means, what you want it to mean, and
what your employer thinks it means.
Figure out what the company’s main
drivers are. (A good idea is to go
onto the company’s website before an
interview, identify their key drivers and
nuances, and then subtly re� ect the
fact that you’ve done your homework at
the interview).
What Do You Want
From Your Job?
Job satisfaction is most likely to be
achieved if your work addresses the
company’s objectives. This sounds
obvious, but we can easily be lulled
into thinking the organization is there
to help us achieve our objectives. It’s
not; in your organization it is likely that
shareholder value, national wealth, or
institutional reputation will be the main
currency, and you will subsequently
be assessed on how you contribute to
enhancing these.
As well as � guring out what the
drivers are for your organization, there
is the trickier task of identifying your
own drivers. Ensuring you have time
and energy for the things in life outside
of work may be critical. Location of your
work, type of work, opportunities to
develop could be other considerations.
Financial reward will certainly be one
of the drivers. People often seek wage
increases because they want to be
valued as much as needing the extra
cash. One of the biggest frustrations
for people in the workplace is the
sense that their work is not given the
recognition it is due, either because
we perceive someone else is taking
the credit, or the contribution itself
is not valued. Oftentimes, the real
signi� cance of a pay raise is the
acknowledgment that the employee’s
work is of value to the organization.
What Does Your Employer
Want From Your Job?
Work toward ensuring that you deliver
in line with the top priorities of your
organization and in sync with your
colleagues. While working in teams,
our natural tendency is to focus on
the bits we think we excel at, and our
attention is drawn to the things we think
others are not so good at. In fact, we
gravitate to doing what we enjoy the
most, and naturally that ends up being
what we’re best at.
Be honest about your de� ciencies,
and recognize that there are others
in your team who may be rather good
at the bits you don’t like, or quite
possibly don’t even value. If you give
them encouragement in working on the
bit of the jigsaw puzzle you � nd less
interesting, you’ll probably be given
more freedom to get on with the bit you
really enjoy. The point is not to try to � t
everyone in the team into a single mold
but to identify what the work needs are,
what the range of skills required to
deliver the work may be, and to respect
others for their contribution to the
overall skill set.
Crafting the Career of Your DreamsEric Mackay, Heriot-Watt University
Eric Mackay holds the foundation CMG chair in reactive
� ow simulation in the Institute of Petroleum Engineering at
Heriot-Watt University. His research interests include the
study of � uid � ow and geochemical reactions in porous
media. Mackay has taught reservoir simulation at Heriot-Watt
University since 1990. He has over 150 publications related
primarily to inorganic scale management and carbon capture
and storage. Mackay was appointed SPE Distinguished
Lecturer on Scale Management during 2007–2008. He holds a BSc in Physics from
the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-
Watt University.
11Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
One of the parts of Heriot-Watt
University’s MSc degree program
that graduates re�ect upon as having
best prepared them for industry
(particularly once they’ve been
in the industry for a few years)
is the �eld development project.
During the project, students have
to synthesize all that they’ve learned
in their courses and apply it to a
real-�eld scenario. That exercise
alone has enormous value for the
learning and consolidation process,
but graduates often re�ect that they
not only learned how to apply their
technical knowledge, but also how
to work as a team in what can be
a pressurized environment, with
deadlines looming and evaluations
of each individual’s performance at
stake. The most impressive projects
are not necessarily those delivered by
the teams with the greatest technical
expertise, but by those teams that
worked most effectively as a unit. This
lesson certainly carries forward to life
in industry.
How to Achieve Job Satisfaction?
A major element of job satisfaction
comes from recognition. If you have
worked hard, thought hard about
making sure your work is effective
and accretive toward the goals of your
company, and if in your dealings with
others you have been honest, then
you will surely derive a sense of
contentment as you head home at
the end of a shift. But there is that
very natural and justi�able human
need to receive recognition for what
we do—I believe it is inbuilt. The
key is to identify the individual from
whom you would like the recognition
to come and what their requirements
may be. Don’t hesitate to identify the
elder statesman in the organization,
no matter how cantankerous he/she
may be, and ask them for advice on
what needs to be done to do well in
your organization. After all, they too
were once new to the �rm, and they too
once wanted to know what it takes to
achieve job satisfaction. If you’re lucky,
they won’t have forgotten what that
feels like.
Keep Learning
There is enormous value in attending
courses, conferences, and workshops.
They all force you to think outside of
your routine, and you get to enjoy an
enormous privilege—meeting people
from all over the world. Set aside
a speci�c time every week to read
articles. Acquire the self-discipline
to read without checking your inbox
or mobile phone for messages. (If you
can’t do that, recognize the signs of
addiction and seek immediate help.)
SPE makes such resources very easy
to access. Start writing based on your
own work. Try developing a half-day
course on your specialty. If you listen
to the questions you get asked, you’ll
learn something every time you deliver
the course.
Another Degree?
A higher degree like a PhD is a
marathon that requires endurance,
determination, and willpower to
complete. Don’t start on a PhD simply
because you can’t think what else to do
next, you can’t get a job, or you think it
is a way to continue the student life that
you have enjoyed. The right reasons for
pursuing a PhD should be the desire
to know what the answer to a question
is, simply because the question has
been posed, and the desire to teach.
As an example, for Stephen Holditch,
one of our technical leaders in today’s
industry, the burning question in his
mind was the behavior of a reservoir
during a fracture treatment and how
to model it (TWA Interview, TWA,
Vol. 10, No. 2, 5–7). You must actively
enjoy going deeper until you (and the
examination committee!) are satis�ed
that you’ve left no stone unturned in
your quest for the answer. You may
ultimately not even �nd the answer—
the point is that you were prepared to
just about die trying.
Decide What Your Biography
Should Say in Years to Come
Finally, let me share the drivers that
motivate me as an academic:
rø�5IF�GSFFEPN�UP�VOEFSUBLF�XPSL�
that interests me.
rø�5IF�TBUJTGBDUJPO�PG�TFFJOH�TPNFPOF�
who previously did not have
awareness or understanding of a
concept now “getting it.”
rø�5IF�QMFBTVSF�PG�NFFUJOH�B�GPSNFS�
student, perhaps after 10 or 20
years, and hearing the story of
their career development since
leaving university, and re�ecting
on the perhaps small part that
their time at the university played
in initiating or furthering that
career.
rø�5IF�TBUJTGBDUJPO�PG�TPNFPOF�
agreeing with me about the
usefulness of a particular piece of
research that I am proposing, to
the extent that they are willing to
fund it.
rø�5IF�TFOTF�PG�GVMàMMNFOU�XIFO�B�
piece of research or consultancy
I’ve undertaken led to a change
in industry practice, or even just
in�uenced a business decision
taken for one single oil or gas �eld.
Having read these, I’d encourage
you to re�ect on what you might
want to state as having been your
drivers in the next few decades
to come. TWA
Your degree does not
make you an expert…
expertise comes
through experience.
12
Economist’s Corner
The Career Advantages of Returning to CollegeMatt Balhoff, University of Texas at Austin
This coming fall and spring, a few
thousand petroleum engineering
graduates worldwide will be faced with
a dif�cult, life-altering decision, “Should
I stay or should I go?” Most students will
pass up attending graduate school and
opt to begin their career in the oil and
gas industry. Who could blame them? For
4 years these students have studied long
hours, worked hard in their internships
and part-time jobs, and accumulated
debt. It is time to reap the bene�ts of a
starting salary near USD 100,000 a year
and a possible signing bonus. However,
some students will choose the road
less traveled and pursue a master’s or
PhD degree—and they will be better off
for it.
There are many misconceptions
about engineering graduate school.
The assumption is that it will be a 2- to
5-year extension of the undergraduate
years, paying a hefty tuition with even
more homework, tests, and deadlines. In
reality, it’s about doing creative research,
solving the industry’s biggest problems,
and getting paid to do it. At the University
of Texas at Austin’s Department of
Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering
(UT PGE), for example, 97% of our
graduate students receive �nancial
support in the form of a tuition waiver and
an annual stipend of at least USD 21,000
(the total �nancial package in some cases
can be as high as USD 45,000 per year).
UT PGE graduate students work on
research worth USD 22 million a year
and receive USD 3.6 million in graduate
fellowships, research and teaching
assistantships, and stipends. About
80% of students are funded by oil and
gas companies and in exchange conduct
research on practical problems that have
a huge impact on the industry. Graduate
students are given the opportunity to
write peer-reviewed publications and
present their results to the industry
at SPE meetings. Within 6 months
after graduation, 97% of our graduate
students, compared with 85% of our
undergraduate students, �nd full-time
jobs in the industry.
There are many advantages to
attending graduate school. According to
the 2012 American Society of Mechanical
Engineers’ Engineering Income and
Salary Survey, the median starting
salary for MS petroleum engineering
(PEng) degree holders is about USD
10,000 more than the salaries of those
with a bachelor’s degree (it’s about
USD 20,000 more if you have a PhD),
and over a long career, those holding a
doctorate in engineering earn a median
35% more than those with a bachelor’s in
engineering.
Graduate students have the
opportunity to take elective classes to
improve their technical skills. However,
the most important skills acquired are in
conducting research, including creativity/
thinking outside of the box, working
in teams, and problem solving. PhD
graduates are by de�nition the world’s
only experts in their dissertation subject.
Graduate (especially PhD) students
are not working to drill a new well,
produce the next �eld, or run another
generic reservoir simulation. Instead,
they are discovering cutting-edge
drilling methods, inventing the next big
production technique, and developing
the next generation of reservoir
simulators. For example, UT PGE students
invented “UT Chem,” the oil and gas
industry’s �rst chemical enhanced-oil-
recovery simulator that is still considered
Is Getting an Advanced Degree the Key
to a Financially Rewarding Career?The decision whether to pursue more higher education after an undergraduate degree has the potential to
change your life and career trajectory in a profound new direction. For those whose passion lies in research
and development or teaching, the decision will be a simple one. For everyone else, it’s not so easy. To compare
the negative perception of additional tuition payments against the perceived bene�ts of an advanced degree,
we present the views of a professor and an industry veteran to provide you with a balanced perspective toward
deciding if graduate school is right for you.
Matthew T. Balhoff is currently an associate professor in the Department
of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas (UT) at
Austin and holds the Frank W. Jessen Centennial Fellowship. He received his
BS in 2000 and PhD in 2005, both in chemical engineering from Louisiana
State University. He completed his postdoctoral research (2005–2007) at
UT Austin in the Institute of Computational and Engineering Sciences.
13Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
a benchmark, and “UT Frac,” the
design platform for hydraulic fractures.
After walking the stage to
receive their diploma, graduates
will be in full-time positions
where they will be asked to
continue making game-changing
discoveries and inventions, write
publications on their �ndings, submit
patents, and implement their ideas
in the �eld either in the industry
or academia.
If you are interested in developing the
next groundbreaking invention, tackling
the big environmental changes
ahead of us and/or serving in
an executive role, graduate school is
a solid choice.
Is Graduate School Right for You? Larry Fiddler, Halliburton Consulting
After years of hard work, sacri�ce, and
�nancial deprivation, you have �nally
achieved a great milestone in your life
by earning a bachelor’s degree from
an accredited university. It is at this
point that one of the biggest decisions in
your life’s journey must be made: Do I
continue my education and work toward a
master’s degree (or higher), or do I seek
employment in my selected industry and
become a full-time wage earner?
This is a decision that will have a
profound impact on your professional
career. Unfortunately, there is no “one
size �ts all” answer to this question.
Everyone’s situation is going to be
different, and the drivers behind this
decision will be as unique as the
individuals they impact. As a scientist,
I would never argue against obtaining
as much education as possible; I would
lose all credibility if I were to do so.
There is no doubt that having a
master’s or doctorate degree will
open doors that will not be available
to a graduate with only a bachelor’s
degree early in one’s career. With that
said, it should be said that there are
several different avenues for continuing
one’s education, and some of the
options are not going to be found with
a continuation of formal schooling at a
university. I would like to offer some
observations regarding this subject
based on my 35 years of working in
the petroleum industry as a geologist
and manager.
There are many factors that need to
be contemplated while you are trying
to decide whether to stay in school or
begin your professional career. I think
the most important question you need
to ask yourself is what you envision
your career to be. Obviously, if you see
yourself working in research or teaching,
then an upper-level degree is essential.
Perhaps your goal is to work for a major
oil company and progress through the
ranks into upper management. Maybe
you want to begin your career with the
idea of learning all you can about the oil
business and eventually work for a small
independent company or start your own
consulting �rm where you will have more
autonomy to make decisions.
If you want to secure an entry-
level job at an oil company in today’s
environment, a bachelor’s degree should
get you in the door. I have seen several
entry-level jobs that have a requirement
of at least a master’s degree, but if you
have the grades and interview well,
securing that all-important �rst job
should be within your reach. At this stage
of the game, employers are looking at
your potential and if you will be an asset
to the company in the future. Having a
higher degree will show a prospective
employer that you have the ability to
persevere with a task, and having good
grades in that degree should further be
an indicator that you can achieve results
based on the task at hand.
Most companies will provide training
and mentoring on the subjects that they
feel are important for you to know to be
a high-performing employee in their
company. Additional tertiary training at
the university level may or may not hit
on subjects that an employer thinks you
need to be pro�cient at, but rest assured
that if a company is going to spend the
time and money to train you on speci�cs,
it will be something that they recognize is
mutually bene�cial.
Gaining industry-related, real-
world experience is of key importance
at this stage of one’s career. The push
in today’s oil industry is to work in
multidisciplinary teams consisting of
geophysicists, geologists, geomodelers,
petrophysicists, reservoir engineers,
production technologists, etc. In the
old days, oil companies tended to be
segregated by departments when it
came to solving problems. Engineers and
geoscientists tended to not get along and
argued constantly. Most of the structure
in oil companies today is based on the
integration of disciplines where cross-
fertilization occurs and problems are
solved by including all of the various
technical inputs. This is a wonderful
opportunity for young geoscientists and
engineers to learn what each other does,
and how they all relate to the overall
business model.
Larry Fiddler is a project manager at Halliburton Consulting in the
Asia Paci�c region. He has worked in the petroleum industry for 35 years
both in the United States and internationally, holding upper management
positions, including director of the Oil and Gas Conservation Division
for the Corporation Commission of the State of Oklahoma. He holds a
BS degree in petroleum geology from the University of Oklahoma.
14
Economist’s Corner
It has been my experience that after
you reach between 7 and 10 years of
work history, the type of degree you
have means less in regard to career
advancement. Most companies are going
to look at what you have accomplished
from a real-world perspective as
opposed to what you did in school 10
years ago. That being the case, getting
this industry experience as quickly as
possible becomes a premium.
For some people, continuing their
education is simply not an option due
to �nancial or personal circumstances
after getting their bachelor’s degree.
For some, additional debt to �nance
another 2 or 3 years of university is not
practical compared to the hard reality
of life that they need to start earning
an income. Looking simplistically from
an economic standpoint, the income
lost by not working for those additional
years while continuing your education,
together with how many years you
would have to work to make up for that,
is substantial.
In my career, I have seen oil prices
range from USD 8/bbl to USD 145/bbl. It
is entirely possible that the excellent job
that awaits you in today’s market may
not exist in 2 or 3 years’ time. While it
is true that initial salaries for master’s
degree holders will be somewhat
higher than that for bachelor’s degree
holders, the difference tends to equalize
within a few years when the experience
levels are weighed more heavily into
salary considerations.
As I stated at the beginning, in no way
would I ever recommend less education
as being a better solution for preparing
you for your life’s journey. To do so
would be folly. I simply point out that
higher education beyond a bachelor’s
degree does not �t into everyone’s plans
or personal situation. It has been my
experience that the lack of a degree
beyond a bachelor’s level does not act as
a detriment to a wonderful and rewarding
career in today’s oil business, and
actually at times might be a better choice
for some.
Whatever path you choose, do what
makes you happy and what you have a
passion for. If you do, �nancial success
and professional satisfaction are sure
to follow. TWA
If knowledge is power, get ready to be supercharged.
Discover a surge of information on PetroWiki, the upstream oil and gas industry’s first fully moderated wiki.
What’s your source of power? www.petrowiki.org
15Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
Forum
The Forum and Soft Skills teams of
The Way Ahead have collaborated
to address the steps needed to
succeed in the �rst 3 years on the
job, from landing your �rst interview
to �nding continued success in the
oil and gas industry. The authors
have drawn from their personal
experiences as they navigated
through the �rst few crucial years of
their careers and have offered a �rst-
person perspective.
The Importance of Soft
Skills in the Industry
The value of soft skills cannot be
understated. The results of the
inaugural Global Oil and Gas Training
and Development Survey, conducted in
2012 by SPE and BP, show that soft skills
are regarded as more important than
technical skills (Fig. 1) in sustaining
and progressing a career in the oil
and gas industry. In total, 773 oil and
gas professionals across 24 countries
were surveyed. Topping the list of
all important skills was “the ability
to learn.”
In contrast, the industry feels that
the next generation requires more
development in soft skills during their
university years (Fig. 2). Initiative and
work ethic were found to be weak in
new hires from university compared
with their technical skills.
With nontechnical skills as
important as ever for career growth,
the tools at our reach today are vast
and of high quality. Websites such
as MindTools.com and Forbes.com
can give you a start in developing
managerial skills. Massive open
online courses, some of which are
free, are available through MIT
Open Courseware, Coursera,
and other venues for learning the
basics of self-management. These
skills can be directly applied in the
workplace through involvement in
SPE and other societies, and through
community outreach.
The First Career Move
After Graduating
Are your palms sweaty? Has your mind
gone completely blank, not even able
to remember your name, let alone your
work history? If so, chances are that
you are nervously preparing for an
interview or have already started the
process. Either way, the experiences
outlined here can serve as guidance for
landing your dream job.
Ten years ago, armed with my
freshly minted university degree,
I thought I had all I needed to
get, and retain, my dream job
in the oil and gas industry. I was
in for a surprise to learn that
I needed more than just good
grades to advance my career and
stay motivated. Since graduating
from university, I have evolved
by making mistakes and learning
from them. The victories I have
gained are all thanks to soft
skills, the cluster of personal
qualities, habits, attitudes, and
social graces that make someone
a good employee and easily
compatible to work with.
How Did It All Begin?
I had to start by preparing
a résumé and cover letter in
response to a job application
for trainee engineers. As the
cover letter was just an ice-
breaker, I ensured it was succinct,
grammatically �awless, and did
not exceed one page. I ensured
that my cover letter highlighted,
in a visually appealing manner,
two or three of my key strengths
that I felt emphasized how I stand
out from the other candidates
and how those strengths were
relevant to the speci�c position
available.
Navigating the Oil and Gas Industry:
Soft Skills Needed Along the Way Islin Munisteri, Rita Okoroafor, Asif Zafar, David Sturgess, and Amanpreet Gill
34%
53%
57%
60%
61%
69%
Computer skills
Analy�cal skills
Technical skills
Communica�on skills
Team work
Ability to learn
Technical
So�
Fig. 1—Skills that are rated as “very important” for career progression in the oil
and gas industry. Source: SPE Global Oil and Gas Training and Development Survey.
16
Forum
I recommend that résumés
skip details related to hobbies,
as they tend to consume valuable
space. However, you de�nitely
should not hide any breaks or gap
years in your experience. Having
been on the other side of the desk
interviewing candidates, I have
found that a break with a good
story can be very insightful into
the personality of the interviewee
and should not be something
from which to shy away.
If you have had some work
experience, like a summer internship
or relevant university research,
remember that your prospective
employer wants to see an explanation
of your experience beyond your
day-to-day responsibilities. They are
interested in your achievements and the
impact you had based on your direct
involvement. It is vitally important to
quantify your impact (e.g., saved 1 hour
per day for each report generated,
or designed and coded VBA macros
saving 2 hours a week generating
data �les) rather than writing in
generic terms like “grew sales” or
“good teamwork.”
Your résumé should also include
your accomplishments regarding
extracurricular activities, such as
sports, clubs, or societies. A high level
of achievement and/or senior positions
held in these aspects of your life is
evidence of your commitment and
motivation, which can help offset a lack
of work experience.
Getting a Chance to Be Heard
In preparing for my interview, the
�rst step I took was to brush up
on fundamental technical theory,
practical equations, and hand
calculations. I reviewed aspects
speci�c to the position that I
applied for, such as reservoir �ow,
separator sizing, hydraulic-pump
requirements, well-testing analysis,
and discounted cash �ows. Having
a bit of cross-discipline knowledge
can help bridge competency
gaps when solving problems.
My second step was to practice,
practice, and practice responses to
behavioral questions.
The most likely interview
assessment you could face is the STAR
technique, which stands for Situation,
Task, Activity, and Response. While
this technique has drawbacks in that it
can be impersonal, the bene�t is that it
helps provide a universal benchmark
between candidates. There is nothing
stopping you from steering your
answers in the direction best suited to
what you want the interview committee
to see.
Interviewers may ask you to
describe a situation where you
produced work under a tight deadline,
had to in�uence senior management
or your professors on an unpopular
project, worked through an ethical
dilemma, or interacted with other
disciplines on a common project. The
four key behaviors that interviewers
are looking for are performance,
collaboration, growth, and authenticity.
Remember to keep your answers
speci�c, concise, and upbeat.
Assuming all goes well, as a new
proud professional with an excellent
job offer, what do you have to look
forward to?
Joining the Industry
The beauty of the oil and gas industry
is the team environment that you
will be exposed to. The interesting
things about these teams are their
multidisciplinary nature and often
diverse multicultural members.
Some cultures bring an aggressive
approach to problem solving, while
others preach a more traditional,
conservative approach. Recognizing
when an aggressive, conservative, or
mixed approach to problem solving
is required is a valuable tool. For
example, when a plant production
impact is imminent, a mix of both
approaches should be used so as to
decrease the production impact while
keeping the safety of workers a number
one priority.
As you grow in experience from a
new hire to highly experienced and
beyond, chances are that there will
be personal and cultural dimensions
that will need to be addressed, as
well as assessments of your soft skills.
As shown in Fig. 3, bridging the
gap between where you are today,
and where you want to be calls for a
continuous improvement on multiple
fronts: people, time (experience), and
place (cultural).
Continuous Improvement
In order to advance and accelerate your
career and remain self-motivated, it is
also important to know what your innate
soft skills are through self-assessment
and by being open to constructive
feedback from others.
Everyone has some idea of what
his or her strengths and weaknesses
are. I knew that I enjoy taking
responsibility and this turned out
to be one of my soft skills. Another
way of identifying soft skills for the
26%
28%
29%
61%
65%
72%
Flexibility
Work ethic
Ini�a�ve
Industry knowledge
Technical skills
Computer skills
Technical
So
Fig. 2—Skills that are developed in the university. Source: SPE Global Oil and Gas
Training and Development Survey.
17Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
knowledge of one’s self is to have a
personal self-evaluation during or
after a project. A person who always
uses his strengths in a team makes
for a good team player.
In her book, The Hard Truth About
Soft Skills, Peggy Klaus identi�es
that what keeps people from getting
where they want to go in their career
is rarely a shortfall in technical
expertise, but rather a shortcoming
in their social, communication, and
self-management behaviors, such as
soft skills. She provides a quick and
anonymous self-assessment quiz at
http://www.peggyklaus.com/books/
the-hard-truth-about-soft-skills/
take-quiz-now, which can help you
identify your strengths and areas
that need improvement in the soft
skills arena.
So, now having a diagnosis
completed, how do you go
about �xing any identi�ed areas
of improvement?
Bridging the Gap
Bridging the gap may sometimes
mean teaming up with someone whose
strength is your weakness. For example,
if you are great at brainstorming ideas
and putting together a plan, but not in
its implementation, it is advantageous
to collaborate with someone who is
focused on action and delivering on
the details.
Bridging the gap may also require
you to challenge yourself to develop
new skill sets. Since every task has
an associated soft skill set, by taking
on new roles, you are able to develop,
expand, and broaden your capabilities.
Variety in tasks can help improve
or strengthen your skills. I have
developed my public speaking
ability on the job delivering
presentations to management,
attending and observing well
done presentations in external
courses, educating elementary
schools about the petroleum
industry with a local SPE outreach
committee, and attending my
local Toastmasters chapter.
Regularly presenting both
formally and off the cuff will help
build con�dence in your ability to
engage people across differing
industries, demographics,
cultures, and authorities.
As you grow within the oil and
gas industry, you will be exposed
to professional training (external
and internal organization-speci�c)
that will help develop your key soft
skills required for your current role
and future positions, by developing
core communication, leadership, and
interpersonal skills.
Soft skills are a mandatory
capability where you need to take
initiative to get results, whether it
is through formal training, or being
self-taught, or a combination of both.
This valuable skill set will have an
effect on your technical delivery and
performance in the long run. TWA
Fig. 3—People-time-place in three dimensions, illustrating a mid-career professional’s transfer from the Middle East to
Australia. Source: J Pet Technol, 65 (10): 100.
Organizational
Integration
Peopleprogression in human capabilities,and
actions dimension
Placesocio-economic, cultural, and
regional dimension
Time
growth and augm
entation of
experience dimension
currentcompetency
level
desiredcompetency
levelcompetency
gapInterpersonal
Individual
Highly Experienced
Post-Employment
North
Am
erica
South
Am
erica
Africa
Mid
dle
East
Asia
Pacific
Austra
lia
Weste
rn E
uro
pe
Easte
rn E
uro
pe
Mid-Career
Prehire
Young Professional
Pillars of the Industry
I recall that my �rst day at work after
graduation was both exciting and
overwhelming. For me, the transition
from academia to becoming a full-time
employee in the oil and gas industry
was relatively smooth. I had spent a
considerable amount of time at school
completing internships in a variety of
places, which gave me good exposure
to industry. However, I still felt that the
responsibility of maintaining a full-time
job was overwhelming. I had many
questions and aspirations to pursue. On
my �rst day at work I had the feeling that
I had �nally made it after many years of
school. Soon after, I quickly realized that
this was just the start of a long journey
and I had just taken the �rst step.
During the interview process, I
was asked whether I was “mobile.”
At the time I wasn’t exactly sure what
that meant, but I quickly found out.
Within the �rst few weeks of getting
hired, I was sent on a plane to attend
technical courses, and since then I have
never looked back. I have worked in
36 countries and my family and I have
relocated four times over the course
of my career. The word “mobility”
has changed signi�cantly over the
years, from very short notice to every
several years now. New countries, new
schools, new communities: What a
fantastic adventure!
Apart from the typical technical
queries, I began my career with many
career questions and very few answers.
I wanted to learn how to get better at my
job and how to build my franchise within
the greater oil and gas community. I
was interested in discovering speci�c
achievements I would require in order to
gain the respect of my colleagues.
Over the years I worked with several
people that helped me answer these
questions. When I joined Baker Hughes,
I spent 4 years at the Celle Technology
Center in Germany. In Celle, I was
fortunate to be surrounded by so
many great minds: I worked alongside
people from research and development,
manufacturing, operations, applications,
and business development, to name
a few. I quickly realized that I was at
the hub of knowledge and I had the
opportunity to interact with experts
every day.
I came away from this role with
several great mentors. My �rst manager
was a great teacher, a technical expert,
and truly cared for his team members.
He had a lot of patience for instruction
and coaching and showed me how to
take ownership and to move quickly
up the learning curve. I learned a lot
from him and I am truly grateful for his
leadership abilities.
I have been productively involved
with SPE in many ways right from my
student days and that has positively
impacted my career at different stages.
As a student I got introduced to SPE
by my professor and I participated in
several events and volunteered in the
local student chapter. I have been the
coauthor of some papers and presented
them at SPE conferences. I then became
a director for the SPE Northern Emirates
Section and later served on the regional
committee. I have raised sponsorship
for events and have delivered seminars
and lectures for student chapters and
young professionals.
An Innovative, High-Tech
Industry Awaits You
Today’s oil and gas industry is as
high tech as it has ever been. The
technology that is needed to reach to
the deepest formations in the search for
hydrocarbons is very close to what is
required to reach outer space.
The oil and gas industry has
evolved tremendously over the last
few decades. We have scientists
and scholars who are required to
guide the drillers with the help of
seismic and other geophysical data
and analysis. The drillers then use
the latest equipment to explore the
deepest depths of the oceans and
vast stretches of the deserts to get to
the hydrocarbons.
Once produced, the re�nery is a
completely different world managed
by another set of experts. And that’s
not all—not only does the industry
needs engineers, but we also require
Next Challenge: Pumping Up the FutureImran Butt, Baker Hughes
Imran Butt is the country director at Baker Hughes in
Pakistan. He started his career in the late 1990s with Shell and
moved to Baker Hughes in 2000. He has worked in several
countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East
in several capacities and is a Baker Hughes’ OASIS-certi�ed
performance and drilling engineer. He is an active member
of the SPE community and has co-chaired several SPE
workshops and conferences. Butt has also served on the SPE
regional committees and as a director for the SPE Northern Emirates Section. Butt
holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in petroleum and reservoir engineering from
Clausthal University in Germany and a PhD in petroleum engineering from the
Colorado School of Mines.
18
19Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
�nance and management experts to
run the business. Lawyers, supply
chain professionals, human resources
experts, and people from many other
professions are required to ensure that
we can ethically run our business and
provide a clean energy source to the
ever-growing population.
Innovation is a key mission of most oil
and gas companies. In my opinion, the
number one technological innovation in
the exploration and production industry
is the improvement and focus on health,
safety, and the environment. Over the
last 100 years the industry has come a
long way in lowering the frequency of
spills and common blowouts to the point
where we have truly become a safety-
conscious industry. For me, innovation is
not only inventing a new tool to perform
a job faster, but also changing the
culture of the industry in general.
Technological advancements have
completely changed the game in all
aspects of the supply chain. From
3D and 4D seismic to developments
in liquefaction and regasi�cation,
technology has had an intense impact
on the way we explore, produce, and
distribute the hydrocarbons. The future
will bring more developments as we
are already seeing nanotechnology and
biotechnology being implemented in
our industry.
Be a Part of the Answer
The oil and gas industry will need more
experts in the future and it will become
harder to get to the hydrocarbons. If
you are looking for an industry that is
challenging yet rewarding, then you
know the possibilities are endless in
this industry. The opinion that this is a
dying institution and the oil and gas will
only last a few more years is incorrect.
If you look at the proven reserves alone,
common sense will show that we easily
have 100+ years of production, and
that’s without even fully quantifying
the unconventional reserves and the
exploration for new reserves that is
continuously ongoing. This industry
is developing technology to make the
process more ef�cient, and if we can
manage to utilize the energy ef�ciently
and keep adding more reserves, we
can add years to the time line.
With the number of pressing
challenges in our industry today, I
believe that the focus on people is a
must. We need to ensure that we can
hire the right people and invest in
their development and training so that
they can contribute to providing the
right solutions.
Looking back, I believe that I was
successful in many of my positions
due to my willingness to relocate and
work for several different product lines.
Many of the regions I have worked in
are considered to be remote. In these
environments, the work is challenging
but the potential for learning and growth
is great. In remote regions, I discovered
how to become a “jack of all trades.”
Indeed, if I am given the opportunity
to change the past, I would not do
anything differently.
As a fresh graduate with good
grades you will likely have several
career options to choose from. I would
suggest joining an organization that
believes in employee training and
development. It is helpful to research
information about their trainee
programs and how they encourage
their employees to develop. Ensure
that the programs give you both �eld
and of�ce experience. There is no
shortcut to success, so get as much
exposure as possible in the initial
years and then go out to the big wide
world and prove yourself. After that,
I suggest not to remain in a single
location for too long. It is important
to work in different groups and with
different people.
The oil and gas industry can be
quite rewarding but it is also a lot of
hard work. Michelangelo once said,
“If people knew how hard I worked to
achieve my mastery, it wouldn’t seem
so wonderful after all.” If you want to
be successful, do not shy away from
working long hours and putting in the
extra effort. TWA
integrating data—you don’t just have
engineers, you have IT folks and
professionals from other disciplines,
all working toward “how do I get the
best answer quicker?”
What are some qualities
you value most in young
professionals?
Honesty, humility, passion, and
curiosity. It’s more than intelligence.
Going through the recruiting process,
you see a lot of bright people, but it’s
the honesty, humility, and passion they
exemplify that help you sift through
those individuals.
Another differentiator is curiosity.
We hire very bright young people,
and most do well, but the ones that
move forward the most consistently
are not just hardworking and
talented, but curious.
What advice would you offer
young professionals preparing
for a career in oil and gas?
Make sure you become really good at
the basics of your profession, but also
be curious about everything around
you and how it will in�uence your
profession going forward. If you’re
an engineer, learn something about
geology, learn about economics. At
some point in your career, you’re
going to be working on projects
where knowledge of more than one
profession will matter. So the more
curious you are and the more you
can learn and integrate, the more
successful you’ll be.
What was your �rst impression
of the industry?
It always has been and still is today
the most exciting business in the
world to be in—that’s the way I saw it
when I �rst started my career and it
still is today. TWA
TWA InterviewContinued from page 9
20
HR Discussion
What made you choose a career in the
oil and gas industry?
SY: I have always had an interest in
rocks and in modeling. I also wanted
a fascinating career with little routine.
Petroleum engineering satis�ed
these desires while providing great
opportunities for future growth.
MT: Engineering and energy have
always interested me. When I learned
that petroleum engineering was an
option at the university, I thought it would
be a perfect �t. I now enjoy what I do
every day.
SM: After obtaining a chemical
engineering degree and working with a
service company for 6 years, I made the
decision to upgrade my education with an
MBA in oil and gas management in order
to begin a career on the upstream side of
the business.
JH: My interest in the oil and gas industry
was fueled by two things: the idea that I
could be an explorer and that I wanted to
make a decent living for my family (I was
married at 21). This industry pays good
wages for coming up with new ideas and
�nding new deposits of oil and natural
gas (among other things) and provides
access to amazing tools to make those
ideas a reality.
Tell us about your �rst job/internship.
What were some of your greatest
challenges?
SY: After several internships with the
same large service company, I was
hired as an access engineer. My greatest
challenge was to �nd a job with a proper
work/life balance; new graduates
oftentimes do not have the luxury to
choose. As a female, working in a male-
dominated environment was another
challenge.
SA: I applied for the international
graduate development program within
BG Group for the graduate petroleum
engineer track. It was a long and arduous
process but the skills that I learned from
my work with SPE were very helpful.
SM: In my �rst job, I was expected to hit
the ground running and that did not come
easily to me. To overcome this, I started
off by aligning myself with a mentor,
and that helped me in fast-tracking my
integration process within the �rm. That
apart, I started to seek regular feedback
on my performance from peers and
seniors at work. At the risk of it sounding
like a cliché, in many instances these
feedback sessions were eye-opening
experiences and helped me gain insight.
What are some pros & cons of working in
the oil & gas industry?
SY: Pros: job satisfaction. It’s not easy
work and we are providing energy to
our countries. Cons: tough conditions,
environmental concerns, work/life
balance, and being a female in a largely
male-dominated industry.
SA: Pros: ease of relocation and overall
travel opportunities. Cons: work/life
balance.
MT: Working in the oil and gas sector,
like all jobs, has its advantages and
disadvantages. You are trained to
the highest level of competency and
are able to work in a very dynamic
environment—no day is like the day
before. Yes, sometimes you have to
work for extended hours or be away
Career Road Map: Insight From Industry
ProfessionalsYoung professionals (YPs) can feel overwhelmed and directionless at times while trying to navigate our ro-
bust industry. In this article, oil and gas industry professionals at different career stages share their insight
and answer some of the burning questions that students and YPs have about their career launch.
Sarah Mohamed Youssef (SY) is a
reservoir engineer for an international
oil and gas company. She holds a BSc in
petroleum and energy engineering and
a minor in economics from the American
University in Cairo. She is currently
working in the Gulf of Suez.
Sherif Abdel Rahman (SA) is a master’s
degree student of petroleum engineering
at Cairo University. He graduated from
Suez Canal University with a major in
petroleum exploration and production
engineering. He is a graduate petroleum
engineer for BG Group.
Mohamed Tariq (MT) is a well
engineering graduate for BG Group in
QGC as part of the international graduate
development program. He holds a BSc
in petroleum engineering from Suez
Canal University.
Sam Mathew (SM) is an operations
consultant for Accenture at Aberdeen. He
is a chemical engineer from LD College
of Engineering, India, and earned his
MBA in oil and gas management from
Robert Gordon University.
Sherif Khairy (SK) is a �nal year
petroleum engineering student at Cairo
University. He has been a writer for an
Egyptian magazine for the past 3 years.
Josh Hickman (JH) is the president
and founder of YPE Pittsburgh
with a decade of experience in the
energy business. He holds a BS in
geology, an MS in geoscience with a
specialization in geophysics, and an
MBA from Pennsylvania State University,
and currently owns and manages
Hickman Geological Consulting.
21Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
from home for long periods, but you are
afforded the opportunity to travel, see the
world, and enjoy your life; every day is a
new adventure.
SM: Pros: the global nature of the
business, which allows me to travel, meet,
and interact with people from different
countries and cultures. Which other
industry can offer you such a diverse
range of work locations? Cons: being
carried away by the heady nature of
the business. Being in a fast-moving,
cash-rich working environment, it is
easy to lose sight of work ef�ciencies
and processes.
How did getting work experience after
your bachelor’s degree help in your
career?
SM: It helped me get my feet on
the ground and gain some industry
experience. Interactions with
experienced industry professionals
broadened my horizons and helped
me to truly appreciate the global nature
and the enormity of the industry I was
now a part of. It was also this work
experience that helped me make a
more balanced and informed decision
when I started to research on my future
career options.
JH: I interned with various
companies during both my
bachelor’s and master’s work. The
�rst was at an engineering and
environmental services company
between my sophomore and
junior years and the second with a
producer operator that I later went
to work for after graduation. These
experiences during school allowed
me to try out several different “hats”
and decide what I wanted to make a
career. This also allowed me time to
shift my course work to better prepare
myself for full-time employment in that
chosen �eld. TWA
What companies look for when they
come to hire students, apart from the
obvious minimum GPA criterion, is how
good of a �t the student would be in the
organization’s culture and business.
We encourage students to check
glassdoor.com and similar sites and think
about whether this is a company that they
would want to work for. So think about
your �t too. Also, provide recruiters with
stories that highlight your behavioral
skills and well-roundedness.
University career services
departments have several tools
to help students prepare for their
career launch. TU holds an exclusive
petroleum industry job fair in the
spring. There’s a “résumé doctor”
on campus who helps them polish
their résumé. The “big interview” is
a training tool for students to record
themselves staging a mock interview
and then have the experts make
suggestions for improvement.
We also have a partnership with
CareerFair Plus and have developed
a mobile app for getting all the
information and updates in the palm
of your hand. We think it’s important
for students to get internships as
early as they can. Alumni relations
also go a long way in encouraging
their companies to come back
and recruit. TWA
How does getting involved in the
community and SPE help fresh
graduates/YPs improve their skills and
career?
SK: Members of the SPE Cairo
University student chapter have
the full chance of attending any
workshop, session, or event organized
by the chapter. Their role changes
according to the committee they
are in. Working on organizing such
projects gives them the opportunity to
develop several skills, for
example, presentation skills and the
ability to lead and work in teams,
which become essential when they
start a career.
SPE’s system of operation ensures
that members know their duties and
rights, and they are closely observed
to identify the areas they may need to
strengthen and work on, and are given
the required assistance. TWA
Shelly Holly (SH) is the director of
career services at the University of Tulsa
(TU). She holds a bachelor’s degree
in sociology and psychology from
Oklahoma State University and a master’s
in human services administration
from St. Edward’s University.
Starting Your Career on Campus
SPE: A Springboard for Your Career
22
HR Discussion
How do you help students make the right
career choices?
There’s a distinction between
graduate and undergraduate students.
Undergraduates may not really know
what they want—they could become
drilling, production, or reservoir
engineers. To help them, we encourage
internships to enable them to understand
what kind of work they would want to do
in their careers. Also, we offer them equal
emphasis on the foundation courses
of petroleum engineering so that they
have a good background and are well
prepared for whatever career path they
choose. Most of our graduate students
have a fairly good idea of their research
interest, so they will end up with jobs
based on the topic of their thesis. We also
have a very active industrial advisory
board and students have opportunities to
interact with the members.
When is it a good time to obtain a second
degree?
In petroleum engineering, getting an
advanced degree may not be really
necessary. The students who get master’s
degrees are not treated any differently
because the industry does a pretty
good job of training all the students well.
Now, there are many companies that
are involved in product development,
be it hardware or software, and that is
when they require specialized skills.
For example, if a company is building
a software simulation package, they
would exclusively look for students
with specialized knowledge and
understanding of the subject matter.
Master’s courses allow students to
develop advanced problem-solving
skills. One becomes an engineer who
learns the methodology of solving
fundamental, open-ended problems
and this helps grow intellectually. At the
same time, it is a good idea to gain some
experience in the industry before going
back to academia so that you have a
better understanding of what the industry
is looking for. Because to pry yourself
away from a regular job and go back
to being a student with limited means
requires you to understand what you
really want from your career and makes
you more determined to succeed. TWA
SY: Never give up, a start is a start.
Plus you should always seek to develop
yourself. In our industry, you are
valuable with whatever experiences
you have and whatever work have you
accomplished.
SA: Get engaged in
nongovernmental organizations
and develop a broad set of skills,
both technical as well as soft skills,
such as leadership, communication,
negotiation, and working
under pressure.
MT: Have fun in school, study hard,
and make good memories. Identify
your goals and look for a position where
you will have a clear learning and
development path.
SM: Be perseverant and aim to do
better than the previous day, both in
school and at work.
JH: Networking is essential to your
job, your company’s success, and
your personal success over the
course of your working life. Also,
your individual skills pale in front of
the challenge you are tasked with
accomplishing and the only way to get
work done is to lean on the skills of
those around you and keep learning
from them.
SK: Learn to balance your time and
develop nontechnical skills. Seek the
advice of experienced professionals;
they will be more than willing to
help you.
SH: Get a mentor—perhaps an alumnus
or someone who interviewed you, and
keep consistent contact with them, not
just when you need them. Keep in touch
with your faculty and let them know what
you’re doing. Also keep in touch with
your friends in class to stay abreast of
the news and technology, because this
industry is very global. Keep learning
and upgrading your skill sets.
MK: Read at least one paper from
OnePetro every day, before you get
into the noise of the day. You may not
understand it, but over a period of time,
you will have out-read your peers and
will become an expert. Nobody is born
a genius but you can become an expert
with time and effort. There is a lot of
information out there; discipline yourself
and take advantage of it. TWA
Mohan Kelkar (MK) is Williams
endowed professor and chairman
of petroleum engineering at the
University of Tulsa. He obtained his
BS in chemical engineering from
the University of Bombay, India,
and MS in petroleum engineering
and PhD in chemical engineering
from the University of Pittsburgh.
Making Correct Career Choices
Climbing Up the Career Ladder
23Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
SPE 101
The Society of Petroleum Engineers
(SPE) is the largest individual-
member organization serving
managers, engineers, scientists, and
other professionals worldwide in the
upstream oil and gas industry. This puts
SPE in a great position to support the
industry in its pursuit of technical and
operational excellence.
The Society achieves its goals by
several means, namely technical events
and seminars, publications, training
programs, conferences, volunteer
opportunities, and recognition for
outstanding industry professionals. It also
contributes to the industry by providing
opportunities for young professionals to
strengthen their technical competencies
and build upon professional qualities that
will help their career advancement.
In addition to the industry, SPE
extends its arm into the student
community by supporting student
chapters in educational institutions
across the globe. On its website,
a number of initiatives aimed at
promoting student integration into
the local industry are described.
This includes �nancial support in the
form of scholarships and fellowships
from the local section as well as SPE
International, and the Society dedicates
more than USD 1 million toward this
cause. Today, the number of student
members represents an important share
of SPE membership, accounting for more
than 50,000 worldwide at the end of 2014.
Through the sponsorship of Chevron,
students have the option of waiving their
annual dues, thus making it easier for the
aspiring young professionals to access
the many resources offered by SPE.
In addition, SPE provides support to
students looking to select their program
of study while in high school or early
university through the Energy4me
program. Its website serves as a
valuable guide to the types of petroleum
engineering programs in which students
can enroll in university and the different
careers in the industry. It also gives basic
facts about the oil and gas industry and
energy usage in our economies. To learn
more about the Energy4me program,
visit www.energy4me.org.
SPE also has recommendations for
the minimum technical background
that students should seek to acquire
during their studies. The SPE Task
Force on Minimal Competency has
developed matrices aimed at de�ning the
appropriate skill set to meet and exceed
the minimum competency requirements.
The competency matrices cover various
technical disciplines at different stages
of industry careers and can be used as a
guide to help select courses or programs
in university.
Next to supporting technical
development and career choice, SPE
creates opportunities for students to
enrich their nontechnical abilities.
With involvement in the activities of an
SPE student chapter, students engage
in valuable extracurricular activities,
such as the promotion of events and
community service. Student chapter
of�cers are able to practice teamwork,
learn time management skills, and
manage roles and responsibilities.
Chapter involvement also breeds
opportunities for members to reach
industry professionals, including
members of local SPE sections, young
professionals, and practitioners. Another
bene�t of these contacts—perhaps the
most important one—is networking.
Students can expose their technical and
nontechnical abilities, commitment levels,
and working potentials to the industry.
Many of the professionals involved in
student chapter relations activities often
are plugged into the happenings in their
campus recruitment programs.
While honoring prominent
industry professionals, SPE also
recognizes student members for their
achievements. Annually, undergraduate
and graduate students participate in
the Regional Paper Contests promoted
by the 11 SPE regions. Regional
winners are eligible to participate in
the International Student Paper Contest
that takes place during the SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition.
The 2015 conference will be held in
Houston. These events recognize not
only the research results attained by the
students, but also their presentation and
writing skills.
There are a number of volunteer
opportunities available for SPE
members to contribute to the
community. If you recently started your
career, the description of how you have
succeeded in your �rst professional
steps provides great material for the
SPE Ambassador Lecturer Program.
Experienced members can share their
expertise and participate as a mentor
in the SPE eMentoring Program. All
professionals can engage with their
local community and volunteer as part
of the Energy4me program, providing
key input to teachers and aspiring
students looking to learn more about
the industry.
SPE guides and helps all its
members to achieve at every level of
their career with its comprehensive
support. Whether you are
an undergraduate student seeking
additional skills or an accomplished
professional interested in contributing to
the younger generation, an opportunity
awaits you to better your career or the
career of others.
To learn more, visit www.spe.org.TWA
How SPE Helps To Prepare the Future
Generation of Oil and Gas ProfessionalsPaulo Pires, SPE, Petrobras
24
Technical Leaders
Why did you choose the oil and gas
industry?
KL: After attending the Colorado School
of Mines, I knew the energy industry
was where I wanted to be. I understood
the importance it has on our world and
quality of life.
JJ: I grew up in the industry. I am a
native Houstonian and my father is an
engineer who worked for one of the
major pipeline companies. I thought that
being an engineer would give me the
opportunity to solve problems and see
the world and it has.
How early in your career did you know
you wanted to become a leader?
KL: My career has brought many
opportunities to become a leader; it was
more about choosing which of those
opportunities to pursue.
JJ: I am the oldest child in my family
so I have always naturally gravitated
toward running things. I began my
SPE leadership very early as a student
chapter of�cer at Texas A&M University.
What kinds of leadership opportunities
are available in the industry?
KL: The oil & gas industry has
countless leadership opportunities;
it’s a global industry that continues to
be transformed through technological
advances. People from all backgrounds
and educations are needed to be leaders
in the industry.
JJ: Unlimited, if you are good at your
technical job, understand business, have
emotional intelligence, and solve your
boss’ problems. I am often asked about
the technical versus managerial track,
and most people are surprised that I am
a strong advocate of the technical track,
especially for women. When I speak to
audiences of young engineers, everyone
wants to be a manager, and now. But I �nd
that most people don’t really understand
what a manager does, and when they
�nd out, it’s not as glamorous as they
thought. All large companies allow
engineers to rise almost to the C-level
on the technical track. Life as a technical
expert is more work/life friendly and the
advancement is more merit-based, less
political, and overall less competitive
because it is based on your individual
accomplishments. SPE also has excellent
opportunities for leadership development
and building your network and personal
brand whether you are on the technical
or managerial track.
What kinds of challenges did you
face while seeking out positions of
increasing responsibility? Any road
blocks due to gender, familial status,
age, technical background, etc.?
KL: There have been many successful
women role models and the best
companies respect the contribution
made by women at all levels in the
organization. As I took on roles of greater
responsibility, I was blessed with
support systems within the company and
my family.
JJ: The �rst 20 years of my career were
characterized by rounds of layoffs
every two years or so. So mostly, it was
a time of decreasing opportunity. I had
to keep my technical ability sharp and
add to my basket of skills just to stay
employed. Early in my career, gender
The Road to Leadership:
Advice From Industry Leaders
Janeen Judah and Kendra Lema
Janeen Judah is general manager of Chevron’s southern
Africa business. Prior to this, she was president of Chevron
Environmental Management Company, providing project
management and technical expertise for environmental
cleanup, remediation, and decommissioning for Chevron’s
upstream and downstream properties in more than 50
countries. Prior to joining Chevron in 1998, Judah worked for
Arco in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico and then
added south Texas and the Gulf of Mexico to her portfolio. She also practiced oil and
gas law and was manager of Arthur D. Little’s Global Upstream Energy practice.
Judah is a Distinguished Member of SPE and currently serves as SPE’s vice
president of �nance. She has previously been SPE regional director for Gulf Coast
North America. Starting as a student chapter of�cer at Texas A&M University, she has
served in several leadership roles, including the chair of the Permian Basin and Gulf
Coast sections at different times. She has been a member of several SPE committees
and was awarded the SPE Distinguished Service Award in 2010. She is a member and
a past chair of Texas A&M Petroleum Engineering Industry Advisory Board, and is a
member of Texas A&M College of Engineering Advisory Council and Society of
Women Engineers.
Judah earned her BS and MS degrees in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M.
She holds an MBA from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and a JD from the
University of Houston Law Center.
25Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
bias was overt, but now it is more subtle
and unconscious. Women especially
should let their supervisors know what
opportunities they want—otherwise
others can make assumptions and limit
your options for you. I believe the most
signi�cant challenge for women is not
dealing with children, but rather with
dual-career issues, since our industry
highly values mobility.
How were you able to manage a work/
life balance while taking on roles of
increasing responsibilities? Can you tell
us about a speci�c time in your career
when this was especially dif�cult?
KL: Maintaining work/life balance is
a daily activity that I achieve through
managing expectations. I am able to
communicate to others what they should
and should not expect of my time and
what my priorities are. I learned early
in my career, when I was traveling
internationally and my children were
young, that I have to rely on a broader
support system. I make time for personal
activities including exercise, re�ection,
and organization.
JJ: Work/life balance gets harder the
higher you go, with more demands from
people and travel. I try to plan for fun
things in my life and not cancel them
if I can. I can do almost anything with
enough lead time. I believe you can have
it all, just not always at the same time.
The most dif�cult work/life balance
time for me was a few years in my
career when I was working, going to law
school at night, and being the primary
caretaker for a cancer patient. I would
work, stop by MD Anderson hospital, go
to class, stop by the hospital again, go
home, and then get up and do it again.
And during that same period, we had
two rounds of layoffs at work. I had to
adjust and compromise. I didn’t do work,
caretaking, or law school as well as I
should have, but I did the best I could
while keeping all the balls in the air.
What qualities do you value in a leader?
How do you exemplify these qualities in
your day-to-day career?
KL: The very best leaders I have worked
with are patient and articulate. They
listen to people who work for them and
re�ect on the importance of the issue
before reacting to it. In my current role,
I bring together people from different
functions (i.e., drilling, subsurface,
infrastructure, land, �nance, etc.) and
evaluate new oil and gas unconventional
exploration plays. My ability to listen �rst
and articulate the importance of an issue
is a critical skill every day.
JJ: That answer is easy—humility.
Without humility, leaders don’t listen
to those around them and miss both
opportunities and risks. To me, the
most valuable characteristic of a leader
is humility.
While the number of women in upper
management has increased over the
last several decades, women are still a
minority there. Do you have any speci�c
advice for young women who want to
take on high-level leadership roles in
their career?
KL: Women who choose to support the
success of other women are respected
and highly valued. You will need to
understand that you can have it all but
you may not be able to do it all at the
same time. Early on, you will have to
delegate certain things to free you
up, so you could focus on the most
important activities.
JJ: First, be good at the job you have.
I often see young engineers who are
focused on the next job, and forget
to be excellent at the job they have.
High performance will always create
opportunities. Also, leadership will
require compromise in your personal
life. This is true for both men and
women, but it is usually easier for men to
make the compromises.
In the past, many different engineering
disciplines could easily enter the
oil and gas industry. It seems as if
this trend is narrowing in toward the
mechanical, chemical, and petroleum
engineering disciplines, particularly
among operators. What are your
thoughts on this? Do you have any
advice for those from other engineering
disciplines on obtaining leadership
roles in the industry?
KL: The industry hires people from
many different disciplines, both as new
hires and experienced hires. I don’t see
the trend narrowing; I think there is more
value now than ever before for other
disciplines, especially in experienced-
hire situations. I am a civil engineer
with an MBA and project management
experience. I knew I wanted to work for
an operator and I achieved that through
the experienced-hire path.
JJ: There are so many different and
complex engineering problems
that there is a place for almost all
engineering disciplines somewhere in
the business, whether with the upstream
operators, contractors, or service
industries. I am a degreed petroleum
engineer, so I naturally gravitate
toward a preference toward petroleum
engineers, especially for the subsurface
disciplines. Petroleum engineers study
exactly what we do in exploration and
production, so they are fully productive
from the �rst day on the job. Chemical
and mechanical engineers have
always entered the oil business easily,
though more commonly in facilities
design and project management. Other
engineering majors, such as civil or
electrical engineers, have tended to
enter the industry through the service
and contractor side, and many of them
eventually gravitate to the operators.
With experience, your college degree
matters less and it is more about the
skills that you bring to the table.
Do you think an MBA degree is
important and/or prepares you for a
leadership role?
KL: I think having a solid understanding
of business concepts is important;
obtaining an MBA is one route to
accomplish that, but not the only way. Your
personal contribution is the most important
and an MBA can be highly valued.
Technical Leaders
JJ: I have advanced degrees in
petroleum engineering, business,
and law, so I am often asked this
question. For someone who plans
to stay in the mainstream part of the
industry, I always recommend an
MBA, preferably an executive or
night school option. We are in the oil
business, so a good understanding of
overall management and why we make
commercial decisions is extremely
valuable. An MBA is always an additive
skill set and will open doors in your
career. In addition, I usually recommend
that prospective managers do a
rotation in a business planning role,
to see the planning, budgeting, and
portfolio processes and understand
how management makes decisions. But
don’t get sidelined in a staff position;
return to a line position to stay on the
management track.
How were you able to stay current with
rapid changes and advancements in
technology in the industry?
KL: I stay current by staying involved
in the company and being open to new
roles that expand my knowledge of the
industry. I have worked in private and
public �rms, domestic and international
locations, corporate and business
unit positions, and both technical and
managerial roles.
JJ: I have been in management for a long
time, so I depend mostly on the people
who work for me to keep me up to speed
on what is happening in the industry.
I do also attend both internal Chevron
and external SPE meetings to �nd out
the leading-edge technical challenges
and solutions.
What should a young professional do to
show that he/she is leadership material?
KL: Be open to learning new things,
seek out mentors, and be respectful of
people. Don’t be afraid to contribute
your ideas and take on new challenges.
JJ: Impress somebody high up in your
company with your ability to do a
great job.
Any last comments on leadership
opportunities in the oil and gas industry?
KL: The oil and gas industry is full
of opportunities and it is increasing. I
would choose this industry again today if
I were a new college graduate. TWA
Kendra Lema is the project integration manager for new
unconventional plays in ConocoPhillips Lower 48 Exploration.
In this role, she leads internal cross-functional teams to
evaluate new unconventional plays for corporate funding and
execution. Lema has been in the energy industry for 18 years
and with ConocoPhillips for 13 years. She joined
ConocoPhillips in 2001 in midstream business development
working asset divestitures, and became the project controls
lead for its Nigerian lique�ed natural gas project in 2003. Afterward, she spent 4 years
in capital project funding leadership roles. In 2011, she was the exploration project
development lead for ConocoPhillips’ unconventional Niobrara project just outside
of Denver.
Prior to joining ConocoPhillips, she held multiple roles in the energy industry,
including working under a former secretary general of OPEC in Quito, Ecuador. She
gained her engineering and operations experience in natural gas pipelines in the
United States and Mexico through her positions with Atmos Energy and Reliant Energy.
Lema holds a civil engineering degree with a minor in international political
economy of Latin America from the Colorado School of Mines and an MBA degree. She
serves as a ConocoPhillips College Partner for the Colorado School of Mines and was
instrumental in the establishment of the new Center For A Sustainable WE2ST. She is a
registered professional engineer and a certi�ed project management professional.
SPE Bookstore
Advances in Well ControlThis edition of the SPE reprint series focuses on recent advances in well control over the last few years and provides a comprehensive list of technical studies covering a diverse category of topics.
Contents
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Available in Digital Version Only
27Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
Soft Skills
Sometime in the �rst 5 years of your
career, you may be getting a promotion.
However, before a promotion takes place,
you have to begin to walk as if you are
already performing at the next level. This
shouldn’t be because of self-entitlement,
but rather a frame of mind, a way of being
that trains others to see you at the next
level. Ultimately, you are subtly branding
yourself as being the next manager by
exemplifying qualities seen in the next
level, which includes performance. Below
are some ways to do this in your day-to-
day work.
Deliver beyond expectations.
Have you ever purchased a sandwich
and a drink only to be called back to
the counter because the price also
included a bag of chips or a cookie?
It is a good feeling. You think to
yourself, “This is a good value and I am
pleasantly surprised.”
As you deliver your work,
presentations, or reports, always give
a little extra. If the request is for A, B,
and C, think beyond this and include D
and maybe even E. I once had a team
member in a leadership team who
embodied this way of being. I would ask
her to extract data from a system so that
I could evaluate it. She would give me
the data in record time and share her
analysis of the data: trends, categories,
and observations. As you can imagine,
this saved me a ton of time and gave me a
starting point that I didn’t expect.
Dress the part: clothes, shoes, and
hairstyle. I am not advocating that you
spend a ton of money to dress like your
boss. Rather, I am suggesting that you
professionally express your personal
style in a way that gains respect from
others. There’s a reason we think we can
judge a book by its cover! Consider a few
staples in maximizing your presentation
of yourself. Be sure to be cognizant of
localized cultural expectations within
your of�ce.
Put your voice in the room early.
Speak up in meetings. Early in my
career, a leader pulled me to the side and
whispered, “You have a brain in your
head, use it, think! You can do this.”
I laugh about it now, but that whisper
helped me early on to come to the
table playing to win. In meetings, put
your voice in the room early on in the
�rst 10 to 15 minutes, even if it means
summarizing what someone else has said
for clari�cation. Ask questions; usually
others also want to know the answer or
have the same concern. You can start off
by saying, “We are all curious to know…”
Remember, you must be present to win!
Champion key behaviors. Every
organization has champions. These are
the folks who have the ear of the people in
the organization. They are the grassroots
heroes; the people that everyone loves to
follow, listen to, and seek direction from.
They are the ones who have a whole
crowd outside of their of�ce after major
announcements. Everyone wants to know,
“What did that mean?”
You can wield this power for
negativity or positivity; I suggest the
latter. Champion the key behaviors
and initiatives that are directly aligned
with the organization’s strategic direction.
For example, be a champion for cost
reduction, diversity and inclusiveness,
globalization, and so on. Understand what
is important to the senior leadership team
and be a champion for those things. Get
a good understanding and determine
why it is important to the organization.
Model the behavior and educate others at
every opportunity.
Courageously give upwards
feedback. A senior leader once shared
her observation with me that no one ever
gave her constructive feedback once
she was promoted into higher ranks.
Everyone wanted to be complimentary
and be nice and avoided providing
dif�cult feedback. As you may have
guessed, she really appreciated it when
someone told her the “truth.” While she
did not always agree with it, she found
it very insightful to understand how her
behavior was perceived. This allowed
her to manage changes in her behavior
and change the perceptions that others
had of her, to more favorable opinions.
The key in sharing upward feedback
is to ensure that there is a relationship
in place and that you ask if the leader
wants feedback. One way that I like to
ask permission is to simply state, “Do
you want to know what I see?” This was a
Getting to the Next Promotion Sonya Ware, Blue Beagle Consulting
Sonya Ware is an entrepreneur and the founder of Blue
Beagle Consulting. Her professional coaching practice
focuses on the quest for living a more meaningful life. She
has more than 20 years of experience, including roles as an
IT and change management consultant, senior manager at
Shell, and in other Fortune 500 companies. She is a graduate
of the Life Purpose Institute and a student of New�eld
Network’s Graduate Coaching program. She holds a BBA in
Entrepreneurship from the University of Houston and a
Master of Liberal Arts from the University of St. Thomas.
28
Soft Skills
question shared with me many years ago
and I never forgot it.
When sharing what you see,
remember to only describe the behavior
and never share your conclusion of the
behavior. For example, “I noticed that
when the team asked you a question,
you stomped your foot, took in a deep
breath, and raised your voice as you
answered them.” As opposed to, “You
seemed upset when the team asked you a
question.” Remember, feedback is
a gift.
Put your ideas on the map. Share your
ideas, even those that seem way outside
the box. That said, be wise in what you
decide is outside the box. I certainly don’t
want my brain surgeon thinking outside
the box on a critical routine procedure.
If you stay connected to industry
organizations either as a member
or visitor, you will no doubt have
the inside scoop on broader trends
happening across the industry as
opposed to siloed, limited internal
organizational information. This goes a
long way in supporting your thoughts
around new ideas that could infuse
growth, innovation, and the organization’s
bottom line. Also read trade magazines,
blogs, and newsfeeds, such as SPE’s
Journal of Petroleum Technology. Create
peer relationships with colleagues in
similar organizations. Find out what they
are doing and how they are doing things,
and most importantly why. Put your
ideas on the map and if someone else
takes credit, take pride in knowing that
regardless of who took the credit, your
idea was worthy to go forward.
By showing the key behaviors
as the next leader in your company,
whether as a technical expert, people
manager, or both, you can make it
easier for the current leadership to
promote you. Remember that everyone
you work with has the potential to be
tomorrow’s leader, so treat everyone
with respect. By exceeding expectations,
championing key behaviors, and
courageously giving feedback, you
can progress your goals and help others
up as well. TWA
Fuel for ThoughtEnergize your career with training courses
from the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Get up-to-date industry knowledge from the
people who wrote the book on E&P. Courses
are o�ered at multiple locations around the
world. Learn more at www.spe.org/training
where you can browse the schedule and
register for courses that meet your interests.
29Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
Tech 101
Industrial computing and modeling
is taking the early footsteps of a
renaissance period. The world now
sits at a coffee shop and is able to
get the same data that it could only
access at its desktop terminal 8 years
ago. To put things in perspective, 40
years ago, the world’s most advanced
computer was the size of a car and
could perform 80 million �oating point
operations per second (FLOPS). Today,
an iPhone zips along at 76.8 giga�ops.
That’s 962.5 times faster in 40 years. In
10 years’ time, a computer that is the
size and dimension of a silver dollar
will be powerful enough to power a
manned mission to the moon or beat
a chess champion. In those 40 years,
technology in oil and gas has also come
a long way, but are we seeing the same
ratio of improvement? Is the industry
adopting technology at even a quarter
of this speed?
In relation to modeling, not only
can we read wellbore trajectories
and drilling and reservoir reports
on our phones and tablets, but
to a greater degree, we can also
examine and predict scenarios,
avoiding costly and dangerous
situations before they happen. We
now rely on dynamic data and more
increasingly, predictive data. But,
where is the state of the art for these
two interdependent disciplines of
drilling and reservoir engineering?
Where is the technology leading us?
And more importantly, why is cutting-
edge technology �nding it hard to
reach the wider industry?
Human Capital
The industry faces a never-before
seen shortage of trained personnel
entering the industry. It’s the
“graying of the oil industry.” The
reasons for this are left for a different
article, but I strongly recommend
referencing a Wipro report at
http://www.wipro.com/Documents/
casestudy/ Pennenergy-Wipro-Oil-
and-Gas-Research-Report.pdf. The
main thing we can take from this
report is that the oil and gas industry is
looking to software to try to maximize
ef�ciencies by the smaller workforce.
A survey by Rice University and
Ernst & Young (http://www.starktalent.
com/2011/09/oil-and-gas-companies-
talent-shortage-is-a-major-concern/)
found that 88% of human resource
managers at the world’s top oil
companies agreed that the existing
persistent shortage of people will
slow down �nancial growth and
performance in the industry over the
next 10 years. So when we continue
to talk about technology for oil and
gas modeling, we need to keep in
mind the practical requirement for
advancement—allow less people to
do more.
Looking Back to Look Forward
The late 1970s saw the beginnings of
personal computing; Apple was on
its way to making its �rst computer,
and James H Clark and some Stanford
graduates would start Silicon Graphics
(now called SGI), focused on high-
end hardware and software for 3D
graphics computing.
Fast forward about 5 years and John
Mouton, Royce Nelson, Bob Limbaugh,
and Andy Hildebrand decided to take
the next level of computing to seismic
interpretation. “We were turned down
by nearly every venture capitalist on
the east and west coast of America, but
we were approached by Sevin Rosen
ventures who were also invested in
Silicon Graphics computers,” said
Mouton. “The way it was done in the
industry at this time, we had huge 2D
printouts of the geo reports that were
spread out all over the �oor. You had
to have good eyes. Engineers would
get down on their hands and knees
and literally eyeball the trends on
the printout.”
In recalling a conversation with
Gene Ennis in spring 2013, the former
chief executive of�cer of Landmark
Graphics said, “When we brought this
onto 3D graphics, we setup a demo for
these guys in the oil company, switched
Data Integration Key to Improved
Oil and Gas Modeling Tim Duggan, SPE, Skynet Labs
Tim Duggan is founder, former chief executive of�cer, and
currently chairman of Skynet Labs, a venture-capital-backed
technology startup developing secure real-time oil and gas
analysis and optimization software. In 18 months, he led the
company through two accelerator programs, one in Dublin and
the other, energy- and oil-technology-speci�c, in Houston. An
entrepreneur since 2001, Duggan founded and exited the
production company Mercury Boy Inc., subsequently spinning
out Mercury Girl Inc., a mobile software development company. In 2010, he developed
the agency Mercury Digital, catering to web technology and software design and
development. His expertise in business development, digital technology, front-end
architecture, and oil and gas software is broad. Duggan recently moved to the Middle
East to head Speed Lebanon, a new, high-performance technology fund and
accelerator based in Beirut.
30
Tech 101
it on in the meeting and everyone was
just blown away.”
Mouton continued, “We were two
software guys and two hardware guys.
Our objective was generic. We wanted
to bring the advantages of personal
computing to how people did their
work in oil and gas. Nelson was really
pushing for the big oil companies to
use the technology for seismic data.
Shell was acquiring 3D seismic from
boats. The problem was that the data
sets were so large, the different layers
had to be colored in with pencil on
the printouts. The process just simply
became counter-productive. Our
approach was to be able to handle
all the data and then apply simple
pattern recognition, color, and 3D to the
seismic sections. No pencils.
“We had a grass roots approach
for selling this. Get the guys on the
ground to use this. Soon, so many
wanted this as standard that they
forced the companies to buy it. We
practically incited a revolution in the
geosciences workforce.”
Today, Landmark and SGI
are industry standards. Software
globally now has moved to a new
frontier. The cloud is not something
new in oil and gas, with hard-line
networked rigs all across the Gulf of
Mexico (GOM) and the North Sea from
the late 1970s. What is different about
cloud today, however, is that it now
has further reach and a distributed
processor power, and uses a “client”
device to access the data (i.e., smart
device/phone/tablet).
There is a con�ict of interest at
play in today’s oil and gas industry
though. Do I adopt a new technology
and see how it goes, potentially
reaping the rewards of requiring
less people to drill more ef�cient and
productive holes, or do I stick with what
works all day, every day, and accept
certain losses?
When hundreds of millions, if
not billions, of dollars a day are at
stake, the answer is clear. And the
sales timelines of some software
companies will show that they have
to prove their worth over time prior
to making those �rst big sales, let
alone the “new way” becoming the
new norm.
Things Not to Leave Behind
I remember being away at work with
my dad, and we were discussing a
tough situation in his early career. They
were “stuck in the hole during drilling.”
His account of the experience was not
one de�ned by software solutions or
advanced analysis, but one where he
described having a feel for what was
going on downhole in order to free
up a drill bit. “Bring up the bit, rotate
to a certain speed, and bring it down
again,” he said. With all the technology
and data analysis, sometimes you have
to bring in your gut and let it steer
the operation.
Indeed, there is a huge amount
of knowledge capital that is lost with
the retirement of each geophysicist
and senior drilling manager, and not
enough technology can be created
without this �eld experience “know-
how” in mind.
New and Latest
Kevin McClurd of HawkEye tells me
about HawkEye3D, a software widely
used by service companies and
directional drilling engineers around
the world. “We have a 3D visual
software that provides a view of the
formation and the well while it is drilled,
in 3D. What’s exciting is that the
visualization is in real time and coming
on mobile soon.”
Such technology was historically
only available to large operators
due to the high ticket cost. Now, a
small directional driller can use this
software and be up and running within
minutes with a real-time view of the
drilling from anywhere in the world.
This capacity is brought to you by
today’s cloud.
Facebook famously has one of
the best technology infrastructures
in the world for data handling.
This ability and networking is
based at the web server stack level
and uses a backbone framework
called Hadoop.
So who is using this type
of technology in oil and gas?
Schlumberger, for one. It doesn’t use
Hadoop clusters, instead offering
the Petrel E&P software platform. It
is the Schlumberger answer to not
only providing a backbone for new
advanced software, but it also allows
the company to future-proof the ability
for new software to be supported in a
“shared-earth model” method. Shared-
earth modeling describes the process
of integrating static and dynamic
data from two or more disciplines to
construct a model and visualize all
relevant data in one multidisciplinary
environment, via an elegant
user interface.
The system utilizes a technology
language called WITSML, which is
short for Wellsite Information Transfer
Standard Markup Language. It is a
proprietary version of web HTML for
the energy industry, developed by
Energistics. WITSML allows energy
companies, service companies, drilling
contractors, application vendors, and
regulators a common standard for data
transfer and opens up the marketplace
for third party software developers who
can develop applications that provide
next generation interpretation.
Integration is Key
When researching the marketplace in
building my company, Skynet Labs, and
talking to drillers and well planners,
I have found that the biggest pain for
them in the �eld was integrating all the
well plans and reservoir data sets they
were sent. One each was received from
the geologist, the geophysicist, drilling
department, and another from the
electrical and �uids departments. Have
I left anyone out? Oh, yes, and to make
things even harder for our driller, each
contributor had developed their plans
in different software so that integration
was impossible. This forced the drillers
to come back to “gut.” Schlumberger’s
software with WITSML is powerful and
a game changer.
Another issue that 99% of all drilling
and well planning operations face
is planned trajectory. I have spoken
to more than 100 senior drillers,
presidents of drilling companies, drill
planners, and reservoir analysts over
the last year in developing Skynet’s
products. When they mention the
“planned trajectory” they always have
a small chuckle and say, “Well, you
know, it’s planned but we never drill to
plan.” The answer to problems at the
coalface of exploration and production
companies is found by talking to the
guys in the �eld and not always in
the of�ce. The shout from the �eld is
integration and simpli�cation of the
data. Speci�cally, the integration of
reservoir projections and plans with
wellbore plans across the team.
Steve Devereux, founder of
Drillers.com, calls it like it is.
“Improved wellbore trajectory and
reservoir modeling achieves better,
more accurate wellbore placement.
Collisions are avoided, and drillers
can drill faster relief wells” such as was
required in the Macondo disaster in the
GOM in April 2010.
In looking at the delivery of these
integrated data to its stakeholders and
consumers, there are three questions:
1. Do I want to be able to see it on
mobile? 2. Do I want to be able to
manipulate the process from anywhere?
3. Do I feel secure about it?
The last question is, by far, the
single most prominent blocker for
new systems proliferation, but it is
nothing new. Leaders in oil companies
have some of the most top-level
security concerns in the world, on par
with governments.
One company looking at this issue
is Secure-Nok, based in Houston.
Their software is deployed in oil and
gas control systems at a core level.
It actively hunts for any breaches in
the system. Headed by Siv Hombe,
a renowned white hat hacker from
Norway, the stellar team is addressing
an exciting and high-value question
mark for the industry.
What’s Ahead?
One small startup company looking
to the future is Waveseis, founded by
Mark Roberts, an ex-BP geophysicist.
Roberts has developed an algorithm
to allow greater visibility of presalt
reservoirs. Another startup at an
early stage is Petrolance. Their
team is focused on utilizing cloud
processing and distributed computing
to provide a stronger visualization
for geoscientists when they want
to look at reservoir data from
the cloud. Currently, this ability
is limited to poor pre- and post-
visual programs.
Yaroslav Bashenko of Petrolance
said, “Most companies focus on
good simulators but the problem is
products have weak pre- and post-
processor power. Petrolance aims to
make it all in one, one cloud package
providing the higher spec processor
and visualization.”
The oil and gas industry is
admittedly slow in adopting digital
technologies (though for reasons
which I respect, mainly security and
compromised data systems being the
main concern), but when you match a
paradigm shift in the wider software
world with a dwindling workforce in
such a high-value industry, it is dif�cult
to see pro�t in maintaining such a slow
change in attitude.
In closing, there are still some
questions left open. Do we need to
kick the horse in the belly and catch up
with where it’s at? Or should we stay
trotting? Is big data useful or are we
drowning in big bytes? Whatever the
interpretation may be, I know one thing:
I don’t have a clue how I will get any
typing done on a computer the size of a
silver dollar! TWA
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Environment InformationWhen You
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32
As exciting as it is to �nish university, it
can also be overwhelming! The plethora
of opportunities or the lack of them, the
hazy picture of what you would like to do
versus what you are being offered. This
article reviews a few key locations where
graduates can enter into the industry and
the variety of options that the oil and gas
industry offers them. Let’s see what the
US, Canada, and the UK have to offer.
What’s Hot in the US?
The cap and gown have been doffed
and the diploma ink is still drying.
After 4 or more years of hard work, it’s
time to put that degree to use. The US
Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that
demand for petroleum engineers will
grow by 26% in the decade between
2012 and 2022. Several US cities have
an established industry presence and
have experienced recent growth and
may appeal to new graduates. Prominent
among them are Houston, Bakers�eld,
Williston, New Orleans, Midland, Dallas,
and Denver. Two locations of particular
focus for this article are Midland, Texas,
and Williston, North Dakota.
Fueled by new innovations in an
historic oil and gas basin, Midland’s
SPE Permian Basin Section has
experienced a nearly 30% growth in its
young professional (YP) membership
in the past year. Girded by historic
underpinnings, Midland continues
to stand tall, both physically and
metaphorically, across the �at Texan
landscape. Known for its proli�c oil
�elds, this town of more than 110,000
(at the time of the 2010 census) harkens
back to its wildcatter days of 1923, when
oil was �rst produced from the Santa Rita
No. 1 well. This is a town well acquainted
with oil booms, having experienced
rapid growth after the end of World
War II and another boom during the
1970s. The advent of horizontal drilling
combined with large, multistage
hydraulic fracturing has ushered in yet
another boom for this town. In 2014,
Forbes magazine ranked Midland as the
second fastest-growing small city in the
US.
The SPE section that showed the
largest year-over-year growth (83.5%)
in YP membership is the Williston Basin
Section. Driving this growth in Williston
is the exploitation of the proli�c Bakken
formation. The Bakken formation, which
extends into south Saskatchewan,
Canada, is an emerging tight oil play
that has been a product of continued
technology advancement in horizontal
drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
What’s Up in Canada?
Canada is an extremely lucrative
but equally competitive area for
new graduates in the oil and gas
sector. A plethora of companies from
entrepreneurial startups to integrated
majors are investing billions in Canada
in order to take advantage of its vast
reserves, which includes over 174 billion
bbl of oil sands reserves according to
the 2014 BP Annual Statistical Review.
As a new graduate, Canada will
provide you with the opportunity to
be at the forefront of new technologies
while establishing you as a valuable
resource to companies later in your
career. Canada’s diverse seasonal
climate and intricate geology require
special consideration and extensive
knowledge in order to tap into its
reserves. Whether you are working in
the oil sands developing the commercial
steam-assisted gravity drainage
technology, developing surface mining
operations, working at developing tight
oil plays, or tapping into the vast Horn
River shale basin, you will be joining a
well-connected club of practitioners with
the know-how to produce from Canada’s
complex reservoirs.
There is no shortage of companies
looking for personnel in Canada.
Companies come from all over
the world to compete for a share of
Canada’s reserves. All of the majors
are represented, and countless
independents have substantial
holdings in Canada. In addition, there
is continuous investment from overseas
national oil companies. For example,
UAE-based TAQA acquired PrimeWest
in 2007 and China-based CNOOC
purchased Nexen in 2013.
Shruti Jahagirdar, Shell; Kristin Weyand, ConocoPhillips; Batool Arhamna Haider, Stanford University;
Li Zhang, Devon; and Maxim Kotenev, CGG
A YOUNG PROFESSIONAL’S
GUIDE TO
Recent
Graduates in the US, Canada, and the UK
33Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
In addition to summer internships,
prospective graduates in Canada have
the opportunity to work for companies in
12– to16–month internships prior to their
graduation. On receiving a job offer,
one must prepare to move to Calgary,
Alberta, better known as the energy
capital of Canada. In Calgary, there is
no shortage of activities to participate in,
including a very active SPE section. If
you have a desire to work in challenging
reservoirs with novel technologies,
consider launching your career
in Canada.
London: Financial Hub for
Upstream to Downstream
A leading global city and �nancial
center, London stands out as a
prominent oil capital. Having advanced
in the time of maritime discoveries
and located in the prime meridian
zone, London has become the hub of
commercial and trade activity in the
energy sector.
There is an abundance of the world’s
top universities and MBA programs that
provide a �ow of top-standard graduates
into the UK job market. Some of the top
institutions within UK include Imperial
College, Leeds University, Oxford
University, London School of Economics,
and London School of Business and
Finance. Some of the world’s oldest and
largest organizations for geophysicists,
geologists, engineers, analysts,
�nancial experts, and petroleum
publishing houses are based in this
city. It is not surprising that London
has evolved not only as the center for
upstream and downstream but also for
commercial careers, law �rms, policy
makers, global energy studies, and
environmental organizations.
Leveraging London’s location as
a global �nancial hub, the city hosts
numerous meetings that bring together
experts from the oil and gas industry,
government of�cials, investors, and the
�nancial community to discuss and learn
about opportunities and investment. The
industry remains extremely attractive to
investors and is a business that continues
to give outstanding returns. London is
an excellent place to bring industries
together and attract international
businesses looking to raise capital.
In addition to science and
engineering roles, London offers
graduate careers in accounting,
�nance, commerce, information
technology, supply-chain management,
and marketing, to name a few. City
institutions provide advice and
professional services in raising
capital, mitigating risks, and securing
insurance; it is indeed the center for
project �nance excellence. Project
developers, sponsors, advisers,
bankers, credit agencies, and investors
must be properly equipped to
analyze and explain the risks and
prospects, understand the sources
of �nance, impact of the global
credit crisis on debt, equity funding,
structuring of the loan facilities,
production sharing agreements,
and insurance requirements.
City �nanciers provide expertise
and �nance for studies of
upstream, midstream, and
downstream projects from
around the world and especially
for growing petroleum regions.
London remains one of the
most competitive markets for new
graduates in the oil and gas sector.
It is believed there are still up to
24 billion bbl of oil and gas to be
extracted from the seabed around
the UK. To produce this, the industry
needs to overcome technological
challenges, increase operational and
capital ef�ciency, and attract billions
of pounds worth of new investment.
Oil and gas industry in London
offers an exciting variety of
career opportunities in technical
and commercial disciplines.
The Lure of Graduate Studies
As the oil and gas industry continues
to evolve and the reservoirs get
more complex, the need for experts
of different science backgrounds is
becoming more prevalent. Excellent
examples of emerging sciences relevant
to the industry are geochemistry and
geomechanics. According to a 2011 study
by the American Society for Engineering
Education, conferral of master’s and
doctoral degrees in petroleum sciences
grew by more than 30% from 2009 to
2010 and the expectation is that this trend
will continue to grow.
The thought of exorbitant education
fees and going back to school can
sometimes be a deterrent to many
aspiring candidates. While most
universities in the US offer funding for
graduate programs, many research
groups and laboratories also fund their
students for master’s programs in the
form of assistantships and fellowships.
Other institutions such as Stavanger
University in Norway and King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Mines in
Saudi Arabia are “tuition-free” for full-
time students.
SPE, too, provides competitive
scholarships to students wishing to
pursue higher studies in petroleum-
related majors, in various regions of the
world. Details of these can be found at
spe.org. Additionally, there are numerous
corporations which offer worldwide
scholarships to new graduates. Italian
company Eni’s Master’s Program Project
is one such example among many.
In the US and Canada, many
petroleum programs offer two master’s
degree options: master of science
(thesis based), which often comes
funded, and master of engineering
(course based). Some universities
in the UK offer one-year master’s
programs compared to two years in
most other countries and might suit many
candidates looking for an accelerated
degree. Some highly regarded
programs have opened foreign campus
branches, such as Heriot-Watt’s Dubai
and Malaysian campuses and Texas
A&M University’s campus in Qatar,
which offers master’s in petroleum.
This helps in cutting down the cost
of living associated with acquiring a
foreign degree. TWA
34
Bangalore Section Holds
Education Day
The young professionals committee
of the SPE Bangalore Section
recently organized an education
day at Kendriya Vidyalaya DRDO
in Bangalore, India. The event was
aimed at guiding students interested
in math and science toward a career
in the oil and gas sector, one of
the most exciting and challenging
industries to work in. A team of seven
members from the section presented
various career options available
in the industry. Because of the
overwhelming response, the event was
held in two classrooms. A total of 150
students attended.
Abhinandan Kohli, secretary of
the Bangalore Section, began with an
introduction of SPE, what it does, and
how it helps the growth of the oil and gas
industry. It was followed by an overview
of the industry presented by other
members. The students were eager and
enthusiastic and asked many questions
throughout the session.
Abhinandan Kohli
Bangalore Section
San Joaquin Valley Section
YPs Organize Knowledge-
Sharing Sessions
The SPE San Joaquin Valley
Section’s young professionals (YPs)
have continued to contribute to the
learning of their peers through a series
of events that give YPs the opportunity to
bene�t from experts. Recently, they got
together to learn more about continuing
education and online education offered
by top schools in the region.
The YPs held a safety and leadership
event at which participants talked
with Gaurdie Banister, chief executive
of�cer of Aera Energy. Banister shared
his career journey in the oil and gas
industry along with his personal
experiences that have in�uenced
his career.
Representatives of the Viterbi
School of Engineering at the
University of Southern California
(USC) answered questions from
YPs in an information session in
Bakers�eld, California. USC’s
Distance Education Network
provided detailed information about
its more than 40 graduate engineering
programs available online.
The YPs recognize the importance
of knowledge transfer in aiding
professional development and will be
holding more events in the near future.
Cenk Temizel
Reservoir Engineer and
YP Chairperson,
San Joaquin Valley Section
Student participants at the education day organized by the Bangalore Section.
San Joaquin Valley Section YPs held knowledge-sharing sessions.
YP Newsflash
35Vol. 11 // No. 1 // 2015
Sheidi, H.M., holds a session on effective technical paper presentation.
Several YP participants attended the career planning workshop.
Bruce, O.G., moderating a syndicate session.
Warri Nigeria YPs Set Pace
on Career Planning
Young Professionals (YPs) Committee
of the Warri Nigeria Section recently
held its annual YP workshop at the PTI
Conference Centre Effurun in Warri,
Nigeria. The theme of this year’s
workshop was “Marketability for
Sustainability: Equipping Myself Ahead
of Tomorrow’s Challenges.”
The workshop consisted of the
following sessions:
r��(VJEF�UP�XSJUJOH�UFDIOJDBM�SFQPSUT�
for engineers (Archibong, E.E., of
PTI)
r��&GGFDUJWF�UFDIOJDBM�QBQFS�
presentation (Sheidi, H.M., of PTI)
r��1BDLBHJOH�B�NBSLFUBCMF�SÊTVNÊ�
(Muse-Ariyoh, N.O., of WRPC)
r��*OUFSWJFXT�NBEF�FBTZ�BOE�MBOEJOH�
on the dream job (Bruce, O.G., of
WRPC)
The distinguished group of session
facilitators took turns sharing their
insight and gathering discussion on
the subject matters. The main lesson
learned from the workshop was not only
the importance of planning your career
early, but also the signi�cance of taking
the time and thought in choosing the
right mentors.
In conclusion, Bruce, O.G.,
moderated a brief syndicate session.
The committee hopes to hold a similar
workshop this year. TWA
Chris Egwuatu
Jolomi Engineering,
Warri Nigeria Section
Your Best Shot
Black Gold: The Cycle Continues
Photo by Grant Manthey, Well Operations Engineer II, Transocean
This shot was taken in June 2014 on the western edge of the Wattenberg �eld in
Frederick, Colorado, USA, at the end of a very long road trip. My day was at an
end, but the pumping continued. Photo taken with a Motorola DROID RAZR HD.
Wild Desert Rig 6: Catwalk and Derrick
Photo by David Warren, Senior Drilling and Completion Engineer, Santos
An artistic view showing the rig’s pipe handler that supports the pipe to the derrick
(catwalk), rig �oor, and derrick itself. Taken in July 2014 in southwest Queensland,
Australia, with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Settings: ISO 800, 24 mm, f/4.0 at 1/25 s.
Submit your entry today to [email protected]. This contest is open to
all SPE members. The two best photographs will be published in the next TWA
issue. Your image must be in JPEG format, with a �le-size limit of 4 MB. Submit
photograph information with camera speci�cations. Provide your full name with
your position, company name, and company location.
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© 2015 Baker Hughes Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. 42707 01/2015
It’s our job to protect people and assets, and to dramatically reduce the environmental
footprint where we work.
Each one of us is trained to integrate health, safety, and environment into all of our
operations—that way, your wellsite operations stay safe, and we can all go home healthy
at the end of the day.
Visit BakerHughes.com/TakeCareofEachOther to see what a Perfect HSE Day means to us.
Everyone is counting on me.