Developing New Petroleum Engineers in a Non-Operating Environment

Abstract

Abstract The paper will briefly explain aspects of career development for a new young engineering graduate to become a petroleum engineer in an international subsidiary of a National Oil Company in a non-operating environment. Developing a new graduate into a petroleum engineer is a challenging goal to achieve, especially in a non-operating company environment. The essential well-site and field operational knowledge/experience is hard to obtain. Therefore, a simple approach is adopted as an initial 2-year training stage in order to capture the basic petroleum engineering hands-on experience required for the young engineers that require continuous assistance. The development scheme is adopted by the company to accelerate the placement of local graduates in various technical positions, in order to support senior petroleum engineers. It consists, among others, planned work programs, daily tasks, formal training courses locally and internationally, on-job-training, conduct ad hoc focused assignments and projects, getting exposure to operational sites and further study on part-time degree course. The development scheme has yielded positive results. Many young engineering graduates have excelled in their careers to higher levels within a few years, however exception also exists. The development scheme will continuously be improved to an in-depth focused development program that will capture more operational knowledge and experience. Hence, it will generate skilled and knowledgeable young professionals to operate and manage oil and gas companies. Introduction KUPFEC is one of the many subsidiaries of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). There are four subsidiaries which are involved in upstream exploration and production of oil and gas - KUFPEC (Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company) engages in international foreign onshore/offshore exploration & production, mainly as a non-operating Joint Venture Partner, while the other three engage in the domestic and nearby acreage exploration / development / production. KUFPEC's global assets stretch from West Africa to Far-East and from Australia to the North Sea. KUFPEC's 2030 strategy consists of the following:• To achieve targets set by KPC for crude oil and gas production & reserves increases.• To give preference for investments which facilitate transfer of know-how.• To achieve & maintain optimal ratio of upstream oil and gas.• To become an operator of international upstream assets.