HIRED! - Oilfield Recruiting Supplement - vol. 2

GETTING IT RIGHT DIG FOR VICTORY O&G LABOR MARKET

HIRED!powered by hays specialist recruitment

VOL 2 / 2014

EUROPEAN UNCONVENTIONAL OIL & GAs

HIRED! POWEREDBYHaYssPEcialistREcRuitmEnt 2

Lost

The end of another year in Polish shale gas is drawing near, and not one to remember as the success story that many had hoped to see.

New regulations were proposed by the government to stimulate investment in de-risking Polish acreage. While the industry welcomed the government’s decision to relinquish the idea of a state regulator, to have been known as NOKE, other problematic regulations weren’t changed, with some new ones making the exploration process more confusing and time-consuming.

so, is this the right time to move into Polish shale gas? The situation is diffi-cult. The number of companies involved in exploration is declining, although

- as the old investment adage has it - the best time to get in is when everybody is getting out. But to enter now would require luck and courage, an enormous amount of tenacity and commitment, and brilliant business acumen.

In the second issue of HIRED! we are talking to people who definitely have all these qualities. They are struggling not only with largely unfriendly laws and regulations - the most-trodden obstacles - but also with the apparent dominance of the giants that the oil and gas sector has bred. But not to worry for those just starting out in the business, we have excellent examples of how to find a niche and start your way to the top.

In particular, I encourage you to read the interview with Grzegorz Raś, an imaging geophysicist at ION Geophysical. This is especially so if you are a young professional in the early days of your career. Our interviewee shares plenty of insider information about his work and hints how to become a suc-cessful employee from day one in the office. Or on a well pad. Or a seismic vessel in the Indian Ocean.

Jan Wypijewski

opportunity?

Managing Editor Jan Wypijewski

[email protected]

dEputy Managing EditorGordon Wasilewski

[email protected]

art dirECtorŁukasz Mazurek

WritErsHubert Karoń

Piotr LewandowskiDawid Wierzbicki

Edyta Stopyra

photographyPhotopin, ApexR, Cloudfront,

CGG, Fraste, Wolverine

dtpMazurek Grafika

publishEd byCleantech Poland LLC

ul. Krucza 51/3100 - 022 Warsaw, Poland

printErDrukarnia Beltrani

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Contents

p / 6MODERN-DAY DAVIDs IN GOLIATH’s INDUsTRY

p / 14O&G LABOR MARKET

p / 10DIG FOR VICTORY

p / 4GETTING IT RIGHT

Managing Editor Jan Wypijewski

[email protected]

dEputy Managing EditorGordon Wasilewski

[email protected]

art dirECtorŁukasz Mazurek

WritErsHubert Karoń

Piotr LewandowskiDawid Wierzbicki

Edyta Stopyra

photographyPhotopin, ApexR, Cloudfront,

CGG, Fraste, Wolverine

dtpMazurek Grafika

publishEd byCleantech Poland LLC

ul. Krucza 51/3100 - 022 Warsaw, Poland

printErDrukarnia Beltrani


RightINTERVIEW BY HUBERT KAROŃ, PIOTR LEWANDOWsKI

Recruiting people to any company is a process that few will speak about openly, because a frank talk about hiring new people reveals a lot - someti-mes too much - about the inner workings of a company. HIRED! spoke to a recruiter of a major recruitment company, who chose to remain anony-mous, about the state of play on the oil and gas job market.

Hubert Karoń: What is the biggest problem you encounter when working with clients?

recruiter: The biggest problem with clients is usually communication during the recruitment process. As I work mostly to re-cruit for high-profile positions, I am very con-cerned about quality of candidates. so even if I am doing my best, I do need feedback on people I am sending through, because every single company, every single department and even every single manager and team are dif-ferent. so recruiting people is not just doing a cross-check on candidates’ skills and client demands, even though it might seem like this sometimes. It is definitely much more, as you have to understand the “project climate” in which a candidate will be working. Will it be

an office job? Or exploration in Africa? Every-thing matters, so communication is essential.

HK: What is candidates’ attitude towards the recruiting process?

Most of them are happy about the prospect of getting a new job and are really helpful during the recruitment process. On the other hand, I have experienced some problematic behavior from candidates. Definitely the most annoy-ing thing is giving up at the very last stage of the recruitment due to - for example - a part-ner’s objection. There are also people who get so hyped and involved in the process that they call you every hour asking for updates. still others just lie about their experience and even if we are doing our best we cannot check eve-rything.

Gettingit

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INTERVIEW BY HUBERT KAROŃ, PIOTR LEWANDOWsKI


piotr LeWandoWsKi: What trends do you see in oil & gas labor market? does eu-rope’s political tension have any influence on it?

To be honest I cannot see much difference. There are not many Western operations go-ing on in Ukraine. On the other hand, the Ukrainian people update all of their profiles on CV databases at an alarming rate, so for these people the situation must influence their decisions a lot. From my point of view, however, the political tensions have had little serious influence.

HK: How are companies setting criteria so that you can find the right candidate?

Recruiters and agencies work actively when looking for people - on LinkedIn, CV data-bases, checking references with best people in given companies. Nobody will speak about this openly, but it is a fact that clients have specific candidates in mind. It is - more or less - their business and most of them are pretty used to their own vision and it’s hard to get them to change it. While gathering intelligence you get very exact information about this vision, either openly or at least get an intention of what is ex-pected. There are some problems worth men-tioning, like gender and age preference, nation-ality, background and so on. sometimes you’re

told to look precisely for “an experienced older guy” and other time for a “dynamic, smart woman without children.” When candidates apply, turning them down based on these dis-criminating criteria would be illegal, of course.

HK: can one find a job in the oil & gas indus-try without experience?

A perfect candidate would be a young person with a lot of experience, which is impossi-ble. But yes, it is possible to be hired without having any prior experience. Your young age would be associated with high motivation and ease of adaptation. These are important values to oil and gas companies.

pL: What are currently the most wanted skills on the labour market?

Industry is looking for well-rounded peo-ple and the word “synergistic” is becom-ing increasingly popular. In my opinion, soft skills are most essential. Abilities like communication, languages, personal hab-its, ease of contacting people, allow us to present ourselves as a multi-skilled and open-minded person. sometimes the can-didate with fewer hard, technical skills, but considerable soft skills has a huge advan-tage. They simply know how to convince others about their uniqueness.

You have to understand the

“project climate” in which a candidate

will be working. Will it be an office job? Or exploration in Africa?

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Modern-dayDavidsinGoliath’sIndustry

by hubert karoń and piotr lewandowski

Contrary to many of the headlines and rumors in the petroleum world, there is a place for the smaller companies in it and they play a very impor-tant role. HIRED! looks at a handful of these niche players and asks what drives them.

Most lay people, when asked, will associate the oil and gas industry with huge, multi-billion, international companies operating

globally. The BPs, shells and Totals come to mind. But these supermajors are not inter-ested in every project going, usually focusing on the biggest and financially most demand-ing ones. This creates an often spacious niche for smaller companies that are more flexible, with a more precise focus and expertise.

The shale gas revolution, which trans-formed the Us energy mix and is on course to alter the global LNG market in a few years, owes largely to a number of independent op-erators that believed that fracking shale rock for gas would make good business.

On a smaller scale, it is independents that are leading exploration in Europe’s nascent shale gas markets in Poland and the UK.

smaller players typically manage inde-pendent projects or they could work for ma-jors as contractors. Industry insiders note that risk tends to be commensurate with return in this niche world.

“In the Us, there are many, many smaller oil and gas operators,” said Michael Lewis, CEO of Discovery Geoservices, a company which be-gan work on shale gas in Europe in 2007. “It is actually rare to see huge players. They are only interested in the largest projects. Most of the projects in Europe are also too small for them. Consequently, we are not truly competing with these huge companies,” Mr. Lewis said.


In several countries, Poland included, ma-jors could be state oil and gas companies, but their nature is only slightly different, Lewis continues. “Poland’s oil and gas company PG-NiG, for instance, has a huge administration, staff and infrastructure. Furthermore, they operate in a heavily politicized environment. This tends to make them less competitive as they need to focus on the larger projects and only those that meet the political agenda set by the politicians”, Mr. Lewis said.

Discovery Geoservices has decided to op-erate via Discovery Polska, a privately-held exploration and production company prima-rily focused on the oil and gas-rich Carpathi-

an belt of Poland, slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic. Discovery Polska has five concessions for conventional hydrocarbons: two in Poland and three in slovakia.

Other independents view themselves in a similar way. European Drilling Projects BV is a privately-owned company established by Tom Newman and Lauraine Kaal, aim-ing at developing innovation drilling tools and bringing them into drilling equipment markets.

“The advantage I had was local knowledge and a dedicated workforce that bought into the “can do” attitude of the company, and that was proud of their achievements”, said

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Mr. Newman, co-owner & director of Euro-pean Drilling Projects, on how his company started. “The weakness, as always, was finan-cial. Having to depend on third party suppli-ers for high-end equipment”, he said.

“The idea of our product was built on our team’s experience, which is high-end technologies for the ceramics industry”, recalled Marcin Zimny, analyst at Baltic Ceramics, a manufacturer of ceramic prop-pant looking to supply fracking companies operating in Europe.

“It was difficult to convince this very con-servative industry [of oil and gas] to try out something new and from a relatively small

and unknown company, and trust it to com-plete the process of delivering the product,” Mr. Zimny said.

“Moreover, we were - and still are - a one of a kind company in Europe and while other companies keep their technologies secret, we needed to come up with our own solutions,”

Mr. Zimny said.It was not until representatives of the com-

pany visited the Us when they got wind in their sails.

“During one of our visits to the Us three years ago it was pointed out to us that our expertise and skills are sufficient to start pro-duction of ceramic proppant. The contacts we made in the Us proved extremely helpful”, Mr. Zimny said.

The company also bid on cooperating with universities and research centers in Poland and the Us. “This gave us access to cutting-edge technology, which had great impact on our product. This cooperation is still being

“It was difficult to convince this very

conservative industry [of oil and gas] to try out something new

and from a relatively small and unknown company, and trust it to complete the

process of delivering the product”

Marcin Zimny,Baltic Ceramics


developed”, said Mr. Zimny. In this way, he adds, the company has a chance to go on pur-suing major business objectives.

“All of the smaller players have big goals, backed up with a burning desire to achieve them, said Mr. Newman. “My goals were to design, develop and test a tool that would ad-dress the challenges of today’s dynamic drilling industry,” Mr. Newman added.

“If you aren’t growing in the oil business and don’t keep pushing the envelope, your busi-ness will wither away. so, I keep following my curiosity and my skills into whatever projects truly make sense to me. As a result, I often find

myself in projects that are rather unique,” said Mr. Lewis.

“There have certainly been times when I thought: What am I doing in this business’”, Mr. Lewis admitted. “Working 10-12 hours per day, traveling all the time, enduring really hard financial stresses. To deal with them, I just keep going! If there is anything that works best in this business, it is perseverance,” he said.

Mr. Newman is another hard-worker. “We pull up our boot straps and make things hap-pen,” he says. “You have to believe in your product and the dedicated team that keeps it all together.”

“The advantage I had was local knowledge and a dedicated workforce that bought into the “can

do” attitude of the company, and that was proud of their achievements”

Tom Newman, European Drilling Projects

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DigforVictoryINTERVIEW BY JAN WYPIJEWsKI

Grzegorz Raś, senior geoscientist at Earthworks Reservoir, a former field geophysicist in CGG Veritas and author of Marine Seismic - Acquisition and Seismic Navigation coursebook.

jan WypijeWsKi: is being a top student - like you were - important in seeking a position, or is it rather about activity in student organizations and influential contacts in the industry?

grzegorz raś: If I were an idealist, I would probably say that it takes passion and faith in good fortune. But I’m more down to earth so I will just say that it takes a little bit of everything. Based on my own experience, I am inclined to say that active participation in student organi-zations, faculty events, in and out of university, definitely helps make new contacts with indus-try people. It’s a chance to present yourself dur-ing face to face meetings with representatives of companies you might like to work for. I feel that having a few words with them at that time re-sulted in a much more pleasant and less stress-ful job interview a few years later. And that may be a real game changer in looking for a job! But to assume that good contacts automatically mean getting a job is false.


after graduation, you quickly landed a job with cggVeritas, now cgg. What was the recruitment process like?

The whole application procedure was quite smooth, pleasant and very professional. I had the impression that it was deliberately de-signed to make the candidate feel comfort-able and stress-free. CGGVeritas booked a BA flight, a four-star hotel, covered cabs and other expenses. You can just imagine how impressive it was for a poor student.

The interview itself, although it lasted several hours, was quite informal and casual. It con-sisted of two parts: the HR part and the techni-cal part. The HR stuff was pretty much basic and there were no tricky questions other than to assess language skills. similarly during the technical bit, the level of sophistication was

commensurate with my professional industry experience, which was none. I think that apart from assessing my language skills, the ques-tions were supposed to unveil the truth about my soft skills in general, like communication, enthusiasm for work and readiness to work in a team. I also have good memories from an-other interview, for PGs, but in the end “my heart” - or contract terms - told me to give it a go at CGG.

so you became a field geophysicist at cgg just after graduation. Was what you learned at university useful?

I arrived at CGG’s London office in septem-ber 2008, but after a very short period of time I joined the crew of the 2D/3D small seismic vessel “the Pacific sword” in the south China

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sea in the vicinity of Labuan, an island off mainland Malaysia. Rumor had it she was a legendary boat with incredible stories of her crew and their adventures. Unfortunately, I mustn’t speak of them: what happens on the boat stays on the boat [laughs].

I think that universities in general are not entirely able to prepare students for industrial work. There should be more practical courses designed on the basis of universities’ coopera-tion with industry. For example, I didn’t know anything about industrial software like Pro-Max or Geographix. And it was not the case of me being lazy but rather poor organization, lack of teamwork and no means or tools to do a proper practical course where you can utilize what you have learned using computer soft-ware. This lack of collaboration with industry and a close relationship on the student-lecturer axis are the fundamental problems of our high-er education system.

How was cgg’s approach to you at the be-ginning? Were you a part of an educational course to catch up with older employees?

As far as I remember, I was thrown in at the deep end from the very first day. I spent my first week at CGG in their London of-fice, where I quickly realized that theoretical seismic work is very different from practice.

I obviously understood the basics of data processing, but the biggest challenge was to implement it correctly, using the software I was working with. The senior colleagues were very helpful and the necessary support was usually given to me. I was never on my own. Newly hired grads are very often sent on long and advanced courses in profession-al training centres, but in my case it was a bit different. I believe that such a steep learning curve, which I was on, is nothing but ben-eficial and advantageous. It accelerated the process of adaptation despite accompanying stress. Right after my very first week in the office I was sent to Malaysia for my first for-eign project.

you are the author of the first comprehen-sive polish publication about marine geo-physics, Marine seismic – acquisition and seismic navigation. Was it challenging?

Had I known how much time this book would take and how much it would get on my nerves it would probably have never seen the light of day [laughs]. Writing is actually half the challenge, the other half is to publish what you’ve written.

It took 14 arduous months from the mo-ment I typed the first word to the moment I found my book on a bookstore shelf. On many occasions I had had enough, but there was no turning back - once I start working on something I take it to the end. Thus since December 2013 the book has been available everywhere in online bookstores and most probably on student campus servers already [laughs].

The book itself is an attempt to explain ba-sics of seismic data acquisition and naviga-tion as well as seismic data processing from the perspective of an experienced marine seismic geophysicist. I have written it for people who wish to understand how the seis-mic industry works, how to get there, how to get a job and how to hold onto it.

“CGGVeritas booked a BA flight, a four-star

hotel, covered cabs and other expenses. You can just imagine

how impressive it was for a poor student”

Grzegorz Ras̀

14 HIRED! POWEREDBYHaYssPEcialistREcRuitmEnt 14

O&G LABOR MARKETpowered by hays specialist recruitment

� According to the Ministry of the Envi-ronment, we need to drill 270 more wells by 2021, or an average of 45 wells annually, to assess Poland’s shale gas potential.

WElls in polandBy yEAR

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O&G LABOR MARKETannual labor MarkEt supply 2013 oil and gas graduatEs

ESTIMATION By CITy

RUSSIA LITHUANIA

BELARUS

SLOVAKIA

CZECHREPUBLIC

GERMANY

Poznań

Wrocław

Warszawa

KatowiceKraków

Gliwice

UKRAINE

� Kraków AGH University of science and Technology and the silesian University of Technology have long provided much of Polish oil and gas personnel. With Polish shale gas not as promising anymore, these well-educated graduates might be tempted to look for foreign jobs (see table below).

oil and gas salariEs in sElECtEd EuropEan CountriEs aVEragE annual $USD

50,00

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200,00local average annual salary

imported

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nether

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poland

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united k

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norway

united sta

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� Higher salaries out-side of Poland could cause employees to leave. Norway is the un-disputed salary leader. According to HAYs’ Oil and Gas Salary Guide, a local employee can expect to make around $180,000 UsD on av-erage. In Western Eu-rope, an average local salary hovers around $100,000 UsD; in Po-land an employee will get half that figure.

City no. of graduates

kraków 1,300

gliwice 800

Warszawa 140

poznań 100

Wrocław 80

katowice 70

total 2,490

� According to HAYs data for Europe discipline which is in demand in Europe is Pipeline/ subsea Engineer. The average salary for this profession reaches $89,100 UsD. The second most sought after profession is Directional Driller with the average salary of $67,900 UsD.

oil and gas salariEs by disCiplinE

annual salaries by discipline area

operator/ technician

graduate interme-diate

senior Manager lead/ principal

Vice president/ director

business development/ Commercial 53,600 36,000 41,800 59,700 101,100 168,100

Construction/ installation 61,000 37,000 54,500 76,800 105,700 188,000

downstream operations Management 55,000 42,000 50,000 83,700 92,000 163,400

drilling 65,200 37,000 67,900 86,900 125,800 199,900

Electrical 61,200 38,100 48,500 70,100 87,200 N/A

Estimator/ Cost Engineer 35,000 30,000 46,700 74,000 102,000 N/A

geoscience 60,000 45,000 56,000 95,400 137,100 222,300

health, safety and Environment (hsE) 42,500 34,500 55,800 71,800 94,500 182,300

logistics 55,900 31,300 35,000 65,000 85,000 116,900

Marine/ naval 72,000 32,900 67,600 80,300 98,200 175,000

Mechanical 50,000 38,000 42,600 69,200 87,100 102,000

piping 47,000 34,000 43,000 59,900 86,900 N/A

process (chemical) 49,400 38,900 46,200 73,700 113,000 125,400

production Management 55,800 32,400 52,100 79,600 109,700 242,200

project Controls 55,000 40,000 50,600 72,600 111,200 156,500

Quality assuarance, Quality Control (Qa/ QC) 49,300 36,500 53,700 60,000 92,900 134,000

reservoir/ petroleum Engineering 45,900 44,800 67,800 105,700 131,900 262,800

structural 57,700 36,000 41,800 73,000 93,000 204,100

subsea/ pipelines 54,200 41,400 62,400 89,100 134,500 199,000

supply Chain/ procurement 45,600 31,900 53,800 72,100 86,600 186,800

technical safety 61,300 35,000 60,700 74,300 115,200 185,000

global surVEy$USD

SOURCE: HAyS OIL AND GAS SALARy GUIDE

HIRED! - Oilfield Recruiting Supplement - vol. 2

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