hired! powered by hays specialist recruitment VOL 2 / 2014
GETTING IT RIGHT
DIG FOR VICTORY
O&G LABOR MARKET
EUROPEAN UNCONVENTIONAL Oil & gas
Lost
opportunity?
T
he 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 difficult. 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 successful employee from day one in the office. Or on a well pad. Or a seismic vessel in the Indian Ocean. Jan Wypijewski
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Contents Managing Editor Jan Wypijewski jan.wypijewski@cleantechpoland.com Deputy Managing Editor Gordon Wasilewski gordon.wasilewski@cleantechpoland.com ART DIRECTOR Łukasz Mazurek Writers Hubert Karoń Piotr Lewandowski Dawid Wierzbicki Edyta Stopyra Photography Photopin, ApexR, Cloudfront, CGG, Fraste, Wolverine DTP Mazurek Grafika Published by Cleantech Poland LLC ul. Krucza 51/31 00 - 022 Warsaw, Poland Printer Drukarnia Beltrani
p/4 GETTING IT RIGHT p/6 MODERN-DAY DAVIDS IN GOLIATH’S INDUSTRY p / 10 DIG FOR VICTORY p / 14 O&G LABOR MARKET
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Getting it
Right
INTERVIEW 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 - sometimes too much - about the inner workings of a company. HIRED! spoke to a recruiter of a major recruitment company, who chose to remain anonymous, 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 recruit for high-profile positions, I am very concerned 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 different. 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
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an office job? Or exploration in Africa? Everything 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 annoying thing is giving up at the very last stage of the recruitment due to - for example - a partner’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 everything.
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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 discriminating criteria would be illegal, of course. HK: Can one find a job in the oil & gas industry without experience?
Piotr Lewandowski: What trends do you see in oil & gas labor market? Does Europe’s political tension have any influence on it? To be honest I cannot see much difference. There are not many Western operations going 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 databases, 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 expected. There are some problems worth mentioning, like gender and age preference, nationality, background and so on. Sometimes you’re
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A perfect candidate would be a young person with a lot of experience, which is impossible. 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.
You have to understand the “project climate” in which a candidate will be working. Will it be an office job? Or exploration in Africa? PL: What are currently the most wanted skills on the labour market? Industry is looking for well-rounded people and the word “synergistic” is becoming increasingly popular. In my opinion, soft skills are most essential. Abilities like communication, languages, personal habits, ease of contacting people, allow us to present ourselves as a multi-skilled and open-minded person. Sometimes the candidate with fewer hard, technical skills, but considerable soft skills has a huge advantage. They simply know how to convince others about their uniqueness.
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Modern-day Davids in Goliath’s Industry 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 important 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, multibillion, international companies operating globally. The BPs, Shells and Totals come to mind. But these supermajors are not interested in every project going, usually focusing on the biggest and financially most demanding 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 transformed 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 operators 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 independent projects or they could work for majors 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 began 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.
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In several countries, Poland included, majors could be state oil and gas companies, but their nature is only slightly different, Lewis continues. “Poland’s oil and gas company PGNiG, 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 operate via Discovery Polska, a privately-held exploration and production company primarily focused on the oil and gas-rich Carpathi-
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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, aiming 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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and unknown company, and trust it to complete 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,”
“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 Mr. Newman, co-owner & director of European Drilling Projects, on how his company started. “The weakness, as always, was financial. Having to depend on third party suppliers 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 proppant looking to supply fracking companies operating in Europe. “It was difficult to convince this very conservative industry [of oil and gas] to try out something new and from a relatively small
Mr. Zimny said. It was not until representatives of the company 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 production 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 cuttingedge technology, which had great impact on our product. This cooperation is still being
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“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 developed”, said Mr. Zimny. In this way, he adds, the company has a chance to go on pursuing 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 address 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 business 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
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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 happen,” he says. “You have to believe in your product and the dedicated team that keeps it all together.”
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Dig for Victory INTERVIEW 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 organizations, faculty events, in and out of university, definitely helps make new contacts with industry people. It’s a chance to present yourself during 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 resulted in a much more pleasant and less stressful 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.
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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 designed to make the candidate feel comfortable 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 consisted of two parts: the HR part and the technical 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
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commensurate with my professional industry experience, which was none. I think that apart from assessing my language skills, the questions 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 another 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 September 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’ cooperation with industry. For example, I didn’t know anything about industrial software like ProMax 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 software. This lack of collaboration with industry and a close relationship on the student-lecturer axis are the fundamental problems of our higher education system.
“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 Ras` How was CGG’s approach to you at the beginning? 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 office, 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 professional 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 beneficial 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 foreign project. You are the author of the first comprehensive Polish publication about marine geophysics, 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 moment 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 basics of seismic data acquisition and navigation 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 seismic industry works, how to get there, how to get a job and how to hold onto it.
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1,4
1
O&G LABOR MARKET
Energy Information Administration
2013
US Geological Survey
Rystad Energy
2012 Polish Geological Institute
2011 Energy Information Administration
2010
Advanced Resources
WoodMackenzie
2009
powered by hays specialist recruitment wells in poland
UNCONVENTIONAL OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT
by year
Local labour
25
0,346- 0,720
150
4,2
125
0,038
100
10
US Geological Survey
Polish Geological Institute
2012
5
75
According to the
2013 Energy Information Administration
SOURCE: MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT
15
12
24
14
13
3
2010
4 2011
2012
2013
2014 Planned
wages
AVERAGE oil and gas WAGEs by type
Local labour
Ministry of the Envi50 ronment, we need to drill 25 270 more wells by 2021, or an average of 45 0 wells annually, to assess Poland’s 2011 shale 2012 gas potential.
1,000 USD
Imported labour
150 125
75 50 25 0
14 14
2011
2012
2013
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2014
Wages of local personnel have been flat since 2013, while foreign employees saw theirs more than halved, a reflection of weakening exploration and poor well results.
SOURCE: HAYS OIL AND GAS SALARY GUIDE
Planned
SOURCE: HAYS OIL AND GAS SALARY GUIDE 2013
4
100
2013 oil and gas graduates
ANNUAL labor market supply
estimation by city
RUSSIA
LITHUANIA
City
Poznań
Kraków
1,300
Gliwice
800
Warszawa
140
Poznań
100
BELARUS
Warszawa
GERMANY
Wrocław Gliwice
CZECH REPUBLIC
No. of graduates
Katowice Kraków
UKRAINE
Wrocław
80
Katowice
70
TOTAL
2,490
SLOVAKIA
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
200,00 200,000 Local average annual salary Imported
150,00 150,000
m
wa y dS ta Am tes er of ic a Un
ite
No r
ain
do ing
Sp
ite dK Un
ia
l
ma n
ga
Ro
tu Po r
Po lan d
ds er lan
ly Ita
Ne th
ce Fr an
ma rk
50,000 50,00
De n
SOURCE: HAYS OIL AND GAS SALARY GUIDE
100,000 100,00
Higher salaries outside of Poland could cause employees to leave. Norway is the undisputed salary leader. According to HAYS’ Oil and Gas Salary Guide, a local employee can expect to make around $180,000 USD on average. In Western Europe, an average local salary hovers around $100,000 USD; in Poland an employee will get half that figure.
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GLOBAL SURVEY
Oil and gas salaries by discipline
Annual salaries by discipline area
Operator/ Technician
Graduate
$USD
Intermediate
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
SOURCE: HAYS OIL AND GAS SALARY GUIDE
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.