What is technical role a mechanical engineer can do in oil & gas 3

[engraptor]

All,

I am a mechanical engineer working for an oil & gas company as a project engineer doing maintenance & expansion projects.

I feel my role is mostly baby sitting other engineers at consulting companies called EPCs (engineering procurement construction) who also just oversee vendors/OEMs(original equipment manufacturer).

I want to do design as opposed to "project management" which is all there is oil and gas for mechanical engineers.

Can any of the seniors please guide me in a possible technical career path within oil and gas, preferably working on owner(not EPC) side.

 

[zdas04]

If you are interested in learning how the industry got into this untenable position I wrote a paper about it last year titled New Processes are Needlessly Reducing Recovery from Gas Fields. The frustration you are feeling is very widespread. 15 years ago the "company engineers as babysitters who only need to know Excel and PowerPontt (though Sudoku is a help)" was limited to the 5-6 majors. Today it is into the third tier of companies. I only see engineers finding projects, acquiring funding, participating in materials acquisition, hiring construction contractors, and supervising construction in companies that are small enough to be limited to a single basin. Even regional companies in a single country will tend to follow the PSM/Supply-Chain model that I describe in the linked article. About the only way to actually "engineer" in Oil & Gas is to move to a very small company.

I see some hints that the tide is starting to turn with this. Many companies have cut 2015 capital spending beyond the bone in response to the oil price collapse. At least some of them will come out of this knee-jerk reaction with modified expectations of their engineering staff. At a recent roll out of BP's spin off of their North American Onshore operations the management of the new team told staff "You are not competing with Exxon, or Conoco, you are competing with Devon and Noble". Devon and Noble are still international companies that have been totally infected by the PSM/Supply-Chain virus, at least the management of the new company has acknowledged the the big guys are doing it wrong. Maybe the second tier companies will get the message before everyone competent to engineer has moved on.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[TGS4]

I was in your position with a major oil company about 18 years ago. They were one of the first to be infected as zdas04 calls it. My decision at that time was to join the EPCs. I learned so much in my 9 years there that I have been able to transition into being a technical consultant.

There are some technical roles out there now in the operating companies, especially in the majors/ Tier 1 companies. You just have to make it known that you want a very technical role, and you need to be ready to commit to the technical, as opposed to management, ladder.

What area interests you?

 

[zdas04]

TGS4, I filled a technical role with a Major for 23 years even as my peers were transitioning into "project managers" who did nothing but spreadsheets, PowerPoint, and go to lunch with vendors. I kept that role by just not taking the opportunity to turn my work over to EPC companies. It wasn't a policy thing or a management exception, I just failed to take advantage of that opportunity and my projects still came in on time with a reasonable relationship to budget so people left me alone.

It can be done, but it requires developing a track record and staying the hell away from high visibility Major Projects (that are way too big to run by the seat of your pants). Over time you'll notice that all of your bosses worked on the last mega project, and as your career advances you notice that your boss is about the age of your kids. If you can live with that then being the on-site techee can be fun and rewarding.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[TGS4]

David - it certainly can be done. I have several friends who have managed to do so. Sometimes it comes down to, as you said, doing it yourself, not particularly asking for permission, but being prepared to beg forgiveness.

The challenge for an early career engineer, is how to learn the technical aspects on the job in that sort of environment. Challenging...

 

[engraptor]

Thank you David & TGS4 for your insightful responses. Unfortunately you just confirmed what I originally suspected. O&G company engineers are just "paper pushers"

The area I feel engineers are allowed to do some actual engineering as opposed to project management is in the actual processing facilities(refineries,processing plants,etc). That is why I am thinking about requesting to become a reliability/maintenance engineer or an operations/facilities engineer.

What are your thoughts

@TGS4

What role did you play as a mechanical engineer at an EPC? was it just vendor management or actual engineering?

 

[zdas04]

When I retired, the engineer that took my place was bloody well lost. She came from a refinery where a team of several engineers worked on a single process vessel. In my shoes she was expected to make decisions in the absence of most of the data she "needed" and with no one to share the blame with. She didn't give anyone a really good feeling about the amount of "engineering" that gets done in refineries and chemical plants. I've known a lot of people from that environment and none have been very motivated to think outside of any boxes or to challenge any norm.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[TGS4]

Engraptor - I did pipe stress and then pressure vessel design before I got into FEA for pressure vessels and piping. I never did like the paper pushing, so I sought roles where there was minimal amounts of that.

 

[ScottyUK]

I come from a power generation background where the engineers spent their days doing engineering work. I've been in O&G for nearly six years now and the difference between powergen and O&G is like day and night. As a company we could achieve so much more than we do if the engineering staff were cut free from the bureaucracy and mindless paper-pushing, and allowed to address the technical problems we have. We would be a safer, more efficient site with better plant availability.

The HR Thought Police will be reading this so I am limited in what else I can say.

 

[zdas04]

Scotty,
I do a talk on exactly that, and you would not believe the reaction I get from both engineers and managers (i.e., hugely positive, standing ovation stuff). What causes me to despair is that every time I do the talk everyone goes back to their next meeting and/or to their spreadsheets and never consider actually doing things differently.

When I started in the industry in 1980, we had no access to EPC lobbyists to do our jobs for us. Today a production engineer thinks he "designed" a completion and stimulation plan by going to lunch with the Halliburton salesman (who paid for the lunch) and handing him a copy of the e-mail he got from the driller's consultant. I regularly ask young engineers "why did you pick this proppant instead of that one?" and get a deer in the headlights stare and a made-up BS answer (it is oh so easy to tell when an engineer has no idea of an answer and decides to make something up).

Just requiring company engineers to understand what they are being told by consultants would be a huge step in the right direction.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[ScottyUK]

I work at a plant roughly 40 years old. It was built to a fantastic standard in the early 1970s, but much of it is tired and needs a lot of work to repair and replace worn out equipment and infrastructure in order to keep it safe and productive. The tiny maintenance engineering staff - four of us - are doing our best to manage this re-engineering program and update the place in line with modern standards, modern legislation, new technology and so on. On top of this we're doing out best to maintain this high-hazard facility sufficiently well to keep it as safe as it can be. Our annual objectives are filled with nebulous froth and there is nothing about what should be the core of our role. This role should be a dream job for an engineer, but it isn't.

I wish the top three or four tiers of management here could hear your lecture. I'm just not sure how many would listen.

 

[zdas04]

Send 'em to the link that I included above. The talk is based on the SPE version of that paper (I had to tone some of the rhetoric down to get the SPE to publish it, ENGINEERING.com was fine with the unfarnished version)

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[engraptor]

@TGS4

It seems pipe stress engineering is as technical you can get in the mechanical engineering world?


@zdas04

Most of my coworkers believe the designs that they farm out to OEM/EPCs is theirs. They dont realise that they are just baby sitters. It makes me sick to see engineers turned to paper pushers.

Our boss says the reason why O&G companies dont do engineering in-house is because their core competency is running the plants not designing them.

 

[GregLocock]

"It seems pipe stress engineering is as technical you can get in the mechanical engineering world?"

How techical do you want? Hamiltonians?

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[zdas04]

I know 20 pipe stress engineers at various companies around the world. Virtually all of them run Ceasar II. I can think of maybe 3 that would be able to evaluate the capabilities of a new piece of stress software or even a new release of Ceasar II. Most just install a new program and hope that the additional features did not result in some existing feature starting to give incorrect results. Those guys are absolutely in the same category as the OP--they are just pulling leavers on a machine they don't understand.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[FreddyNurk]

A cynic would probably observe that this phenomenon is contributing to the perception that there is a shortage of engineers, but its easy to consider the observation when there appears to be an engineer required to supervise at every company hand off.

I'm not sure its limited to O&G either.

 

[1gibson]

I started at a pump manufacturing facility, learned plenty of technical stuff there. Without putting your hands on the equipment, you'll always be limited on how "technical" you can get. Some sort of direct relationship to manufacturing is important.

 

[KernOily]

"Our boss says the reason why O&G companies dont do engineering in-house is because their core competency is running the plants not designing them."

That is exactly right. Why? Because that is their business need. The EPC's business is to do detail engineering. The producers/oil companies' business is to produce and sell oil, not do engineering. The producers hire the EPCs to do the detail engineering for them. The owner's engineers are hired to run projects and run the plant.

When I was a green engineer, I worked for a major. I asked the same exact questions you are asking. We had armies of EPCs doing the detail design and engineering for our projects. Me and the other engineers on staff with the owner only managed the projects, because that was the business need. I used to get all frosted up for the same reason you stated above: Why can't we do our own engineering in-house and get rid of the (alleged) EPC incompetents? (the voice of immaturity speaking there). My boss explained to me the same as yours did to you: that's not your job. You don't have time. Unless you want to work 120 hours a week, you simply don't have time to run all the calcs as well as supervise startup, order spare parts, hire the contractor, interface with Operations, plan the tie-ins, etc.

It also helps to remember that your engineering degree is a stepping stone, or a key to open doors. There are very very few engineers whose career looks anything even remotely like college. You have to get over that mindset. It's part of the transition process from college life to working in industry.

Bottom line: If you want to do design, go to work for an EPC or an equipment manufacturer/vendor. There are no design engineering jobs working for the oil companies. My suggestion to you, because this is what I did and worked really well, is to keep working the job you now have for five to eight years. You will learn about the oil business, about AFEs, about project economics, about the oil market. Then, go to work for an EPC doing detail. You will be heads and shoulders above our peers in the EPC because they don't have the first-hand knowledge that you do.

 

[zdas04]

The EPC model sort of works when the EPC is competent. Most are not. I get called in to audit Major Projects from time to time and the failures that I see can all be traced back to the operator trusting that the EPC had a clue (while not having a clue themselves) when the EPC had passed all the work to unqualified individuals (the qualified guys that allowed the EPC to get the contract had all been so over committed that they were not checking anything, not mentoring anyone, and not utilizing their technical expertise at all. I've looked at 3 failed projects and this was the reason for failure in 100% of the cases.

If you don't have some technical competence in house then you are just like the 80 year old lady that is ripped off by the plumber because she doesn't know what he's talking about. When the MBA's decided that engineering was not a core competency in Oil & Gas we should have fired all the MBA's and looked for a different answer.

When I started in the industry, operators had their own rigs, operators had their own roust abouts (and that was the only career path to becoming a pumper), and the engineers engineered their own projects. All of these things have been declared "non core" and they are farmed out. We are anything but better off for it. I am starting to see operators recognizing this failure and migrating back towards company rigs, company crews, and viable technical career paths, but the change is slow.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[KernOily]

"The EPC model sort of works when the EPC is competent. Most are not. I get called in to audit Major Projects from time to time and the failures that I see can all be traced back to the operator trusting that the EPC had a clue (while not having a clue themselves) when the EPC had passed all the work to unqualified individuals (the qualified guys that allowed the EPC to get the contract had all been so over committed that they were not checking anything, not mentoring anyone, and not utilizing their technical expertise at all. I've looked at 3 failed projects and this was the reason for failure in 100% of the cases."

While this is true, I gently beg to differ that this is a gross overgeneralization, i.e. that most EPCs are incompetent. I spent 11 years on the operator's side and 16 thus far on the EPC side. I can tell you with 100% certainty that over that time, I have met some very motivated and experienced individuals on both sides of the business. I have also met plenty of individuals not so, again on both sides of the business. Some of the owners' project engineers are flat-out useless AND incompetent.

Your third paragraph is spot-on and reflects my experience as well. That is the nature of the business nowadays and that is the hand of cards we have been dealt. My counsel remains to the OP, at least in the near-term: If you want to do detail engineering in the oil and gas business, go to work for an EPC or an equipment manufacturer for a few years.