We plan to run the occasional article featuring RP's personnel for you to get to know them better. In the first of our staff features, we meet Gareth Henderson, who is currently providing short term Petrophysical consultancy services to Carigali-Hess in Kuala Lumpur.

Gareth previously worked as a Petrophysicist for Enterprise, Woodside and Shell. This is the first time that his wife, Sue and 11-month daughter, Ffion, are accompanying him on an overseas assignment.

'Kuala Lumpur is a fun city to be based in. There's lots to do and see, plus many great restaurants, " he said.

Gareth and his family live in an apartment in bustling Kuala Lumpur, in the shadow of Malaysia's tallest building, the Petronas Twin Towers. It is only about a ten minute commute, on foot, to his office in the Twin Towers.

Wife Sue and baby Ffi, seem to be also enjoying themselves when RP met up with them recently. Sue has become very fond of eating Asian food, particularly a Chinese dish called "Sang Choy Pow" (Lettuce Wraps). Her favourite restaurant at the moment is the Hakka Restaurant, quite nearby where they live.

Gareth, with wife Sue and baby Ffi enjoying Malaysia: Truly Asia!!

Gareth, 40, began his career in England working for Western Geophysical and then did a stint in the Department of Earth Science in Liverpool University. In 1993, Gareth joined Enterprise Oil in the UK where he worked for them until 2002. He then joined Shell where he worked as a petrophysicist in Oman.

He left Shell in February 2004 and worked as a consultant through RP. He decided to work exclusively for RP in March 2005 and said he has never looked back since then. "I really enjoy working for them. I like the freedom to work when and where I want to," he said.

He said it was a great bonus to be able to experience life working in different countries. The family plan to travel around Malaysia, taking a visit to Langkawi and then further afield to Cambodia and Vietnam before they head back to Perth when their assignment ends.

When queried about work opportunities in the oil industry, Gareth replied, "There are lots of opportunities for people to get involved as consultants because of the huge shortage in manpower across the disciplines. Everyone is looking for people."

"Companies are really on the look out for people with high pressure/high temperature experience, particularly in petroleum engineering and production technology, " he added.

(see separate story - Manpower Shortage)

 

Asia Oil & Gas Conference June 11-13th in Kuala Lumpur

David Callaghan and Paul Dominic attended the Asia Oil and Gas Conference held in Kuala Lumpur recently. More than a 1,000 delegates, from over 50 countries attended the conference.
The conference discussed, amongst others, the shortages in human resources, the impact of high oil prices, increasing energy demands particularly in the Asia Pacific region and the importance in human capital investment.

Malaysia Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, said at the opening that with energy demand in Asia forecast to rise by some 3.7 per cent per annum, the region could overtake North America as the single largest market for energy. He singled out China and India to be the main countries driving the region's higher demand for energy.

The Malaysian leader said that energy interdependence, managing sustainability, technology and innovation, as well as human capital development will be important factors in shaping the future of energy as the supplies continue to be depleted.

Schlumberger's Global Manager for Business Consulting, Antoine Rostand echoed the concerns of many in the industry about the mismatch of human capital in the oil and gas industry.

He said there was a great need for a process for the transfer of knowledge from experienced and older employees to their younger colleagues.

He said the demographics of skilled labour in the established exploration and production companies showed a twin peaked graph where there were skills in people aged in the 30s and 50s.

He said some established companies had the luxury of overcoming the skills gap as they could use their skilled and experienced manpower who were close to retirement age to transfer their knowledge to their younger colleagues. But this luxury was absent in many Asian companies as they preferred to display skills in the younger employees.

"The only way to train the young generation in Asia is to contract expertise," he said.
Rostand urged companies to be more innovative as such companies were able to produce competent and autonomous technical staff within a shorter time than the more conservative companies. He said investment in time and money was important for staff training.

Paul Dominic (GM of RP) remarked that the key issues discussed at the conference were closely aligned with RP's objectives. "RP's plan is to leverage the capabilities of the mature and experienced personnel who have retired to provide consultancy and training services to companies who currently lack these capabilities," he said.

 

The Manpower Shortage - A Real Crisis?

There is currently much talk about the tight market for skilled personnel in the oil and gas industry. However, RP's recruiting unit continues to face slow uptakes by companies.

RP's Human Resources Manager, Julie Arslanoski, said some companies took a long time to respond when a candidate is provided to them.

"The slowness in uptake does not reflect the urgency of staff placements in the currently tight labour market. The optimal time we feel for placements should be two weeks and not more," she said.

"We do our homework very thoroughly to find the best candidate suited to both parties but the recruiting companies take too long to respond. It is a lost opportunity for both the company and the candidate if the placement takes too long. Companies need to act fast to tell us recruiters whether they will accept the candidate," she said.

She said the slow placement time was very frustrating for both the recruiters and the candidates involved.

Companies needed to take greater ownership of moving and placing people more efficiently, Booz Allen Hamilton said in a report recently.

The management and technology consulting company said that the shortage was no longer an isolated people issue, but presented a strategic business challenge requiring joint ownership between technical, operating and HR leaders. Companies needed to determine how best to recruit, resource, develop and retain their staff, with HR, technical and operations functions owning and working the problem together, the report said.

Peter Parry, its head of global upstream business, was reported to have said that the talent issue was so significant that it had the potential to be a factor in reshaping the industry.

"This will take industry a decade to sort out. Some players who set strategies and really find the key to develop and retain talent will build significant competitive advantage and this may even drive consolidation if companies with projects and capital simply can't find the skills to develop and operate them," he said.

David Hobbs, an analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, speaking at a conference, said good project managers in the oil industry may be like rock stars, they're becoming just as rare.

Booz Allen Hamilton said targeted interventions are seen to be essential and management needed to make time to carefully assess the business impact of skills shortages, and also consider the options available to build capability.

Varya Davidson, a principal in the company said, "The industry is now paying heavily for this short-sightedness, treating human resources like a tap that can be turned on and off at will."

Booz Allen Hamilton said the shortage affected all positions from rig workers to senior scientists and engineers. Shortages of skilled workers who can man and service the installations will continue to be a factor as prices of oil and natural gas continue to rise, and with companies expanding and reactivating everywhere.

Industry experts also added that oil companies did not like to delay mega projects because service costs were also continuing to rise. Costs have risen by as much as 53 per cent since 2004.

They said however that delays were perhaps inevitable as they expect the already tight labour market to be further squeezed over the next decade, when many skilled project managers are expected to retire.

Booz Allen Hamilton said this was because the average employee working for a major operator or service company is currently aged between 46 to 49, and with the average retirement age for the industry set at 55 years, many of these skilled personnel would leave the work force.

Julie said RP currently had more than 50 senior positions, both short and long term, particularly in the subsurface areas, that needed to be filled urgently. "We need the recruiting companies to respond quickly so that they can capture the opportunity to get some much needed skilled personnel on board," she said.

See: http://www.resourcepersonnel.com/jobs.asp

 

RP Snippets

Frances on SPE Board
Frances Corless, RP's Director, was elected to the 2007/2008 Board of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), West Australia Section. She will Chair the Continuing Education Committee, which is responsible for providing resources to update and enhance the skill sets of WA SPE members so as to ensure their continued professional development

Ray Joins Academia
Ray Robertson who started at RP in June 2005 as its Business Development Manager Drilling, will leave RP to take up a position teaching English.

Ray has done an excellent job securing permanent and contract placements in well construction in the region, as well as maintaining productive relationships with clients and candidates. He had a stroke in April this year and decided to seek an alternative career path.
RP would like to thank Ray for all his contribution and hard work and we wish him the best in his future undertakings.

New Addition to RPI
Richard Hamilton, an experienced reservoir engineer who has previously worked for Shell and Woodside, has joined the RP Integrated team as a consultant.

 

Wine Tasting Evening

Guests and staff enjoying the evening

More than 20 guests were treated to a sampling of some fine red wines at RP's 'Red Wine and Cheese Night' recently. The wines tasted ranged from a fairly light 2004 Petit Verdot from Kingston Estate, in South Australia to the heavier 2003 Shiraz from Peos Estate in Manjimup, West Australia. Most of the guests favoured the 2004 Chapel Hill Cabernet Sauvignon from McLaren Vale in South Australia, but RP's Paul Dominic begged to differ citing New Zealand's 2005 Momo Pinot Noir as his favourite. "It has very complex and seductive features," he said.

 

For the first time since March, the price differential between Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crudes narrowed to under US$1, at the close of business on the last trading day in June.

Brent closed at US$70.77 at the end of trade on June 29 while WTI closed at its highest settlement in ten months, at US$69.80. Supply pressures in Nigeria and the Middle East continued to play a part in maintaining Brent's price but the drop in crude stockpiles at
Cushing, the delivery point for WTI, accounted for WTI's gains.

Brent has been trading at an atypically higher price than WTI because of the huge stockpiles at Cushing when the US refineries were shut down for maintenance. The highest discount between the two was US$6.54 recorded in May 2007.

Analysts expect WTI to continue to stay closer to its European benchmark as most US refineries have now resumed full production.

On the Brent side, some analysts said technical issues, attributed to maintenance on the high quality Forties field may put some downward pressure on its August crude relative to other months, because of a higher sulphur content in August cargoes.

Another issue on the horizon that would affect pricing was whether OPEC would raise production for the peak winter demand season.

 Australian Stock Market Commentary

 

It has been another superb year for Australian equities. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Accumulation Index (an index which includes dividends) has gained almost 30% this financial year. Even more impressive has been the 25% p.a. compounded growth this Index has achieved over the past four years.

 

We believe corporate and economic conditions support a positive outlook for equities however anticipate a moderation in market returns over the next 12 months.

 

S&P/ASX 100 Index - The Year's Best Performers
Company	Share Price	Return
Leighton Holding (LEI)	$45.85	+164%
Paladin Resources (PDN)	$8.92	+117%
Qantas Airways (QAN)	$5.65	+96%
Zinifex Limited (ZFX)	$18.88	+88%
Toll Holdings (TOL)	$14.96	+86%

 

S&P/ASX 100 Index - The Year's Worst Performers
Company	Share Price	Return
Sigma Pharma (SIP)	$2.17	-16.5%
Allco Finance (AFG)	$11.00	-8.5%
Downer EDI (DOW)	$7.30	-1.9%
CSR Limited (CSR)	$3.40	+1.5%
Dyno Nobel (DXL)	$2.50	+1.6%