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Volume 12 • Issue 6 • November 2012


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Our Perspective


Exciting news! 

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has just published their annual report with a tantalizing headline that the U.S. should achieve energy independence by the year 2030. This is a direct result of our industry's mindboggling success in developing new technologies to release hydrocarbons trapped in the shale around the country. For those who are already active in this area, this is not necessarily news, but for all of you who are seeking an entry into this segment in the industry, we are focusing on five areas  where you could be starting a new career right now. 

On another note: As companies cover the generational gap to retain their knowledge they also are faced with having to deal with completely different attitudes within the demographics of their workforce. We thought you might find this refresher helpful to see how we all need to understand the different work styles  among the employees from different generational backgrounds. Let us hear from you!

Your friends at Collarini  
Upcoming Events Back to Top

 

Arctic Technology Conference 2012 

 

George R. Brown Convention Center

Houston, TX

 December 3-5, 2012

SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference 

 

The Woodlands Waterway Marriott

  Hotel and Convention Center

The Woodlands, TX

February 6-8, 2013


Employer Tips

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Combining and Managing Three Generations of Employees

There have been numerous studies on generational issues, revealing varying levels of employee disenchantment, miscommunication, and resentment; these generational differences are present within most organizations. The ideals, values, goals, and characteristics held by generations are increasingly different one from another. These differences are substantial and play a significant role in how employees of each group relate to one another. Some of the main differences between generations include communication styles and expectations, work styles, views about work and life, ease with technology, attitudes on loyalty and authority, and acceptance of change.

In order to understand how the different generations act and react, a manager must first start with understanding his own generation. The first thing to consider is your own underlying values and how they correspond with each generation within your team.

Workplace Characteristics

BABY BOOMERS (make up about 27% of the population)

  • Older - born 1946 - 1951 - 26%
  • Mid - born 1952 - 1958 - 38%
  • Younger - born 1959 - 1964 - 36%

Frame of reference: Cold War, Civil Rights, television
View of authority: Love-hate
Work ethic: Work efficiently; want personal fulfillment, quality
Motto: "Work is an exciting adventure." (Live to work.)

Employer Tip: Compliment Boomers to get their best work. They want to trust their employers and will not change companies as quickly as other generations.

There is already a significant, ongoing change in the demographics of America's workforce as baby boomers continue to retire, leaving younger workers with less experience to fill their places -- and leaving many businesses unprepared.


GEN X - born 1965 - 1976 - (make up about 16% of the population)

Frame of reference: Challenger disaster, corporate layoffs, working mothers
View of authority: Unimpressed
Work ethic: Work hard enough to have balance in work and home life; self-reliant; want structure.
Motto: "Work is a challenge and a contract." (Work to live.)

Employer Tip: Make feedback regular and specific. Annual performance appraisals are too late - they need frequent, rapid, specific feedback.

A much smaller group of talent, Generation X has different learning styles, communication preferences and work/life balance requirements than their predecessors. To recruit, retain and develop the next generation of talent, organizations must recognize and adapt to these styles.


GEN Y - born 1977 - 1994 - (make up about 25% of the population)

Frame of reference: Columbine shootings, 9/11, Internet, multiculturalism, affluence
View of authority: Lack of respect for status quo
Work ethic: Multi-taskers, entrepreneurial, goal-oriented
Motto: "Work is a means to an end, but must include fulfillment." (Live to work.)

Employer Tip: Praise them often and coach them. They are accustomed to new ideas and situations and constant opportunities to learn.

To re-engage 'Generation Y' it is important that the industry and its recruitment partners strive to ensure that the industry is advertised in a positive, caring and environmentally compassionate fashion.

Not every member of a particular generation will share everything in common with other members of that generation. However, the vast majority of a generation's members will possess many of the overall characteristics and values.

Suggestions for a Better Workplace Environment:

Remembering that no two situations can be dealt with in the same manner, managers need to create approaches for maximizing the productivity and the quality of the workplace. Consider some of the following suggestions for dealing with generational issues:

  • Build knowledge and skills. Increasing the knowledge and skills of your work force can not only improve productivity, but also be a valuable tool for retaining staff. Younger workers especially value training. While some managers mistakenly view training as a detriment, with the only purpose of preparing employees for transition right out the front door, worker improvement programs actually encourage younger employees to stay with an organization longer. 
  • Deal with changing work/life expectations. One variable that has undergone a massive transformation is the changed perception of the desire to balance work and life. Employees tend to strengthen their self-identity from their professions. Jobs afford the means to experience and enjoy other facets of life.

Start dealing with generational issues now. We all grew up in different worlds and at the end of the day; we all want the same things -- to feel respected and valued. Be that shining example for your company. Everybody has something unique to contribute, so seek out that talent. Your employees, co-workers, and customers will be happy you did.


Talent Pool Back to Top

The following biographies are just a small sampling of the kind of talent available in our talent pool of over 20,000 experts.  Please call our placement managers if you are interested in learning more about these professionals, or check out our website for more candidates.

Purchasing Manager with a bachelor's degree and 23 years of experience working for oil and gas producers and service companies. Expert in contract administration including the preparation of master service agreements, bid proposals, and negotiations. Experienced in managing all strategic purchasing initiatives, including the identification and qualification of suppliers and the development of approved vendor lists. Responsible for managing supply performance evaluations, leading cross-functional teams, facilitating change management, and risk analysis. Geographic areas worked include Dubai, the UAE and the Gulf coast region of the United States. Certified Purchasing Manager. Fluent in English, German, and French.  See PU800.

Facilities Engineer with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and over 20 years of experience in the oil and gas industry working for operators and large independent engineering firms. Experienced in production facility management, drilling operations, and waste management. Additionally experienced in project engineering, including field surveys, cost estimates, installation and construction management, and equipment systems analysis. Licensed P.E. in civil and environmental engineering. Geographic areas worked include the Gulf of Mexico and southern Louisiana. Language proficiency in English and Spanish.    See F1785.

Mechanical Engineer with a master's degree in mechanical engineering and over 25 years of experience working in the oil and gas industry for various engineering firms. Experienced in the design and development of custom energy conversion systems and components for power and oil and gas production applications. Additionally experienced in project management, field and laboratory testing, and numerical modeling. Software proficiency in Solidworks and 2-D and 3-D AutoCad.  See F1726.

Principal Architectural Engineer with a bachelor's degree in environmental design and over 10 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. Experienced in architectural design, project planning, code compliance review, and drawing and specification development. Additionally experienced in team coordination throughout the design development and contract document phases of commercial and industrial projects. Geographic areas worked include Alaska and North America. Software proficiency in MicroStation, 3-D Architect, AutoCad R10 and R2009, and Bentley-Rebis. See F1748.

Project Procurement Manager with a bachelor's degree in business administration and 30 years of experience with major exploration and production and service companies in the oil and gas industry. Experienced in purchasing, budget control, contract management and administration, materials management, SAP implementation, systems auditing, logistics, fleet maintenance operations, and marketing. Geographic areas of work include Sakhalin Island, Russia and Uzbekistan. Proficient in the Russian language.  See F449.

Geophysicist with a master's degree in physics as well as a bachelor's degree in geophysics and over 30 years of experience working in the oil and gas industry for both independent and major E&P companies. Expert in exploration, and a proven oil finder with numerous discoveries. Experience includes all phases of geophysical and geological mapping, evaluation, operations, prospect generation, 3-D seismic interpretation, and offshore lease sales. Geographical areas worked include the deep water and shelf of the Gulf of Mexico, southern Texas and Louisiana, offshore Norway, England, and Saudi Arabia. Software proficiency in Landmark, GeoQuest, and SMT.  See GP298.

Petrophysical Advisor with a bachelor's degree in geology and over 30 years of extensive petrophysical experience in the oil and gas industry working for major operators. Expert in the integration of petrophysical, geological, and production data for reservoir studies and successful recommendations for completions. Experienced in conventional and unconventional formation analysis, completions, reservoir studies that include porosity, water saturation, net and gross pay, and lithological facies, and mentoring numerous junior petrophysicists and geoscientists. Geographical areas worked include US onshore and offshore basins and international deepwater basins. Language proficiency in English, Spanish, and Arabic. See GS199.

Land Analyst Professional with eight years of experience in the oil and gas industry working for small and midsized companies. Experience includes various areas of land administration and title analysis of joint operating agreements, participation agreements, unit designations, and purchase and sale agreements as well as working with the BLM and BOEMRE. Additionally experienced in due diligence analysis, lease wells and unit wells, and lease records management of shale formations. Geographical areas worked include the Utica shale, Eagle Ford shale, south Texas, Arkansas, and the shelf and deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. Software proficiency in Tobin, LandPro, and Enertia. Certifications include certified legal assistant and paralegal.  See L1052.

Petrophysicist with a bachelor's degree in geology and 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry working for small and midsized E&P companies and service companies. Experienced in carbonate and sandstone formations in the areas of international and domestic petrophysics, reservoir geology, field development, reserve evaluation, and exploration. Additionally experienced in special core analysis, petrography, formation pressure evaluation, and mechanical properties' determination. Experienced as a multidisciplinary team member for property appraisal, basin analysis, reservoir simulation, seismic applications, hydraulic fracturing technology, and enhanced recovery. Geographical areas worked include the Gulf coast of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, the Permian Basin, and Florida. International experience includes onshore Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Central America. Workstation experience consists of Dwights/PI, KINGDOM, Discovery, PowerLog, and OFM. See GS0345.

Geologist with a master's degree in mineral economics, a second master's degree in international petroleum business management, and eight years of experience working in the oil and gas industry. Experienced in isopach and isochore mapping, log analysis, seismic interpretation, loop tying, velocity gradient mapping, fault surface mapping, data integration, volumetric and material balance, decline curve calculation and analysis, and risk assessment. Additionally experienced in unconventional resource exploration, strategy implementation, petrophysical interpretation, and completion analysis. Geographical areas worked include western Kansas, the DJ basin, the San Juan basin, the Wyoming overthrust, the Green River basin, the Williston basin, the Gulf coast Frio trend, and the North Sea. Software proficiency in Crystal Ball, Mind Map 7.0, Adobe CS3 Suite, and training in ARIES, Merak, PEEP, Eclipse, and PETRA. See G1863.

Reservoir and Production Engineer with a bachelor's degree and two years of oil and gas experience working for an operator. Experienced in acquisition evaluation, capital budgeting, reserve reporting, hydraulic fracturing, and oversight of production and workover operations. Geographic areas worked include the Permian Basin and south Texas. Software proficiency in ARIES, WellEZ, PI Dwights, and Drilling Info. See PR638.

Production Operations Engineer with a bachelor's degree in geology and 18 years of experience working for small operators and service companies. Experienced in drilling, completion, production operations, gas floods, recompletions, log analysis, researching well history and titles, cement squeeze design, stimulation design, equipment selection, hydraulic fracturing, artificial lift design, acidizing, and pipeline and facilities installation. Geographic areas worked include east Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Software proficiency in PHDWin.  See P685.

Reservoir Engineer with a bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering and two years of experience working for an independent operator. Experienced in enhanced oil recovery, waterflood design, aqueous stability testing, and developing AFEs and facilities for field development. Additionally experienced in reserves analysis, production forecasting, material balance, and determining infill drilling targets. Geographic areas worked include Texas. Software proficiency in ECLIPSE and PHDWin.  See R1054.

Reservoir Engineer with a master's degree in petroleum engineering and 18 years of experience working for an engineering consulting firm, a non-operating investor, and a state oil company. Experienced in material balance, volumetric analysis, production forecasting, infill strategy, decline curve analysis, economic analysis, well test analysis, and simulation. Geographic areas worked include Texas, Mexico, and Venezuela. Software proficiency in ARIES, Eclipse, and OFM. See PR345.

Reservoir Engineer with a bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering and five years of experience working in research and development and with an operator. Experienced in all aspects of reservoir management from appraisal to abandonment, field development optimization, simulations, reserves assessments, budget forecasting, production review, and asset evaluation. Geographic areas worked include Texas and Louisiana. Software proficiency in ARIES and PHDWin. Language fluency in English and Russian. See R1050.

Geoscience Technician with over 25 years of experience working for large and mid-sized producing companies. Experienced in designing, implementing, and maintaining company filing systems, data management, and creating archive systems for digital well log images. Software proficiency in SMT, Neurasection, Neuralog, UNIX, and SONRIS. See TG683.

Geoscience Technician with over 30 years of experience working for large and mid-sized producing companies. Experienced in all phases of geophysical and geological mapping procedures including; coordinating transformations, time/depth conversions, and volumetric calculations. Geographic areas worked include North America, South America, China, Africa, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, both shelf and deepwater. Software proficiency in OpenWorks, StratWorks, SeisWorks, PI/Dwights, Z-MAP, Lexco OWL, RECALL, ArcView GIS, GeoQuest, GeoFrame, SMT, SDI Montage, PlanPlus 2000, Intellex, and UNIX systems.  See TG158.

Engineering Technician with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering and two years of experience working for an operator. Experienced in reserves estimation, booking, and reporting, maintaining and running ARIES economic models for production, capital reporting and forecasting, and data management. Software proficiency in ARIES, Microsoft Excel and Access, Spotfire, and AutoCAD. See TE584.

Engineering Technician with more than 10 years of experience working for various oil and gas companies. Experienced in fiscal year-end reporting, improvements and implementation of ARIES, and assisting various teams such as land, accounting, reservoir, and exploration. Software proficiency in ARIES, PEEP, VolTS, Oracle and SQL tables, Excel, Hyperion Essbase, PetroLook, and TOW. See TE501.

 

Review thousands of talented people in more than 30 upstream disciplines at

www.collarini.com


Career Advice

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How Your Career can Benefit Now by the Coming U.S. Energy Independence

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has just issued its annual World Energy Outlook (WEO) for 2012. There are a lot of interesting points regarding global market shares, the growing role of renewables, and the critical role that water will play in the overall planning of safe and secure extraction of hydrocarbons. Please take a look at the full press release for further reading and information.

The IEA predicts that the U.S., if we can sustain the current path, will become the world's largest oil producer by 2020, surpassing the previously projected candidates Russia and Saudi Arabia. The biggest factors are the oil and gas resources that the shale plays in the U.S. can add to the nation's path to independence. Ongoing and projected future production present game-changers in how we look at our country's energy situation.

This is great news especially for those individuals currently mapping their careers (and if you are a regular reader that should be all of you). You might be interested in these five areas that will most certainly prove to be helpful to individuals looking for a healthy and fruitful long-term career.

    1.    Technology

          If you still are not familiar with the tremendous advances that are being made in drilling horizontally and hydraulic fracturing, then you are behind, but it may not be too late to move into a new area. From drilling companies and equipment manufacturers to IT-system developers assisting with the difficult task of hitting an invisible target from miles away, all these companies are continuing to look for experts to help in building a business and making the country energy independent. Find out who the companies are in your area that provide services in one of the major shale plays in the U.S., and identify your personal niche. There are at any time numerous conferences around the country where industry experts gather to share their experiences. 

    2.    Water

          The production of shale gas has created considerable controversy worldwide. Numerous efforts by industry associations working hand in hand with government agencies, environmental protection groups, and local community leaders are under way. This is good news for all of us, as steady and clean water supply has to be at the top of our agenda while we are gaining speed towards energy independence. A lot of heated debates are taking place right now, and what is needed are cool heads that approach the problems facing us from a science, technology and demographics point of view. We foresee a huge demand for experts in hydrology, hydro-engineering, laboratory sciences, and field observation services among others. There will be many expert companies developing new techniques to safely gather, store, clean and reuse our natural water resources. 

    3.    Infrastructure development

          Depending which get counted as major, the APPG has issued a growing list of 20 shale plays that could make a difference and with the right economic circumstances be developed. Very few are located in areas that would lend themselves to immediate development with existing infrastructure. The opposite is true that roads, living quarters, and logistic support facilities will have to be developed. Anyone who has seen large trucks loaded with frac'ing units on small country roads knows that this is not a long term solution and will require special roads to handle the increased traffic of people and equipment. This can also result in a number of lucrative businesses for companies and individuals taking a proactive stance in the development of support systems for the shale production companies. 

    4.    Transportation of hydrocarbons

          Now that we have all the oil and gas out of the ground, how do we transport it to the next destination for further processing? Pipelines are costly and take a longer time to construct, although they may make sense in some cases. There has been a lot of buzz about a resurgence of rail as a means of transportation. Terminals and rail cars do exist, but there are not enough of them in all the right places. This will be another boom industry as the parties involved figure out what makes the most sense. Fort those individuals with knowledge of logistics, this will result in good opportunities. 

    5.    Regulatory and Environmental Protection

          As the shale industry expands into new areas, environmental scientists and regulatory experts will have their hands full making sure that the oil and gas gets produced in a conscientious manner. Since this happens on state and federal levels, experts will be needed in all the states involved in the industry. This effort cannot be handled by a few departments in Washington; we foresee this to be a nationwide effort and industry to make sure we do things right. 

Tremendous news for all of us! Make sure you are prepared to join companies in the extraordinary efforts to secure our energy future. Your talents are needed in the move towards energy independence!

 


About Us Back to Top

Connecting the Industry's Experts...

Collarini Energy Staffing Inc. is a full-service agency specializing in the placement of energy and EPC personnel and including the disciplines listed below (other supporting personnel are managed upon request):

Accounting and finance personnel
Administrative and clerical personnel
Business analysts
Civil and architectural engineers
Data Management
Drilling engineers
Drilling operations supervisors
Energy trading professionals
Executives
Facilities engineers

Geologists, geophysicists, and petrophysicists
Health, safety, and environmental personnel
Human resources personnel
Instrument and electrical engineers
IT professionals
Land, legal, and supporting personnel
Marine engineers and naval architects

Materials and corrosion engineers
Mechanical engineers
Operations supervisors
Pipeline, riser, and subsea engineers
Process engineers
Procurement personnel
Production engineers
Production operations supervisors
Project managers and support personnel
Quality control and inspection personnel
Reservoir engineers
Sales and marketing professionals
Technical writers
Technicians, drafting and graphic
Technicians, engineering and geoscience

Guiding Careers to the Next Level...

Collarini Career Management applies its deep understanding of the career paths of technical professionals in the E&P and EPC communities to help companies and professionals build successful organizations and careers. We leverage Collarini's unique combination of industry knowledge and technical expertise to guide companies and individuals during transition, training existing employees for high performance, and designing customized technical training plans for companies and individuals.


Contact Us
10497 Town and Country Way,
Suite 950
Houston, Texas 77024
832.251.0553

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