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Yulia Staneva Cody Aaron Jeff MacGuidwin
Jeff spent the majority of his time as a field engineer in Saudi Arabia working for Schlumberger Oilfield Services – the world’ s largest oilfield service company with yearly revenues of $ 35.5B USD. He worked within the‘ Well Intervention’ segment, which meant using giant steel tubing and fiberoptic tools to go deep into client wells to both gather data and increase production. This meant Jeff found himself offshore in the Persian Gulf just as much as the desert fields of Saudi.
Munib too worked as a field engineer in the Middle East. He spent the majority of his time working for Gyrodata, a company that specializes in directional drilling, gyro surveying and wellbore logging. Gyrodata was hired by Schlumberger, Jeff’ s employer, Halliburton and the other major players to optimize drilling and avoid costly drilling mistakes such as well collisions, which Munib oversaw on site.
Moving midstream we meet Yulia Staneva, hard at work for SIBUR Holding, the largest Russian gas processing and petrochemical company with 2015 revenues of $ 6.3B USD. Yulia worked as the head of strategic planning and business development, where she would supply SIBUR executives with extensive industry analysis. This is important because SIBUR, like many midstream petrochemical companies, straddle upstream and downstream and thus compete internationally against importers and exporters alike. Yulia wasn’ t just a number-cruncher- she spent may days on site visits, getting as much‘ hands-on’ experience as she could.
Finally, we come full circle and downstream to Seema Verma. Seema worked as an operations officer for Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited( BPCL), India’ s second largest state-owned oil and gas company. BPCL would purchase oil, process it into various petroleum products, and then market it to the end-user. As part of her role, Seema would do daily site inspections, work with vendors on plant expansion, negotiate with supply chain partners for better deals, and engage with vendors for material purchases.
I was curious to hear what these five industry experts thought about the current and future states of petroleum production. All of them commented that there is a lot of oil and gas still in the earth, meaning running out of oil won’ t be a pressing concern for ages. Despite the supply glut, there’ s still hope for other means of energy. Previously, oil prices were so high that they actually encouraged investment in alternative energies, which are now seeing increased efficiency and lower costs. In the end, it’ s all about price; and consumers, ultimately ruled by their wallets, are going to go with the cheaper option, regardless of its environmental impact. And for this reason, regardless of the cheap prices of oil right now, consumers just don’ t need as much oil as is currently being produced. Petro companies need our classmates, with their dual experience in business school and deep industry knowledge, to help them pivot and stay relevant in ever more fuel light economies.
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