So I just got surreptitiously volunteered to attend a "Engineering Exposition" where hundreds of junior and senior engineering students will sit down with engineering alumni from various companies encompassing all engineering displines and have little "speed dating" sessions where they can ask questions, and unfortunately, make attrocious attempts at schmoozing.
Is it wrong that I see this as a time to prophetize my jaded opinions about the engineering industry, rather than actually plug the company and possibly enamour people with the idea of working for them, even though I enjoy my job profusely?
Is it wrong that when I hear someone say "I'm a civil engineering student!" with bright, niaive, unsuspecting eyes, I'm going to have to refrain from laughing, even though we employ thousands of civil engineers who do wonderful jobs?
Should I feel bad when someone tells me that they're an electrical engineer and I inform them that they should get used to being the #1 source of project overruns, extraneous hours, and missed IFC dates on every project from now until projects go out of style?
Should I feel guilty billing the time to overhead when I view it as an opportunity for MYSELF to network?
Is it evil to drop the whole jaded behavoir and actually answer the students engineering questions, if said engineering student happens to be an attractive female?
I'm actually looking forward to all this. Should be awesome! I would recommend to everyone to get involved with your company's recruiting program. Don't like some of your coworkers, make sure that baby-versions of them don't get hired by getting involved!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
not so tough time
The DOW is below $8000, Microsoft laying off 5000, Intel 6000, Boeing 4500, just to name a few around the Pacific Northwest. Around the country there're massive layoffs. What's so good about this economy you say? Well, you'll be surprised to find out that not everyone is upset about the economy. Academia, namely research instutions are feeling pretty upbeat. The reason is simple: Better graduates apply to graduate school in tough times, which literally translates to competent workers for a fraction of their worth. At least that's the vibe I'm getting from the professors around here. I won't tell you where I go but you can guess, it's a well funded private instutition in the Midwest that is nearly immune to this economic downturn. Moreover, government agencies are still funding projects left and right, mostly defense projects... not the NIH though.
Anyhow, this might be the best time to return to school and get more training while one waits for the storm to be over. Personally, I'm glad that I'm in school in these times. But in every situation, there're winners and they're losers; The graduating class of 2009 is going to have to scavenge for work. I wish them the best of luck!
Anyhow, this might be the best time to return to school and get more training while one waits for the storm to be over. Personally, I'm glad that I'm in school in these times. But in every situation, there're winners and they're losers; The graduating class of 2009 is going to have to scavenge for work. I wish them the best of luck!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
A push to diesel?
So there has been a deluge of new commercials highlighting the use of diesel in vehicles, particularily new BMW 3 Series diesels. See a Youtube listing of BMW commercials.
Massive adoption of diesel has pretty large ramifications on the oil industry in America, and certainly on the amount of work available to chemical engineers, and engineers in general.
My family had a diesel station wagon when I was young. It was loud... noisy... broke down a lot... smokey as all balls... and took 2 minutes to start in cold weather (go go glow plugs) and I certainly would not have recommended a diesel to anyone. A lot of americans share this perception.
However, some companies, particularily Volkswagen, with their TDI diesel engines have done a lot to dispel these old perceptions. You don't need to wait to start, they are quiet, they are not smokey, they don't smell as bad, and, a Jetta TDI get's 55 MPG during the summer.
Europe has a much larger portion of diesel engines, and a move to the same would require huge capital expenditure in America. Pulling say 5% more diesel off of a VDF column costs anywhere from 50-150 million, and, assuming favorable diesel prices, can have substantial ROI.
A move to much larger diesel use would require revamp of pretty much every refinery in the country. Hydrocrackers installed for huge money... hydrocracker catalysts and fractionators changed to generate and separate even larger diesel cuts... FCC catalysts radically changed to pull larger diesel cuts, along with associated fractionators in the unit. All of it isn't cheap, all of it doesn't happen overnight, and all of it has to be done amongst current capex required to keep refineries running.
The public always hears "diesel requires less refining than gasoline" which while true in that diesel doesn't require as much blending (of which the blends require much processing) as modern gasoline, your refinery still has to be set up to process crude to it, and this costs a lot of money. Such a move by this country would mean solid job prospects for a long time to come!
Massive adoption of diesel has pretty large ramifications on the oil industry in America, and certainly on the amount of work available to chemical engineers, and engineers in general.
My family had a diesel station wagon when I was young. It was loud... noisy... broke down a lot... smokey as all balls... and took 2 minutes to start in cold weather (go go glow plugs) and I certainly would not have recommended a diesel to anyone. A lot of americans share this perception.
However, some companies, particularily Volkswagen, with their TDI diesel engines have done a lot to dispel these old perceptions. You don't need to wait to start, they are quiet, they are not smokey, they don't smell as bad, and, a Jetta TDI get's 55 MPG during the summer.
Europe has a much larger portion of diesel engines, and a move to the same would require huge capital expenditure in America. Pulling say 5% more diesel off of a VDF column costs anywhere from 50-150 million, and, assuming favorable diesel prices, can have substantial ROI.
A move to much larger diesel use would require revamp of pretty much every refinery in the country. Hydrocrackers installed for huge money... hydrocracker catalysts and fractionators changed to generate and separate even larger diesel cuts... FCC catalysts radically changed to pull larger diesel cuts, along with associated fractionators in the unit. All of it isn't cheap, all of it doesn't happen overnight, and all of it has to be done amongst current capex required to keep refineries running.
The public always hears "diesel requires less refining than gasoline" which while true in that diesel doesn't require as much blending (of which the blends require much processing) as modern gasoline, your refinery still has to be set up to process crude to it, and this costs a lot of money. Such a move by this country would mean solid job prospects for a long time to come!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Tough Times?
We've all seen the news of X, Y, and Z companies laying people in these "tough economic times," but, I had not seen any petroleum operating companies announcing layoffs; until now.
Conoco Phillips has announced 1300 layoffs.
NY Times Conoco Layoffs Brief outlines Conoco's 1300 layoffs (does not say in which sectors, upstream, downstream, projects, corporate, etc.) and puts a number on their global capital spending (12.5 billion, i.e. not that much money). Considering how CoP Ferndale has been considering a new coker for years, recent estimates of which put it at 800 million to 1.2 billion, 12.5 billion TOTAL capex budget is peanuts.
Heresay indicates that layoffs may be in BP's future as well, particularily in the projects sector.
While at first, this might seem bad for people working for an engineering contractor, but they were phrased in such a way as project work gets removed from BP staff, it gets moved to contractor staff, i.e. the contractor shuffle. So, initially, engineering contractors might actually see an UPSWING in work. I wouldn't ocmplain.
-JE
Conoco Phillips has announced 1300 layoffs.
NY Times Conoco Layoffs Brief outlines Conoco's 1300 layoffs (does not say in which sectors, upstream, downstream, projects, corporate, etc.) and puts a number on their global capital spending (12.5 billion, i.e. not that much money). Considering how CoP Ferndale has been considering a new coker for years, recent estimates of which put it at 800 million to 1.2 billion, 12.5 billion TOTAL capex budget is peanuts.
Heresay indicates that layoffs may be in BP's future as well, particularily in the projects sector.
While at first, this might seem bad for people working for an engineering contractor, but they were phrased in such a way as project work gets removed from BP staff, it gets moved to contractor staff, i.e. the contractor shuffle. So, initially, engineering contractors might actually see an UPSWING in work. I wouldn't ocmplain.
-JE
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Hello there!
Started and maintained by several young Chemical Engineers.
One can expect:
- random musings
- rants by foreigners
- disperaging comments about other engineering disciplines
- useful information
- useless information
One can expect:
- random musings
- rants by foreigners
- disperaging comments about other engineering disciplines
- useful information
- useless information
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