The need for well-trained engineers, particularly in this part of the world, is at an all-time high, says Professor Wael Mualla, Associate Head of the School of Energy, Geosciences, Infrastructure & Society at Heriot-Watt University in Dubai.
“There is a demand from the industry. Chemical and mechanical engineering support the oil sector, which is booming here—in the Emirates, in the Gulf and in other places in the world,” he comments.
Most popular with students are the chemical and petroleum engineering programmes, followed by mechanical engineering, which, Mualla adds, attracts particularly high numbers of applicants every year.
The petroleum engineering course was originally developed at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland and was later on replicated at the university’s Dubai branch.
In fact, Heriot-Watt was established in Edinburgh as the world’s first ever mechanics’ institute in 1821.
Today it boasts alumni working for some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, including the likes of Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, Weatherford and Shell, as well as a number of NOCs in the region such as Adma-Opco, ADCO, ZADCO and others.
“[It] is a unique programme in the sense that all of what is being taught and staff come from Edinburgh. They do the teaching on a block basis, everyone delivers an entire week-long or ten-day course,” explains Mualla, who recently joined the university as the new head of school.
Before coming to the UAE, the Syrian-born professor served as president of the University of Damascus for two terms.
He then served as the president of the privately-owned International University of Science and Technology, also based in Syria.
On the question what made him come to Dubai, Mualla answered: “I decided to, let’s say, have a change.
“I am a graduate of the British higher education system – I went to Strathclyde University in Glasgow in the UK – and I thought it is a good idea to work for the British education system. So when I got this opportunity in Dubai, I said yes.”
Five months into the job and he is already facing some timely challenges. As oil and gas companies become more constrained by the low oil price and the deamnd for young talent increases yet more, pressure is increasing on universities to better tailor programmes to the industry’s needs.
“The worst thing that can happen in any programme is to teach students things that are not relevant to the needs of the industry,” he says.
“This is why interaction [with the industry] is very important.
“We have an industry advisory panel [made up] of members of the oil and gas community because you want to make sure that what is being taught is what is needed in the labour market,” Mualla says.
Another key challenge is recruiting qualified staff, particularly in this reigon where skilled workers can be difficult to come by.
“The university is trying to recruit professors such as myself to cover all disciplines as full-timers. But inevitably, the recruitment process takes some time and sometimes we have difficulties.
“For example, we recruit someone and for some reason they don’t get a visa, so it is inevitable that we rely on part-timers and some of them haven’t got an academic background.
“I hope that we will gradually phase out our dependence on part-time staff and modernise laboratories and expand facilities to accommodate Research and Development (R&D).
“[I also hope] to energise and reactivate the PhD programme and to encourage staff to do more research by providing the necessary facilities.”
“We live in a very competitive environment in this part of the world and you always have to be at the forefront.
“Otherwise it will affect your admission, resources, etc. We always need modern equipment,” says Mualla.
This is particularly true for the petroleum engineering course, which incorporates a significant amount of simulation and reservoir modelling, all of which require up-to-date industry standard software. Matthew Smith, Assistant Professor at the School of Energy, Geosciences, Infrastructure & Society, who teaches the postgraduate petroleum engineering course, explains: “Oil is not in lakes in the ground, it is contained in very small pores in the rock.
“In the old days, people did massive calculations on paper – all these numerical solutions, to try and figure out how things would flow to the well, but now we do physical simulations.
“Today, you have simulators on a computer and you build a model.
“One of the big advents probably in the last 20 years is that now, as computers get more and more powerful, you can build more accurate models to simulate,” he adds.
As part of their final projects, students are requried to come up with a development plan for a field using simulators— essentially what they would be doing if they get a job, Smith explains.
“Students are presented with real data from real oilfields, which they have to interpret to understand what the fluids are like, what the rocks are like [and] how they can actually produce oil from that.”
Then also have to consider the economics and financial feasibility of the project.
“They are actually trying to develop real fields so they will have to cost it all.
“They will have to say where we are going to drill and what pipes we are going to use.”
Students also have to take into account the potential impact on the environment.
“To make sure they do not skim over the environmental aspects, we make them do a separate environment report to make sure they are fully aware of what they have to do because, obviously in reality, you have to make sure you meet all of the government stipulated guidelines before you can build anything.”
Another core component of the petroleum engineering course are visits to training rigs based in Jebel Ali and Abu Dhabi, which operated by some of the major service companies like Schulumberger, Baker Hughes and Weatherford.
These are also the companies that partner with the school and provide licenses to key industry software that students train with.
“From time-to-time the industry replaces its software. One of the main ones we use is the Schlumberger software.
“For simulators we use ‘Eclipse’ and something to interpret the wells, they call ‘Techlog’ but each company has different software.
“Universities cannot afford to pay for these things— the licenses cost millions of dollars so lots of companies have partnerships with universities, where they offer certain services for free.
“Schlumberger has always been big supporter so they give us quite a lot of licenses – around 60,” Smith comments.
Energy companies no doubt view these partnerships as a long-term investment, hopeful that these graduates will become competent and experienced enough to help fill the current skills gap in the years to come.
Another common practice adopted by oil and gas companies is to sponsor its employees to enrol on a postgraduate degrees so that they further develop their training and have a better chance to progress within the company.
A lot of these students enrol on a part-time basis and continue to work, while others take time off and go back to their job once they have completed their studies, Smith explains. But since the fall of the oil price, he admits that the number of students enrolled on the petroleum engineering course has started to drop.
“When you have a rapid drop in the oil price, it is a big deal because the industry is doing huge amounts of cost cutting and laid off thousands of people from their job.
“It is not so prevalent with larger comanies, but smaller companies tend to cut cost on scholarships. One student basically lost his scholarship so he had to drop out,” Smith says.
The number of part-time students who attend classes while continuing to work has also deacreased and could drop even further, according to Smith. “Their employers were no longer giving them time to attend classes so many of them had to switch to distance learning instead,” he says.
“They are focusing much more on working hard in their job and not taking the liberty to take time out to study or improve their skills,” Smith said.
The oil price slump has also caused universities to fear that the level of applicants for their engineering courses will fall in 2016.
“We were discussing at a branch level admisison next year and whether the oil price will affect admission into our programme,” Mualla admits.
“We can accommodate between 70 and 80 [students] but whether we are going to get that number is another question.”
However, hiring for oil and gas jobs would not be affected as demand for engineering graduates remains as high as ever.
“I think by 2016, when the next batch of students graduate it does not really make much difference It is not so much about the price of the oil, it is about where the companies are in terms of their structure and how much their costs are. I was talking to some alumni from the 1990s and he said all of them had jobs before they graduated and the oil price was $10 a barrel.
