Millennial’s Big Chance in the Oil and Gas Industry

Indonesia still has a huge oil and gas potential to be explored. The dream of millennial’s to work within the industry remains bright and full of hope. Nayesha Safira Elta is one of the Indonesian millennials who work in the oil and gas industry. According to Nayesha, the assumption that the oil and gas industry is a sunset industry at the moment is not true.

“We know that there are many basins that have not been explored yet and I think there is still a big potential in the Indonesia oil and gas industry. But it also needs many high-quality human resources to support the target of the Government of Indonesia for the 1-million-barrels of oil per day to be achieved in 2030,” said Yesha during the NEXTGen Forum, Jakarta, on Tuesday 25 February 2020.

She shared her story on how she started working in the oil and industry. It started with her dream while she was in Junior High School, at Pekanbaru. “There is a big oil and gas company in Pekanbaru. It was one of the reasons that drove me to study engineering, particularly relating to the oil and gas,” she added.

Now she is working at Medco E&P Indonesia as the Surveillance and Optimization Engineer. Her role is to monitor the operation of the Rimau Block, in South Sumatera. She is responsible for finding solutions once there is an operations problem in the field.

In front of the participants, Yesha suggested that the college students should continue to consider working in the oil and gas industry even though there are some assumptions that have mentioned that this industry is a sunset industry now. She also believes that Indonesia still has huge oil and gas potential. But the most important thing for the millennial generation is preparing their selling points to the recruiters. “Your selling points will made you stand out among your peers. I think this is the most important aspect to survive in the oil and gas industry,” she stated.

The Head of Division of Exploration Planning SKK Migas, Wahju Wibowo, who also attended the NEXTGen Forum, informed the participants that Indonesia still has many unexplored basins. It shows the huge potential of Indonesia’s upstream oil and gas industry to grow in the future.

In order to increase future production, he advised all the stakeholders including the millennial generation to have an unusual business process. “Business unusual means do a massive, aggressive, and efficient works. I believe the young generations can do these. Change is in their hands,” he said.

Another speaker who attended the event is the Managing Director of Schlumberger Indonesia, Devan Raj. He informed us that technology innovation within the oil and gas exploration and production activities is urgently needed now. The technology within this industry is aimed at optimizing the process and improving performance. It will help us to do the work more effectively and more efficiently. “Digitalization in the oil and gas industry will enhance the working process instead of replacing the workers. Technology will ensure that the production can be obtained in a better, faster, and right way,” he stated.

Devan further compared the digitalization in the upstream oil and gas industry with other industries such as start-up companies or e-commerce industries which may have different objectives. As Devan explained, the digitalization within the start-up companies is aimed at reducing the numbers of employees. (*)