Hays Oil & Gas - July 2010
CHINA
Hotspots
As confidence returns and the oil price stabilises, companies are again looking to explore for new assets in China, particularly in the South China Sea and Central China. There are several drilling campaigns creating opportunities both onshore and offshore. This is being led largely by the majors. There are also many small international companies searching for CBM reserves.
Those candidates of particular interest will be Geologists, Geophysicists, Drillers, Completions and Petroleum Engineers.
While employers do have a preference for local talent, these candidates are difficult to find locally and a lot of the skills are within the National Oil Companies. Our extensive database of oil and gas professionals allows us to search for and identify Chinese Nationals working on projects overseas. While these candidates tend to have higher salary expectations they do have a good range of skills gained from working in different environments.
Coming quarter
The exploration market will be very competitive for the rest of the year. The project market is likely to follow with a number of shipyards actively competing with Singaporean and Korean yards to win some major offshore projects. This is still a relatively new market in China so there will be a lot of large-scale recruitment projects undertaken to bring in candidates from all over the world if projects are won.
Employer trends
The focus in China is very much on localising the work force. It's becoming increasingly rare that companies are willing to offer expat packages to attract talent. There are some exceptions, including Quality, Contracts and Senior Management positions.
Candidate trends
As the oil and gas market expands in China, candidates with skills in this sector are starting to recognise their value and demand higher salaries. The lure of USD working on overseas projects is also very attractive. As a result there are many candidates looking for assistance from a recruitment firm to work overseas.
