Curtin Malaysia petroleum engineering students get insights into well completion by Shell engineer

Miri – 1 October 2019 – Third and final year petroleum engineering students of Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia) attended a technical talk on ‘Basic Completion Concepts’ delivered by Sarawak Shell Berhad oil and well services (completions and intervention) engineer Harwinder Sandhu at its campus recently.

Associate Professor Hisham Khaled Ben Mahmud of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Curtin Malaysia’s Faculty of Engineering and Science said Harwinder was invited to give the talk due to her over 13 years’ experience in the petroleum engineering field. Prior to joining Sarawak Shell Berhad, she was a senior field engineer and wireline reservoir evaluation engineer with Schlumberger.

Harwinder outlined pivotal matters pertaining to well completion and design that should be taken into consideration to ensure the sustainability and integrity of well performance. She also illustrated the well completion design process which consists of multiple stages.

According to Harwinder, well completion design can be very challenging, involving multiple engineering and science disciplines and considerable practical experience. Each stage of the process involves various design activities involving bottom-hole completion, production conduit, production string components, tools material and well productivity.

She thanked Curtin Malaysia for the opportunity to impart her knowledge and experience to the students and hoped that lessons learnt by professional engineers in the field would give the students valuable insights into the challenges they are likely to face as engineers in the future.

Curtin Malaysia offers Curtin University’s four-year Bachelor of Engineering in Petroleum Engineering (Honours) which covers a wide range of subjects that are core to the petroleum engineering field and is recognised by Engineers Australia, Board of Engineers Malaysia, in addition to the Malaysian Qualifications Agency.

It continues to be one of the most popular engineering courses at Curtin Malaysia since its introduction in 2011. Graduates of the course are immediately employable in the petroleum industry upon graduation and, in fact, most of the petroleum engineering students at Curtin Malaysia are able to secure jobs even before graduation.

Harwinder (third left), Associate Professor Hisham (second left) and students pose for a group photo after the talk.