Members of Curtin Sarawak SPE Students Chapter during an industrial visit to Brunei Shell Petroleum Core Lab.
MIRI: The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Students Chapter of Curtin University of Technology Sarawak Malaysia has had a productive year organising various events for its members on and off campus.
The society is the largest individual-member organisation serving managers, engineers, scientists and other professionals worldwide in the upstream segment of the oil and gas industry. Its students chapter, which are university-based groups of SPE student members, is represented by over 300 chapters across the globe.
Curtin Sarawak SPE Students Chapter is the first to be established in East Malaysia and one of only four of its kind in the country. It currently houses over 200 members.
It serves to provide its members industrial exposure and networking opportunities through a variety of activities such as talks, workshops, conferences, competitions and industrial site visits, as well as charity and sporting events.
Since its establishment in March last year, the Curtin Sarawak chapter has organised events such as last year’s inaugural Curtin Engineering Symposium in May and the week-long Petroleum Week events in September.
In October this year, the Petroleum Engineering Week themed ‘Stepping Into The Future’ drew over 200 participants.
The event was sponsored by Sarawak Shell Bhd and K Frontiers.
In line with Petroleum Engineering Week, the Curtin Sarawak chapter also organised ‘Petroleum Engineering Internship Fair 2014’ in collaboration with the university’s Faculty of Engineering and Science, to provide opportunities for members to meet representatives of oil and gas sector and find out more
about career prospects in the industry.
In June this year, the SPE honoured Curtin Sarawak SPE Students Chapter with the Gold Standard Students Chapter 2014 Award – making it among 19 from the Netherlands, Germany, Scotland, the US, Mexico, Brazil, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Ukraine and Saudi Arabia to have received such recognition.
According to Assoc Prof Sharul Sham Dol, who heads the Faculty of Engineering and Science’s Department of Petroleum Engineering, the events organised by the chapter have been successful in helping Curtin Sarawak’s students connect with the oil and gas industry.
He hoped that more similar events could be organised annually.
Curtin Sarawak SPE Students Chapter can be contacted through its official e-mail [email protected], or via www.facebook.com/specurtinswk.