Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) organised a networking event for its Master of Business Administration in Energy Management (MBA-EM) programme scholars on 25 April 2014.

Guests of honour included Dato’ Ir Wee Yiaw Hin, Executive Vice President and CEO for Upstream Business, Puan Raiha Azni Abdul Rahman, Senior Vice President for Group Human Resource Management, En. Md Arif Mahmood, Senior Vice President for Corporate Strategy and Risk and Datuk Ir. (Dr) Abdul Rahim Hashim, Vice Chancellor of UTP.
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Also present were corporate chieftains like En. Syed Feizal Syed Mohammad, Senior Vice President for Malaysia and Brunei of Technip Geoproduction (M) Sdn. Bhd and Mr. Rolf Stork, CEO of Balai Cluster Petroleum Sdn. Bhd.  Others included representatives from the oil and gas, banking, consulting firm and higher education industries as well as Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp).

“The networking event was held to welcome the MBA-EM’s September 2013 and January 2014 cohorts of scholars and provide an opportunity for the scholars to network and share experience with top brass from PETRONAS, the corporate world and UTP. This is part of the MBA-EM programme’s value proposition and holistic educational objective,” said Prof Ir Dr Ahmad Fadzil Mohd Hani, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) of UTP.

The networking evening also featured the inaugural MBA-EM Eminent Speaker Series, with Dato’ Wee as the first speaker.  Dato’ Wee delivered his talk entitled “Upstream Perspective” which highlighted PETRONAS’ exciting exploration and production (E&P) journey in the last 3 years due to the management’s initiatives venturing into new international markets in Canada, Australia and Central Africa. The discovery of large pockets of natural gas offshore of Sabah and Sarawak was a result of successful “mop-up” of domestic marginal and brown fields through enhanced oil recovery technology.​

The talk also elaborated the key success factors for E&P projects attained through three main pillars of achieving optimal scale to rationalise operating cost, integration of E&P and downstream businesses, and the deployment of advanced technology such as horizontal drilling to maximise extraction in new, marginal and brown fields.  Oil and gas will continue to drive global energy industry while renewable technology is also an area with huge potential in coming years.   It is therefore important for PETRONAS to identify and retain talent in the organisation through effective succession planning.

Datuk Ir. (Dr) Abdul Rahim in delivering his speech expressed his appreciation for the sharing of knowledge to UTP scholars by the industry leaders at the event.

“The presentation by Dato’ Wee as the MBA-EM programme’s eminent speaker is a testimony of the close tie between the industry and UTP and it manifests the strong support given by the industry leaders to our university. This is a great contribution towards our effort in knowledge and talent development”, said Datuk Abdul Rahim.   He also hoped that more industry contribution and collaboration can be materialised in the future.

For further enquiries about the MBA-EM programme, kindly contact Dr. Lai Fong Woon, the programme manager, at phone: +605-3687743; email: laifongwoon@petronas.com.my or visit http://www.utp.edu.my/MBA.​