Name: Robert Sibbald

Age: 35

Position: Hydrocarbon Accountant

Qualifications: Honours degree in Applied Physics (Strathclyde University), MSc in information systems management (Stirling University)

Getting there: I graduated from Strathclyde University with an honours degree in applied physics in 1993, but I was unable to find a career in the field.

Not wanting to do further research or move into teacher training like the rest of my class, I began working full-time at Boots the Chemist. They were opening a store at the Gyle in Edinburgh and I secured a position as an accounting assistant.

In the end, I was never an assistant to anyone – my immediate boss, the store accounting controller, started and lasted a week so I pushed and got that position.

There were many challenges, setting up all the backroom operations from cash and stock control to management of staff. Working with so many new people was great fun and though at times it felt like the blind leading the blind, we all got there through teambuilding and a lot of hard work.

I enjoyed the challenge. Due to Boots’ size, I took them up on opportunities to go out on secondment. During my last year, I was posted at head office in Nottingham, where I was responsible for setting up and managing a project looking at rationalising their cash accounting systems.

That involved dealing with internal departments to external clients, giving me a greater understanding of every aspect – good and bad – of the ways in which large companies operate.

I was also our department’s representative on in-house IT projects and at that stage I realised that I was sitting on the wrong side of the fence. I was dealing with business / systems analysts and programmers and felt I would rather do their job than mine!

After seeing my last project successfully rolled-out across the company and with a new focus, to move into a career in IT, I began studying an MSc in information systems management at Stirling University. It was a big change, not least from a financial point of view as I began living on a student grant once again.

Course work was intense but the social scene made things bearable. During a three month placement at Scottish Widows in Edinburgh, I produced a dissertation on a statistical review of the company IT call centre, calculating appropriate staffing levels.

The IT boom was probably at its peak as I began searching for full-time work, and was lucky to have the pick of several graduate schemes. I opted for LogicaCMG, and started work as a programmer on a project for Amerada Hess, before moving to my first hydrocarbon allocation project, for Shell.

A lengthy project for Bord Gais, the Irish Gas Board, gave me a greater understanding of the gas transportation business. I was involved in many aspects of the project lifecycle, requirements gathering, producing design specifications, implementation, user acceptance, training and support.

When I decided it was time to move on, I was looking for a small company where I could continue my work in the hydrocarbon accounting area. I wanted to get more involved in the auditing side of the business.

My initial position at Smith Rea, technical consultant, ticked the right boxes – small company, hydrocarbon accounting, good opportunities to progress and undertake varying types of work.

So what is hydrocarbon accounting? Hydrocarbon allocation is the process of determining ownership of oil and gas and tracking it from source, through production to the point of sale. It involves several business processes that are defined in contracts or operating agreements between owners and operators of oil and gas fields and pipelines.

Errors and delays in hydrocarbon accounting can result in significant financial loss.

In transportation and processing systems which handle billions of dollars' worth of oil and gas each year, even the smallest mistake can have very real financial consequences.

It is therefore essential that every effort is made to ensure allocation rules are fair, that computer systems are correctly programmed, measurements are accurate and reporting is timely to ensure that accuracy reigns.

At Smith Rea I have had the opportunity to develop allocation computer systems, audit allocation systems for a major North Sea operator and assisted in the development of a refinery process simulation model. I am currently working for another major operator in the role of an allocation engineer.

Best Bits

Working on-site with clients is one of the big positives in the job. You have the opportunity to get to know their business, how they do things, and then use your skills to look for best practice and other ways in which to improve what they do.

The job also provides you with the chance to meet a wide variety of people from different disciplines, which also opens your eyes to just how much the job can involve.

Working for a smaller firm means you can get involved in all aspects of the business – not just the primary role you were employed for, meaning that you always have the scope to develop your career even further and in ways which might not at first seem obvious – for example getting involved in the design of new company logos.

Worst bits

After just over a year in post, I can’t say there are any “worst bits”. Working in a consultancy, there is lots of scope to undertake different types of work – a far cry from the “pigeonholing” I’ve found in previous jobs, where you become an expert and see your chances to try something different diminish.

Advice to others

It’s important to explore different opportunities, to keep your working life interesting. That might take you out of your comfort zone, but in a new job no-one expects you to be an expert right away.

If you’re willing to learn and display a degree of flexibility then the job can be more rewarding. It also means you become more valuable to your employer and also to a potential next employer!

For anyone who has an interest in numbers, oil and gas process engineering and computer systems, hydrocarbon accounting is a potentially excellent career move. Opportunities in the field are very good, and the chances of things becoming stale are few – there is always something new to learn, and the work you are involved in varies immensely.