Meet Reetum Chakraborty, Drilling Engineer

Our team of experienced engineers has been working hard to develop up-to-the-minute content for our EDGE platform. We caught up with Reetum Chakraborty, a senior drilling engineer who has been working on EDGE since day one...

So, what do you do at Norwell and how long you've been part of the team?

I work as a Drilling Engineer at Norwell working both offshore and in the office for our project in India. I’ve been with the company since July 2013.

Can you tell us about your career history so far?

I got my Bachelors degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) in Dehradun, India during 2004-08. From my university days, I had interest in drilling engineering due to its challenging and dynamic nature.

During campus placements, I was offered an opportunity to work for Reliance Industries Limited as a Drilling Engineer for the offshore drilling team which was a unique chance as a fresher. I secured a job with them after I graduated before joining Norwell five years later.

What was it about engineering that interested you?

Science has always fascinated me and seeing my father work as an engineer in a factory creating things was the first step towards me getting drawn towards engineering.

Engineering is the field that solves the most impactful of our problems in the world and as engineers, we are constantly changing the world with inventions and designing things that affect everyone's lives.

Getting a brief idea about Petroleum Engineering before joining university added to the interest and till date has kept me in awe.

Have you or your friends faced any training challenges? If so, please can you describe these.

Joining the industry, the first thing that hit me was the vast difference between what was taught at university and what was actually happening at an industry level.

In my first job, I was fortunate enough to have 3 months of classroom training and then 6 months of rig-based training but other people joining the company after me were not as fortunate due to work pressures.

For me being a Petroleum Engineer, that lack of practical insight was one of the biggest challenges. Having been taught the basics at University, I have seen people struggle at different levels in the industry to understand the operations and the fundamentals and it’s here where I believe Norwell Edge would work wonders.

How did you become involved with Norwell EDGE? What has your involvement been?

Norwell as a company was preparing for an upcoming deepwater development project and the concept for Edge was discussed; it was definitely something that I wanted to be involved with given the nature of what we were trying to achieve.

I have been involved in the technical content generation side with a team of other highly experienced engineers who have outlined and written the individual modules along with the assignments.

It was a great experience learning many things in the process and also getting to know about the other aspects which the other teams involved were up to.

Tell us a little bit about yourself…

I was born and brought up in a place called Ranchi which is a city in the eastern region of India. Post completing my school education, I joined the University in Dehradun which has a lot of history associated with oil and gas exploration in India. Throughout my childhood and university days, I have always been interested in sports, both participating and watching cricket, football, basketball and volleyball. Now the interest has slightly shifted to watching, mostly football amongst other sports and even playing or going for a run or workout whenever I can.

How do you see Norwell EDGE making a difference in the upstream sector?

With the fast-paced nature of projects undertaken and expected to be completed, the onus is on employers to engage the workforce as much as possible while also keeping in mind cost-effectiveness.

In this situation, oil companies are extremely cautious about sending staff for training which can span weeks. This is where a platform like Edge comes in handy with training available online and on-the-go which can be done anytime from anywhere. And, with the material from an industry renowned name like Norwell which has almost 30 years’ experience in project management the content can be trusted.