Science at Work film transcript

Meet the scientists (at 0:13 mins)

Ahmed Chowdhury, Process engineer: For me, science is, well, essentially it's a study of everything that goes on around us. Everything makes sense; these things happen in nature and what science allows you to do is study what it is and harness it to your benefit.

Stephanie Houston, Geochemist: I get something new every day out of being a scientist, you really get to see a huge variety of things and feel like you’re making a contribution and that’s just great.

Sabine Crevoisier, Petrophysicist: You like to be able to be the one who can say, ‘You don’t know how this works, well let me tell you. I have the data here and I can tell you exactly how it works,' and that’s fascinating.

Meriem Mokrani, Oil reservoir engineer: I think we need scientists in the world because a lot of our life is based on technology, on energy, and we need to best use the natural resources we have.

Raymond Laing, Asset manager: We need to look for new ways to find energy, to find energy faster, to find energy cheaper and to put that energy to places in the world where it’s needed.

Emma Sheard, Geoglogist: It is a responsibility to try to develop these new technologies because at the end of the day we need a solution as human beings to the problems that we’re creating.

Paul Taylor, Geoscientist: When I was young I used to take things apart and so now it’s the same just on a much bigger scale.

Louise Audoire, Development technologist: You never know what's going to land on your desk on a daily basis, and that's what makes it interesting – always a different challenge and never dull.

Making an impact (at 1:43 mins)

I think as scientists we have a lot of responsibility. We have a responsibility to keep pushing back the boundaries. A lot of the technologies that we work on didn’t exist ten years ago and there’ll be many technologies coming up in ten years time that we’ve not even thought of .
Images: Probing technology being used in testing

In the oil industry there's a lot of funding and a lot of research is being done to always push the boundaries and within a multinational as BP, that's possible.
Images: Floating production, storage and offloading vessel

It’s not only sort of coming up with new things to improve your lives, but it's also making existing technology work for you in a better way.
Images: Liquified natural gas plant and vessel

It’s really exciting to be working in a new area like carbon capture and storage. We’re applying principles that BP uses in their oil fields and trying to think of different ways to apply the technology.
Images: Seismology software in use

The job that I’m doing touches on, well, something that’s real and it affects everyone because everyone needs oil and energy. It’s something that’s definitely rooted in everyone’s lives and then the fact that I can make a difference, onto a small scale but I still think that’s fairly exciting.
Images: Busy modern cityscape

The discoveries that we make are, yeah, very small but they can make a huge difference. We can find out that there actually might be something really important going on and, yeah, it might have a really big impact and that’s really exciting.
Images: Scientists in the laboratory; computed axial tomography (CAT) scanner used by BP geologists to look at cross sections of rock samples

Skills for science (at 3:13 mins)

There are more skills required to be a scientist than just science skills. You need communication skills, team working, an ability to listen and learn and to a certain degree innovation, to look at what you are doing and think of new ways to do that.
Images: Scientists discussing ideas and data; floating production, storage and offloading vessel

I need to be creative, because very often we don't know… we have a very partial picture of what's happening down in the ground, you know, five, six, up to 10 kilometres below our feet, so we have to understand, imagine, compare with other fields we know, so it implies some creativity.
Images: Ocean seen from a marine vessel as it prepares to explore what's under the water; using seismic technology to investigate what is beneath the ocean; exploration drilling technology

A lot of the, sort of, analytical thinking and the creativity that you have to come up with plays a big part. And, you know, they’re the skills that you can pick up by sort of studying the three sciences and maths. I think you’re sort of almost bred to think in that way.
Images: Oil refinery; liquified natural gas vessel

I always keep on asking questions and that makes you a good scientist. Like anything that you study at school when you go into it you have an idea of what answer you think you are going to get, you have to make a prediction, to try and make sure that you get the right answer or you get a definitive wrong answer.
Images: 3D visualisation software in use for examining rock underground

Patience! A lot of patience. I’m a research scientist primarily and there’s a lot of work in doing things over again and experimentation. And sometimes you don’t get the result you want or the result you’re expecting so you have to be prepared to hang on and do it again. But ultimately it’s worth it because you do eventually get an answer and that answer might be just the thing that you’re looking for.
Images: Scientist in the laboratory preparing a test rig for the examination of a rock sample

Science investigates the world by not assuming anything, so you’ve really got to have a complete open mind when you look at stuff and you’ve really got to just work on the information that you’ve got without any sort of preconceptions or preconvictions. It’s really about just challenging beliefs and just thinking, ‘Okay, well, you know, where can we take this? What’s this useful for?'
Images: Office-based scientists; engineers working in the field

Opportunities (at 5:19 mins)

I like the oil industry because it’s very international, it’s very exciting, a lot of action when you go to the, you know, drilling rigs, the exploration wells in the dunes, sand in the desert, when you fly, I used to work offshore on platforms in the North Sea. That's very, very exciting.
Images: Oil rig; helicopter landing on platform

You’re surrounded by experts and people who’ve have had sort of thirty or forty years' experience in the field. The knowledge that you pick, I think that's definitely a key reward.
Images: BP employees working together

I get to interact with people and my work gets reviewed by other people. We get to discuss things together and make decisions as part of a group so that’s something I’ve really enjoyed.

There’s also opportunities if you don’t want to be a scientist for the whole of the rest of your life to go and work in the business side of things and to be a bit more involved in the commercial and the business decisions of the company.
Images: BP offices

I’ve been to Australia and Alaska and Azerbaijan which I never thought would happen. And you see a huge variety of different things and different landscapes, mountains and all sorts of things so it’s fantastic.
Images: International landscapes in places where BP operates

The path I took in terms of education was a science based education. That has allowed me to do exploration within BP for oil, it has allowed me to work in refining and marketing, it has allowed me to work in the chemicals business and now I am in the energy business, particularly wind. The core behind all of these activities is my education and my scientific background.
Images: Oil refinery; wind farm

Job satisfaction (at 6:54 mins)

The thing that makes it exciting is partly I get the benefit of learning new information, learning about new areas, new disciplines, but also, although I’m working on a small area, I know it’s part of a bigger picture.
Images: 3D computer-aided design of an offshore oil rig; offshore oil rig; engineers on a rig at sunset

Well, I’m quite specialised in a specific area of geology and chemistry. And what it’s enabled me to do is work in a particular role that really suits me and that I can really give my all to, and really, there aren’t very many people that do what I do so I’m able to work in an area that is really new and really exciting.
Images: Geologist preparing a rock sample for analysis

It's the logical aspect of science that I find most gratifying and just everything makes sense, and I think that's the most important thing.
Images: Liquified natural gas vessel

If I had to say what I loved about my job it would be the size of the task at hand, the people that I deal with and the interactions I have on a daily basis.
Images: Deck of a liquified natural gas vessel

I have developed and built power facilities around the world in places where they are most needed, in countries where there is a lack of power. And when you see that coming to fruition and you see the difference it makes in that country or that community, when essentially the lights stay on, you sometimes leave that country and you’re flying back to the UK and you think, ‘Yeah, today I made a difference’.
Images: Construction of power facilities and production vessels across the world