Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Upstream Project Assistant

🎯 Role Definition

The Upstream Project Assistant provides hands-on project coordination and administrative support to upstream oil & gas and energy project teams. This role is focused on ensuring projects remain on schedule, compliant with HSE and regulatory requirements, and within budget by managing documentation, supporting procurement and contracts, tracking project costs and schedules, coordinating vendors and field logistics, and producing clear progress reports for project managers and stakeholders. The ideal candidate combines strong technical literacy (SAP, MS Project/Primavera, Excel), excellent communication, and proven experience supporting drilling, well, or facilities projects.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Project Administrator / Project Coordinator (entry-level)
Field Data Administrator or Field Logistics Coordinator
Graduate Engineer / Geoscience Assistant

Advancement To:

Senior Project Coordinator / Project Controls Analyst
Project Engineer or Planning Engineer
Project Manager (upstream projects)

Lateral Moves:

Procurement / Contracts Specialist
HSE Advisor or Compliance Officer
Document Control Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Coordinate and maintain comprehensive project documentation including scopes of work, engineering drawings, change requests, permits, and version-controlled document libraries to ensure document integrity and audit readiness.
Prepare, compile and distribute weekly and monthly project progress reports, dashboards and KPI summaries with clear cost, schedule and risk commentary for project managers and executive stakeholders.
Monitor and update project schedules using MS Project or Primavera P6, maintaining baseline vs actual progress, identifying critical path impacts and recommending corrective actions to keep upstream drilling/facilities projects on track.
Support cost control and forecasting by compiling actuals, accruals and estimates to complete (ETC) in SAP or project financial systems; prepare budget variance analyses and support month-end project close activities.
Manage procurement intake for project requests: raise purchase requisitions, track purchase orders, coordinate vendor bids, support tender evaluation logistics and maintain procurement trackers.
Administer contract documentation, log amendments, track deliverables, manage contract expiry/renewal notices and coordinate with commercial/ legal teams to ensure contract compliance and timely invoicing.
Serve as the primary coordinator for field logistics planning — booking vessels, crew transfers, onshore/offshore mobilizations, material lifts and site access, ensuring all movements are HSE-approved and compliant with permits.
Maintain project-specific permit-to-work systems and regulatory submissions, tracking outstanding permits, environmental approvals and land access consents until close-out.
Act as the point of contact for vendors, subcontractors and internal stakeholders for day-to-day project queries, clarifying scope, scheduling windows and escalation of operational issues to project leads.
Facilitate engineering change control by logging engineering change requests (ECRs), coordinating technical reviews and tracking approval status through project gates until implementation.
Conduct quality assurance on incoming technical documents, drawings and datasheets — checking completeness, naming conventions, metadata and cross-references prior to release into controlled repositories.
Support risk and issue management by logging issues in the project risk register, following up on mitigation actions, maintaining action trackers and preparing risk-level briefings for management review.
Assist in the preparation and consolidation of HSE pre-mobilization packs, toolbox talks, emergency response plans and contractor HSE onboarding documentation specific to upstream operations.
Process and verify contractor and supplier invoices against purchase orders and delivery receipts, escalating discrepancies and coordinating with finance for timely payment and accrual adjustments.
Maintain and update project QA/QC records, non-conformance logs and punch lists; coordinate corrective action assignments and track closure to support final client acceptance.
Support tender and bid processes by compiling scope packages, preparing pre-bid compliance checklists, managing bid clarifications and uploading bid documents into e-procurement portals.
Perform basic data analysis and reconciliation for well logs, drilling activities, material consumption and equipment utilization; produce concise summaries to help identify cost and schedule trends.
Coordinate interdisciplinary meetings, set agendas, record minutes, follow up on action items and ensure traceability of decisions, approvals and outstanding items across project teams.
Manage inventory and non-stock material requests for offshore/onshore locations, coordinate receiving and dispatch, and maintain accurate records of material transfers and consumption.
Support project close-out activities including punch-list completion, as-built document collation, lessons learned capture and preparation of handover packs for operations teams.
Maintain confidentiality and secure handling of commercially sensitive documents, ensuring access control, record retention and deletion practices are followed for regulatory and contractual compliance.
Assist with field engineering support tasks such as compiling daily drilling/operations reports, tracking key operational metrics and liaising with onshore technical leads for real-time decision support.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Provide cover for other project administration roles and assist in cross-functional team training.
Help maintain project templates, checklists and best-practice guides to standardize downstream reporting and document control.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite with advanced Excel skills (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, basic macros) for cost and schedule reconciliation.
Experience with project scheduling tools such as MS Project and/or Primavera P6 for updating schedules, resource levelling and critical path analysis.
Working knowledge of SAP (MM/PS/FI), Oracle or other ERP systems for purchase requisitions, PO management, invoice validation and cost reporting.
Document control and configuration management skills including experience with document management systems (e.g., SharePoint, Aconex, Documentum).
Familiarity with procurement workflows, tender processes, bid evaluation and contract administration in upstream energy projects.
Basic understanding of upstream operations (drilling, completions, well intervention, topsides/facilities) to translate field needs into project actions.
Competence in preparing HSE documentation, permit-to-work coordination and basic regulatory compliance reporting.
Data literacy and experience producing dashboards with Power BI, Tableau or similar visualization tools is advantageous.
Ability to perform basic data validation and analysis using SQL or scripting tools (Python/R) to pull and manipulate project data (preferred, not mandatory).
Experience preparing and maintaining risk registers, action trackers and audit trails for project governance and compliance.

Soft Skills

Clear, concise written and verbal communication tailored to technical and commercial stakeholders.
Strong stakeholder management and customer-service orientation; ability to build credibility with vendors, contractors and internal teams.
Exceptional organizational skills with a proven ability to prioritize competing tasks in high-pressure, deadline-driven environments.
Attention to detail and accuracy in documentation, reporting and invoice/contract reviews.
Problem-solving mindset with a proactive approach to identifying issues and driving corrective action to closure.
Team player with a collaborative attitude — willing to support multi-disciplinary project teams and offshore field personnel.
Tactful negotiation and conflict-resolution skills when coordinating competing supplier or stakeholder requirements.
Flexibility and adaptability to shift between administrative, technical and field-facing tasks as project needs change.
Time management and self-motivation to manage multiple simultaneous workflows with minimal supervision.
Professional integrity and confidentiality when handling commercially sensitive project information.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent diploma in Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, Geoscience, Project Management, Business Administration or related technical discipline. Equivalent practical experience considered.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Petroleum/Mechanical/Civil Engineering, project management certification (PMP/Prince2 Foundation), or diploma in Oil & Gas Operations.
Certifications in document control, SAP procurement, HSE fundamentals or Primavera are advantageous.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Petroleum Engineering
Mechanical/Civil Engineering
Project Management / Construction Management
Geoscience / Earth Sciences
Business Administration / Supply Chain Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2–5 years of project support or project administration experience, ideally within upstream oil & gas, offshore/onshore drilling, or energy infrastructure projects.

Preferred:

3+ years supporting upstream projects with demonstrable experience in schedule tracking, SAP/ERP procurement processes, vendor coordination, HSE documentation and field logistics coordination.
Prior exposure to offshore mobilizations, rig operations, or facilities construction and commissioning will be prioritized.