2008 placements at ISMU. Picture by Gautam Dey

Dhanbad, April 30: International and national oil exploration and production boom has had a ripple effect on the students’ placements from the Indian School of Mines University this year.

Surpassing earlier records, the pay package offered crossed the Rs 20 lakh per annum mark for petroleum engineers here. Out of 213 BTech students, 211 were picked up by 47 companies, said the placement position recorded till April 21. Of them, 40 were petroleum engineers.

From the other six departments, 38 from computer science and electronics respectively, 32 from mining, 36 from mechanical, 14 from mineral and 13 from mining machinery were recruited this year.

The average salary package offered was Rs 5.93 lakh, with the maximum being Rs 23 lakh and minimum being Rs 3 lakh.

Schlumberger, a multinational oil service giant, offered Rs 5.4 lakh more than last year’s Rs 10.6 lakh for its data consultancy services unit to Vibhor Verma, a petroleum engineering pass-out. Verma said that the offer was quite encouraging this year so far as a career in the oil industry was concerned.

Classmate Mohit Kumar Jadon, who was offered the highest salary of Rs 23 lakh said it was a result of increasing market shares and high profits. Three students of the department were placed off-campus in a pre-placement recruitment during training programme with Schlumberger while one was placed on campus.

Cairn Energy also picked 11 boys — nine from on-campus placement and two, off-campus.

“Last year, Cairn offered an annual CTC of Rs 8 lakh. This year the offer was Rs 11.2 lakh. Since the oil industry is experiencing an all-time boom, many players have come into the market. High packages are a fallout of the demand for petroleum engineers,” said Utkarsh Sharma, a fourth-year student picked up by Cairn Energy.

Shell offered a package of Rs 10.2 lakh and picked up four students, followed by Reliance Energy Limited that picked up two petroleum engineers for Rs 5.4 lakh — keeping constant with last year’s package.

Nine students were picked up by Reliance Industries, six by ONGC, three by Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Limited, two by Essar E&P Limited, one by Evalueserve and three by Oil India Limited.

“Most of the companies, particularly the oil companies, have noticeably appreciated their offers while some have even doubled them. It has changed the placement scenario compared to the past few years. Moreover, this time, there were a large number of different companies, which was a major boost to the students,” said officer in-charge of placement Chiranjeev.

“This time early placements by core sector industries meant students were placed mostly in the core companies unlike the earlier trend of mass recruitment mostly by software companies. This had added to students’ satisfaction so far as culture and choice of work is concerned,” he said.