Budapest-headquartered oil company MOL Group has channelled the Tomb Raider computer game and Hollywood franchise in a new exploration and production talent drive for geoscience and petroleum engineering graduates and students – with winners gifted a career pathway, for real.

Judging by the poster, they could be onto a winner. The promo video looks like a Mission: Impossible trailer, with the concluding slogan, “enter if you dare”

Basically it’s a computer game (though MOL says “it’s not a game, it’s an online simulation”) where gamers … er, budding geologists and petroleum engineers … can explore, collect data and analyse it; develop exploration proposals; gain seismic surveys; make analysis and interpretation; model, map and plan drilling campaigns; and make drilling, logging, well testing and reserve assessments. All in Pakistan’s oil fields.

“And never forget, safety is the highest priority,” the promo video says.

The top three teams win €20,000 ($A28,853), while for the best participants, MOL Group is enticing entrants with a job offer and 18 months participation in a technical placement program, plus a scholarship, training participation and site visits and even a summer internship possibility if students are in an earlier stage of their studies.

Students at selected universities in Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kurdistan, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and the UK can apply via the UPPP online simulation game from October 1 to 23.

"We are proud of our new UPPP Program, that offers qualified top talent the opportunity to join MOL Group’s Upstream division. UPPP is dedicated to those students who are open to real-life challenges and dare to enter an exciting challenge", said Zdravka Demeter Bubalo, MOL Group’s human resources vice president said.

There are two rounds to the game and students must be in teams of three to apply.

The online competition runs from October 24 to November 13, with the first round being an online simulation game where participants have to solve industrial and strategic challenges in virtual scenarios, with case studies taken from real situations within MOL Group’s E&P portfolio. Then winners progress to the live final on December 11 and 12.