Following the discovery of abundant natural gas in the Gulf of Thailand in the eighties, there was a strong demand for qualified manpower to work in the fast growing petrochemical and related industries. Chulalongkorn University, seeing this need, timely established The Petroleum and Petrochemical College in 1988 to produce graduates of high international standards in the fields of petroleum and petrochemical technology and polymer science. Collaborations with internationally recognized universities were envisaged as the most fitting way to establish a graduate program that would be comparable to that offered in world-leading institutions