What does a Drilling Engineer do?

Geologist, geophysicist, and petroleum engineers analyze

data to locate drilling sites where oil and gas may have
accumulated in commercial quantities. However, the job of finding
the oil and gas is the responsibility of the drilling engineer. Many
wells are shallow, drilled to a depth of one or two thousand feet,
nonetheless, many wells are deep, drilled to depths of 20 thousand
feet or more. The deepest well in the world is over 30 thousand
feet. Temperatures in deep wells can reach 600 degrees
Fahrenheit with pressures of 15 thousand pounds per square inch.
Needless to say, these wells can be very expensive to drill and
require state of the art engineering technology.

The job of the drilling engineer is to design and implement a

procedure to drill the well as economically as possible. He does
however, have limitations. The safety of the drilling crew must be a
prime concern of the drilling engineer. All states, as well as the
federal government of the United States and governments of other
countries have rules and regulations that must be followed. It is
also important that the well be drilled so that the formations of
interest can be evaluated as to its’ commercial value to the oil-
company. If commercial accumulation is discovered, there must be
a means of getting the oil and or gas to the surface; if there is no
commercial accumulation of oil and or gas, the well must be
abandoned, and the drilling site must be returned to a natural
environmental setting.

Drilling technology is changing daily, as we drill deeper wells and

wells in deep offshore waters. A drilling engineer is a manager of
operations, a manager of people, a technologist/engineer, and a
scientist. He or she must understand and be able to synthesis the
principles of geology, physics, mathematics, chemistry, and
engineering science.

The future looks bright and salaries should remain high for drilling
engineers.
What does a Well-log Analyst do?

In the process of drilling a well or once a well is drilled, a

well-log analyst takes measurements to evaluate the wells
potential to produce. Sometimes it is possible to cut core samples
from the formation. If this is done, the core sample is tested in a
lab to determine its lithology, porosity, and permeability. Many
more specialized tests may be run on the core sample once it is
retrieved from the well. However, many times costly core sample
can not be taken from the well, thus sophisticated electron,
nuclear, and acoustic tools are sent down the well on a wire-line.
Information from these tools is sent up the well-bore to a computer
system on the surface. Trained engineers retrieve and interpret the
data. This can prove to be valuable information, helping the
petroleum engineer determine if it is financially feasible to drill
deeper, produce the well from explored zones of interest or take
additional measurements. Working in conjunction with geologist,
reservoir, and production engineers the well-log analyst will work
with the team to decide where the next well should be drilled.

What does a Reservoir Engineer do?

Reservoir engineers determine the fluid and pressure
distributions throughout the reservoir, the natural energy sources
available, and the methods most useful in recovering the maximum
amount of oil or gas from the reservoir. By producing the reservoir
and drilling additional wells, change occurs; thus, the reservoir
engineer spends much of his or her time modeling the reservoir, to
adjust to these changes, with the help of sophisticated computers

What does a Well-log Analyst do?

In the process of drilling a well or once a well is drilled, a
well-log analyst takes measurements to evaluate the wells
potential to produce. Sometimes it is possible to cut core samples
from the formation. If this is done, the core sample is tested in a
lab to determine its lithology, porosity, and permeability. Many
more specialized tests may be run on the core sample once it is
retrieved from the well. However, many times costly core sample
can not be taken from the well, thus sophisticated electron,
nuclear, and acoustic tools are sent down the well on a wire-line.
Information from these tools is sent up the well-bore to a computer
system on the surface. Trained engineers retrieve and interpret the
data. This can prove to be valuable information, helping the
petroleum engineer determine if it is financially feasible to drill
deeper, produce the well from explored zones of interest or take
additional measurements. Working in conjunction with geologist,
reservoir, and production engineers the well-log analyst will work
with the team to decide where the next well should be drilled.