Senior Drilling Engineer

Total Number of Openings

Chevron Venezuela is accepting online applications for the position of Engineer, Wells assigned to PetroPiar, Joint Venture (JV), located in El Tigre, Edo. Anzóategui.

Work under limited supervision while performing technical drilling and completion engineering on well design, cost estimates, project planning, and operations support. Technical work involves delivering detailed well designs including directional planning, torque and drag (T&D) modeling, casing design, wellhead design, bit /bottom hole assembly (BHA) optimization, drilling fluids, hydraulics, and cementing designs, and benchmarking of drilling performance, cost and time estimating. Will acts as liaison with business partners, Geology and Geophysics (G&G), performance, and real time center teams. Will participate and/or lead peer reviews, risk assessments, pre spud meetings and will provide engineering support to the Superintendent and operations team during execution.  Lead projects of medium scope and complexity.  Work often impacts across work groups or at the BU level.

Typical well challenges include remote land rig operations on multi-well pads, batch drilling, loss circulation, stuck pipe events, hole stability, more than 8500 ft horizontal laterals. Previous drilling and completion experience with horizontal and/or extended reached wells, thermal wells design and execution is desired but not limited. High Spanish speaking/reading/writing proficiency level is required as this is influential position embedded into the Empresa Mixta Organization.

Responsibilities for this position may include but are not limited to:

•Drilling and completion engineering and operational experience including horizontal and extended reached wells. Experience in drilling and completion design of wells for cycle steam injection is desired but not limited.  

•Ability to independently deliver well design alternatives and time cost estimates.

•Demonstrated competency applying technical standard requirements for well designs and execution.

•Experience with benchmarking and performance optimization. Drilling experience in core skills including directional planning, T&D modeling, casing designs, bit /BHA selection and optimization, drilling fluids and cementing designs, hydraulics.

•Demonstrated experience in all phases of drilling engineering and operations supporting batch drilling / factory model. Experience in multiple projects, especially in onshore work locations highly desired.

•Demonstrates behaviors that are aligned with the Chevron Way. Understands Operational Excellence requirements specific to current role. Follows procedures, seeks understanding of hazards, and verifies necessary safeguards are in place, functioning and sufficient. Challenges norms and stops work when an unsafe condition or act may result in an undesirable event or if the task is unclear. Applies Human and Organizational Performance principles to minimize error-likely situations in the performance of their work. Understands reporting requirements for incidents, near misses and potential noncompliance and acts accordingly.

•Experience sharing lessons learned and best practices with work group as well as incorporating LL and BPs from other operations. Ability to leverage data to benchmark across the asset class and communicate targets to office and field teams. Actively applies improvement opportunities and leverages the Competitive performance program.

•Ability and willingness to establish network and build relationships within the Empresa Mixta work groups.  Share information & resources. Highly responsive. Promotes healthy debate. Spanish proficiency (speaking, reading, writing is required as this position will communicate often with Empresa Mixta and business partners employees where no English is spoken. Ability to effectively represent drilling in multi-functional teams.  Experience working in multi-cultural teams and ability to adjust communication as needed. Maintains respectful communication with business partners and proactively sets clear expectations on deliverables and targets.

•Recognize others. Capable and willing to act as a technical mentor to other Drilling Engineers. With minimum supervision able to deliver quality engineering support. Adjust behavior based on feedback and provide feedback to others. Encourages new ideas. Adapts to change effectively. Enables others to develop beyond existing skillset. Independently delivers well designs, programs, cost estimates on or before deadlines. Applies capital stewardship, data analytics / benchmarking, and risk management to select well designs alternatives. Ensures all drilling well design and operations meet Empresa Mixta’s well construction requirements. Manages multiple deliverables and tasks concurrently. Provide high quality engineering support to Superintendent and operations team as requirement.

Required Qualifications:

•More than 15 years of experience and knowledge in Well Engineering Design and Operations, particularly with horizontal and extended reach wells in land operations. Well design and operational experience with cycle steam injection in heavy oil would be plus.     

•Bachelor’s degree in engineering discipline or equivalent.

•Knowledge in WellPLAN, Stresscheck, Compass, and other Drilling and completion (D&C) simulation programs

•Field experience in D&C operations required (either as operator or contractor).
Knowledge on special services: Directional Drilling, Drilling Fluids, Cementing, Drilling Bits & Tools, Solids Control, and other services related to drilling and completion operations. Knowledge of workover and completions operations.

•Risk Management skills, including knowledge of Risk Assessment and Management of Change.

•Clear understanding of Drilling Hydraulics, Torque and Drag analysis.

•Candidate must be able to demonstrate real time execution problem solving with real world examples.

•Being a self-driver engineer who demonstrate ability to complete assignments with limited resources and significant communications challenges.

Preferred Qualifications:

•Knowledge on materials used during well construction such as Casing, Tubing, Wellheads, Liner hangers.

•D&C HES knowledge, applied to drilling and completion operations and rigs. Demonstrated HES incident case management and investigations.

•Contractor Management experience including contracts, bidding, case management, Quality Performance Review (QPRs), etc. Candidate will be expected to handle both Chevron and PetroPiar (PDVSA) contracts.

•Candidate should demonstrate good analytical skills and be capable of solving complex problems while proposing new ways to improve the design/planning/execution of PetroPiar’s legacy field wells with the goal of reducing well cycle time and cost and achieving IFO.

•Candidates who can provide prove of previous international technical presentations at conferences, OTC, IADC, SPE awards, etc., are a plus.

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