The oil and gas
industry is booming and there are job openings for mud engineers who are
responsible for formulating and monitoring drilling fluid. If you are detail
oriented, have a knack for math and science and don't mind working away from
home for long periods this may be the job for you.
Have you ever seen a
picture of an oil or gas rig that has experienced a "blowout", where the rig
drilled into a pressurized zone and this oil and gas rushed to the surface
burning down the rig? Its a dramatic picture when it happens but luckily it
happens less often these days due the advances in drilling fluid technology
and the mud engineers ability to formulate a drilling fluid that keeps the
well balanced as well as drilling properly. Mud engineer or Mud Men are
highly paid professionals and right now the oil and gas industry needs more
of them. Here is a brief explanation of this job and other related oilfield
jobs.
What It's All About:
The mud engineer's job on the oil drilling rig is complex and never ending
as the drill bit bores down through layers of rock in the earth in search of
petroleum. Drilling fluid is typically a mixture of the minerals barite and
bentonite with other components added in. Barite gives the fluid weight and
bentonite clay helps build up a "wall cake" that seals the earth as the oil
rig's drill bit has bored through it.
Different weights of mud are needed as the hole in the earth becomes deeper
and higher pressures are encountered. The mud engineer will work
closely with the geologist, company man, mud logger and driller to determine
how heavy (how much barite to add) to make the mud to prevent a blowout. If
the mud is out of balance, or too heavy, it will push out into the porous
rock formations it encounters and cause a "lost circulation" situation to
happen where the mud is no longer making the round trip up to the surface.
It the mud is oil based (diesel) thousands of dollars worth of fluid
can be lost if this happens.
It is this balancing act, keeping the mud heavy enough but not too heavy,
that is a 24-7 job. As layers of earth where oil and gas have previously been
extracted are encountered the mud engineer may have to add LCM or lost
circulation material to seal up the well bore. This may include chopped up
paper or wood fibers, etc. Large companies such as Baroid (Halliburton) and
smaller ones such as Newpark Drilling Fluids hire mud engineers to work on
offshore and onshore drilling rigs.
The "mud man" or mud engineer may reside in a
mobile home or travel trailer at the oil drilling rig's location on land
or work out of a portable skid unit (lab) that is transported to an
offshore oil rig. His trailer or mobile lab will include shelves
for his instruments and a sink to wash test tubes, etc in.
In some cases where the drilling situation does not
require as much constant attention to the mud the engineer may work as a
"drive By" using portable instruments set up on his pickup tailgate
or car trunk as in the photo above.
The mud engineer will get
a sample of the mud from the mud tank or "pit" closest to the line returning from the well bore and check
it for weight using a portable scale and for it's "funnel viscosity" using a Marsh
Funnel. He will use different instruments such as filter
paper and a pressurized vessel to strain out liquid and check for
salinity and others that will tell him how much wall cake, or coating on the
inside of the drilled well bore, is being laid down and yield point,
which indicates how much solids the mud can carry up and out of the
drilled hole to the surface, and for dissolved solids.
How fast the well is changing due to the different
rock formations being drilled and what kind of gas or oil is expected at
certain depths will determine how often he has to check the fluid.
His duties may also include checking on the mud shakers and screens
(equipment that
separates the cuttings from the mud), ordering more sacks of
drilling mud components and producing daily mud reports to deliver to
the company man and oil company offices.
The engineer will also be
responsible, along with help from the rig crew, for checking the level
of the mud pits. If a pocket of pressurized gas has been drilled into a
"kick" can occur. This can precede a blowout if someone does not notice the level of the
mud increasing rapidly in the pits as a gas bubble is displacing
fluid and forcing its way to
the surface.
The engineer is also responsible for pumping
cement or fibers down the well bore as needed to seal off certain formations if a
lost circulation situation is occurring. Operations such as these
require complex mathematical formulas to determine how many revolutions
of the pumps on the surface are needed to "spot" the fluid in the
correct place down in the wellbore. A bad calculation can cost the oil
company thousands if cement is left to harden inside drill pipe or if
costly fluid is pumped to the wrong spot.
If the mud engineer in staying
on the oil drilling rig 24-7 then his job hours are the same, napping
when he can until the well is done.
Work hours are long, conditions
are dirty and at times verystressful and it can be days or weeks
before he is home again. Some
larger companies rotate engineers after so many days but smaller
companies may leave one mud engineer alone at the rig to do
the job until the drilling is done.
Taking The Good With The Bad:
Working as a mud engineer can be a rewarding job financially but it has its
downsides.
If long hours, time away from home and stressful situations are
something you can handle in exchange for $100,000 or more a year, then the
first step, if you have no prior oilfield experience, is to attend a
community college (in an area where there is a lot of oil production) and
take courses in oil and gas technology. Another alternative to college would
be to first obtain a position working on the rig, as a roughneck or as a mud logger
with a small "mom and pop" company to learn the industry and try and make
contacts that can recommend you to a mud company to be hired and trained.
The oilfield still relies on the "good old boy" network, and it is often who
you know so try to make as many friends as possible.
If you
don't have a degree in geology it is typically easier to first get on as a mud logger with a
very small company (a mudlogger is one who monitors the
rock cuttings and gas that are pumped to the surface in the drilling fluid ) than it is to get on
as a mud engineer with no experience. See my article on mudlogging. Most
large companies such as Sperry Sun, a division of Halliburton require
college degrees in geology. This is not to say that the job of mudlogger is
an entry level job since many companies only hire petroleum geologists but
there are lots of small companies working on land rigs where the drilling is
not as technical as it is offshore, that will hire qualified non college graduates and
train them.
Although mudlogging as a profession is not considered a high
status position on a well site due to the fact that they are not involved in
the activities on the rig floor, a good mud logger can save the day if he is
well trained by predicting a "kick" or gas bubble that is heading upwards in
the drill pipe because the mud weight is not heavy enough. A "kick" can be
the prelude to a blowout and many have been prevented by a good mudlogger.
You
may want to try working as a roughneck and save some money up and on your
own enroll in a school such as Oklahoma Mud School or pay out of pocket for
a three month Halliburton Mud School course in Houston at your own
expense. It will cost several thousand but you stand a chance of getting a
job making many times that. Preferably though the best option would be to
get hired by a mud company and then sent, at their expense to mud school.
Once the engineer has worked for a year or more in the industry, usually
starting out on the most basic types of onshore oil and gas wells, he has
the ability to move up with the company and possibly work offshore and
overseas where pay is significantly higher. Companies that hire mud
engineers include Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Newpark, Strata and more.
Searching for a Job
For anyone interested in getting a job in the oil and gas industry
the two books that I recommend the most are The
Nontechnical
Guide To Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling and Production
and
A
Primer Of Oilwell Drilling
by Ron Baker. Both used by many colleges and technical schools as well as
Oilfield Service companies in their training programs. For production only try
Oil and Gas Production In Nontechnical Language.
Drilling
Technology In Nontechnical Language
is a lower cost alternative to "A
Primer Of Oilwell Drilling".
All can be found in
The Oilfield Bookstore,
For More Information on any
of these books and customer reviews click on the book covers below...
Other Books that will help you in your job search include Geology 101
textbooks and books about offshore oil and gas drilling.
Rig
Fire, Gulf Of Mexico
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