Digital roughnecks: Oil and gas workforce changing as tech’s role grows

[thackney]

Digital roughnecks: Oil and gas workforce changing as tech’s role grows
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Digital-Roughnecks-Oil-and-gas-workforce-14882912.php
Dec. 5, 2019

Scrum master. Agile coach. Data scientist. Cloud architect.

Jobs in the oil and natural gas industry are changing as technology plays an ever larger role in extracting fossil fuels beneath the ground and under the sea. A younger, diverse class of tech workers holding these and other titles, such as big data engineer or user experience designer, are increasingly replacing roughnecks, roustabouts and other blue collar workers who toil under the hot Texas sun or on platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Energy companies, fighting to stay profitable with oil prices stuck in the $50 to $60 range, are make a major push to digitize and automate operations, allowing drilling in West Texas or in the middle of the ocean to be operated and monitored from control rooms in Houston. That push is driving the growth of six-figure tech jobs that prize skills such as coding, design, data analysis and computer system architecture over physical prowess.

While statewide employment in the oil and natural gas industry is down by 3 percent compared to a year ago, tech jobs in the sector appear to be growing, especially in Houston where nearly two-thirds of the estimated 228,000 tech jobs in the region are outside of traditional technology companies such as Google, Amazon and Dell.

“There’s a misnomer that energy companies and pipeline companies are not technology companies,” said Al Monaco, CEO of the pipeline company Enbridge. “Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, industrial applications like ours are a treasure trove of opportunity.”...

[Idiot]

Digital roughnecks: Oil and gas workforce changing as tech’s role grows
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Digital-Roughnecks-Oil-and-gas-workforce-14882912.php
Dec. 5, 2019

Scrum master. Agile coach. Data scientist. Cloud architect.

Jobs in the oil and natural gas industry are changing as technology plays an ever larger role in extracting fossil fuels beneath the ground and under the sea. A younger, diverse class of tech workers holding these and other titles, such as big data engineer or user experience designer, are increasingly replacing roughnecks, roustabouts and other blue collar workers who toil under the hot Texas sun or on platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Energy companies, fighting to stay profitable with oil prices stuck in the $50 to $60 range, are make a major push to digitize and automate operations, allowing drilling in West Texas or in the middle of the ocean to be operated and monitored from control rooms in Houston. That push is driving the growth of six-figure tech jobs that prize skills such as coding, design, data analysis and computer system architecture over physical prowess.

While statewide employment in the oil and natural gas industry is down by 3 percent compared to a year ago, tech jobs in the sector appear to be growing, especially in Houston where nearly two-thirds of the estimated 228,000 tech jobs in the region are outside of traditional technology companies such as Google, Amazon and Dell.

“There’s a misnomer that energy companies and pipeline companies are not technology companies,” said Al Monaco, CEO of the pipeline company Enbridge. “Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, industrial applications like ours are a treasure trove of opportunity.”...

It is quite amazing that now a company can get real time info from a well and even adjust valves remotely from the well site.  At this point in time it's cost prohibitive for us, as a small operator to afford this as of yet.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

This old grizzled oilfield worker will tell you to avoid the tendency to say that digital reliance will save the industry.

It will not.  It is only a supplement to it.

Once experience gets pushed aside, there will be a piper to pay.

And he will be paid, bigtime.

[Joe Wooten]

 

This old grizzled oilfield worker will tell you to avoid the tendency to say that digital reliance will save the industry.

It will not.  It is only a supplement to it.

Once experience gets pushed aside, there will be a piper to pay.

And he will be paid, bigtime.

[Smokin Joe]

This old grizzled oilfield worker will tell you to avoid the tendency to say that digital reliance will save the industry.

It will not.  It is only a supplement to it.

Once experience gets pushed aside, there will be a piper to pay.

And he will be paid, bigtime.

I agree. While it does give new ways to micromanage field operations, it won't get that piece of crud out from between the handle and where you want it to go. Some things, you just have to be there for.

Unfortunately, it tends to devalue the presence of people onsite in the minds of the people pushing the buttons.

Currently, speaking of experience, in the Williston Basin, by the end of the Bakken/Three Forks play, there will likely be no one left working who knows the geology of the formations below the Bakken/Three Forks, knows what shows are relevant, how to test them open hole, etc. There are over a dozen producing horizons at greater depth.

But the industry spends a lot of time reinventing the wheel.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I agree. While it does give new ways to micromanage field operations, it won't get that piece of crud out from between the handle and where you want it to go. Some things, you just have to be there for.

Unfortunately, it tends to devalue the presence of people onsite in the minds of the people pushing the buttons.

Currently, speaking of experience, in the Williston Basin, by the end of the Bakken/Three Forks play, there will likely be no one left working who knows the geology of the formations below the Bakken/Three Forks, knows what shows are relevant, how to test them open hole, etc. There are over a dozen producing horizons at greater depth.

But the industry spends a lot of time reinventing the wheel.

Whether it is the Red River or Duperow, these are there but tend to be rather small and difficult to find.

But if you could find another Lodgepole mound, there is plenty of money to be made.........

[Smokin Joe]

Whether it is the Red River or Duperow, these are there but tend to be rather small and difficult to find.

But if you could find another Lodgepole mound, there is plenty of money to be made.........

Considering there was only one Lodgepole Mound, I'd put more stock in the Duperow or Red River, just on distribution. Production from both is down the Nesson Anticline to the Antelope field, and there are field designations in the Beaver Lodge of BLMU, BLDU, BLSU, BLOU (Beaver Lodge Madison/Devonian/Silurian/Ordovician Unit) that persist.
A fortune was made in the Red River B (around Bowman, especially) through horizontal wells. It was the big boom before the Bakken, and proved the concept of draining a larger area through one wellbore, as a strategy. The Nisku/Birdbear A was getting similar attention, especially in the Western part of the Basin, until the Bakken play got rolling.

The Red River C zone is a  tougher proposition, does better slightly off structure (no anhydrite plugging, better porosity), and the reservoir geometry is complicated.
For example, we drilled a twin to a well that had had mechanical problems in the Red River, almost close enough to hit the walking beam on the pump jack with a rock from the shale shaker (It was producing from another, shallower formation). Our porosity was right under the C Anhydrite, and the zone tested sweet crude. The original well had porosity 20 ft. below the C Anhydrite and it was sour. I just said "When this one is depleted, run a whipstock and go over there and get that one, too."

The Duperow can be hit and miss, the Nisku/Birdbear tends to be structurally controlled, and the Interlake (if not salt plugged) should be tested on any structural closure that gives off any gas, even a few units. It tends to be vertically fractured, should be choked back and produced from the top so you don't cone it in. The last 'find' in that came in like water in the DST and looked like lighter fluid (70 gravity), but I heard the operator perfed an extensive interval and got water in production testing--likely far too much.

We've left out the Winnepegosis patch reefs, the Dawson Bay, the Stonewall and Gunton, and haven't mentioned the Winnepeg or Deadwood sands for tight gas.  I don't know if there is any helium down there worth messing with, either (we ran standard C1-NC4 chromatographs, filament or FID, but not mass spec in those days), but the proximity to the Granite Wash might mean there is enough of that to be a worthwhile byproduct. That may yet yield another boom in the southern basin margins or even the deep basin, something to consider, anyway.

There is a lot of oil and gas left down there, even when the Bakken/Three Forks play is developed.