CAREER OVERVIEW

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INDUSTRY

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CAREER

Industry Overview

The Drilling process is made possible through the efforts of three distinct entities:

The Operator, the Contractor, and the Service Industry.

Operators ( ExxonMobil, Chevron-Texaco, BP, Shell, etc. ) spend billions of dollars each year on research in order to locate new geological fields in the world that hold oil and gas.

Operators

Operators decide what areas to lease and where and when to drill. Then they lease a drilling rig (Contractor) and move it to the location selected.

The Contractor

The Contractor owns the drilling rig, provides equipment and machinery necessary for drilling operations, and employs all the personnel required to operate the rig.

The Service Industry

The Service Industry provides all the services (pipe, casing, casing crews, cementers, loggers, directional drilling, drilling fluids, MWD, wireline, drilling fluid technicians {that’s where we come in}, etc…) necessary to get the job done. The service personnel, like the Contractor, are also hired by the Operator for their specific skills, talents, and products.

Recently, discoveries in the U.S. have prompted major activity and planning within the industry. The Haynesville, the Bakken, the Marcellus, ANWR, Offshore, and others have energy reserves that harbor the ability to free America totally from foreign oil… Natural gas is obtained in the same manner as oil – by drilling.

The USA has more than enough natural gas within its borders to be totally independent from other Nations.

For Example, The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas says the recent boom in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas is…

“perhaps the largest discovery of new oil reserves in the United States since Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in 1968.”

Another: On April 10, 2008, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released their field report about the Bakken Shale. The formation stretches across North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan. The report estimates that 3.65 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken formation. According to the USGS,

“This is the largest oil accumulation in the lower 48 states. It is also the largest continuous type of oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS at this time.”

However, a very small percentage of public land is being utilized by the US for drilling our oil and gas. Due to the arguably premature “green movement” being promulgated by the current administration, the vast majority of drilling and exploration in the US is occurring only on privately owned land. Remember, the planes, trucks, and ships that bring goods to stock your grocery stores do not run on windmills or solar panels – Big transportation requires big energy – Oil and Gas.

Want to Become a Mud Engineer?

Our past graduates have been employed by every major drilling fluids company in the industry. Check out our class schedule and register today to start your new career!

Drilling Operations Overview

Oil and gas are produced from the formations deep within the earth.

Operators spend the time and money locating these hydrocarbons and investing in the technology to bring them to the surface.

This is done by safely boring a hole in the ground to the depth that the hydrocarbons are trapped.

The product is then produced and sent via pipeline to refineries and markets.

Everything is large in the oil field as are the drilling bits used drill the holes. The bit

is on the end of a string of pipe created from individual ‘joints’ that screw together.

The pipe is hollow. Drilling fluid is pumped down the pipe to the bit as the bit is rotated via the ‘rotary’ table. As the bit turns, it cuts through the dirt and rock and creates a hole.

The cuttings are removed via the drilling fluid which goes down the pipe and comes back up inside the annulus. The annulus is the area between the outside of the pipe and the walls of the well bore. Thus, the fluid replaces the earth that is removed from the hole by the rotary drilling process.

The fluid returning from the hole follows a flow line which sends the fluid to surface equipment that cleans undesirable solids (dirt) from the ‘mud’. The mud passes through the ‘solids removal equipment’ and collects in surface pits. The fluid moves from a settling pit to a mixing pit, and finally, to a suction pit.

The rig pumps deliver the fluid from the suction pit back into the hole via the hollow pipe, completing the continuous loop of drilling fluid from the suction pit, to the pipe, to the bit, back to the surface, into the pits, and finally, back to the rig pumps to be re-circulated once again.

This is a technical, professional, World-Wide occupation. Drilling Fluid Technicians do not sling iron, tote sacks, or turn valves.

As a Drilling Fluids Technician, your job is to properly analyze & maintain the drilling fluid properties as planned and presented in the Drilling Fluids Program (your road map) for the well(s) you are assigned to.

Your job is challenging, rewarding, and specifically professional. Professional Fluids Technicians are required worldwide by every drilling operation on the face of the earth.

Want to Become a Mud Engineer?

Our past graduates have been employed by every major drilling fluids company in the industry. Check out our class schedule and register today to start your new career!

Career Overview

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In order to become a Drilling Fluids Tech, you need to study and become proficient the field of Drilling fluids technology.

There are various schools around the country which that have been graduating fluids hands for years, but most are private, owned by the Big Mud Companies, and they have become more particular about when and whom they choose to send to school these days, and for good reason. Over the years, most schools have become more book & product oriented, and most have lost the practical aspect of properly running / engineering a drilling fluid.

As a mud hand for 32+ years, I have had the opportunity to work with mud technicians all over the world. A handful of techs actually “engineer” the drilling fluids, but the vast majority operate on check-to-check basis, ‘checking the mud’ and prescribing reactive, temporary treatments to repair the current, degraded property(s).

A mud hand graduating from any professional Mud School should be able to analyze a fluid properly, administer treatment properly, and professionally manage any drilling fluid, on any rig…. anywhere.

Students graduating from DFE tech are able to step on a rig anywhere in the world and properly prescribe the correct fluids treatment within an hour or so of analysis.

Our technicians are trained in the mathematics of running mud properly instead of the reactive position of checking the mud and concocting a temporary fix each day to repair whichever property is in need of repair. This is what we call being ‘run by the mud.’ There are check and fix mud hands, and then there are Professional Fluids Technicians.

The Fluids Technician field is desperately in need of good hands that actually understand the process of “engineering” a drilling fluid. The industry needs

technicians that can count, technicians that can operate a basic office computer, and are able to communicate well with other hands on the rigs. Engineering a fluid properly requires math, and the math is not difficult. Common sense, an ability to ‘look ahead’, and a solid understanding of proper fluids management processes will take you far in this occupation.

Average starting salary for fluids technicians is +/- $4500 to $5500 per month. That’s 54K to 66K per year. This does not include 401K matching, a

company vehicle, an expense account, all gasoline paid, inexpensive insurance benefits, and all equipment issued including computer & mud equipment. In my opinion, the Mud Technician’s position is arguably the best job in the oilfield, and one of the least known and understood. Hands may work 7 days on: 7 days off, 14 and 14, 28 and 28, or make rig checks on a daily basis.