Careers in Oil and Gas
Some of the most common career opportunities at Santos and in the exploration and production industry include:
Engineering
Reservoir Engineer
You will be responsible for the Reservoir/Petroleum Engineering management of a number of oil and/or gas fields in the Cooper Basin. The role will involve developing and implementing Field Depletion Plans for your fields to maximise value. In addition, you will develop annual production forecasts, recommend reserves updates and prepare documentation and presentations for project approval and develop joint venture budgets.
You will be tertiary qualified in an appropriate discipline and have sound experience in reservoir/petroleum engineering management. Experience in project leadership is desirable.
Completions Engineer
You will optimise the planning and implementation of cased hole sub surface work programs for Santos’ onshore oil and gas wells. You will evaluate new work processes and the application of technology to improve the productivity and value of the work outcome. The role will involve strict adherence to environment, health and safety requirements as well as successful management of project cycle times, productivity and cost of work activities.
With a Bachelor of Engineering, you will have experience in completions engineering plus related experience in other sub surface engineering and operations disciplines such as drilling, stimulation, production and reservoir. Experience in surface operations is desirable.
Drilling Engineer
You will provide engineering, design, planning and operational support for conventional oil and gas or coal seam gas drilling projects onshore. The role is responsible for the continuous improvement of the drilling operation, including environment, health and safety performance and the time and cost to drill wells. You have a continuous improvement work ethic and will be constantly researching and implementing means to improve the productivity of the drilling operation.
With a Bachelor of Engineering degree or equivalent, you will have sound drilling, engineering and operational experience including sub surface engineering and operations disciplines, completions, stimulation, production and reservoir.
Senior Fracture Stimulation Engineer
A senior engineer, you will design, plan and execute fracture stimulation projects to maximise deliverability and reserve development of our hydrocarbon resources. Key responsibilities include enhancing the Fracture team’s productivity and providing pre- and post-project fracture stimulation support to Exploration and Exploitation teams.
In addition to a Bachelor of Engineering, you will have experience in stimulation job design and optimisation together with a solid understanding of reservoir engineering and oil and gas development principles, rock mechanics and geomechanical concepts.
Machinery Reliability Engineer
You will provide technical support with a focus on machinery performance across Santos’ operational sites. This will involve evaluations and recommendations for all mechanical rotating equipment and contributing to all stages of equipment life cycle. In addition, you will support cross-functional Site Reliability Teams to enable sustainable reliability performance.
With a Bachelor of Engineering (Mech), you will have sound experience in Reliability Engineering, preferably gained in the hydrocarbon industry. The role will require travel to remote site locations for varying durations.
Mechanical Engineer
With a focus on safety and integrity related projects, you will provide mechanical engineering support to operations assets and ensure improvement in asset management through the introduction of new technologies and programs.
With a Bachelor of Engineering (Mech) or equivalent, you will have experience in hydrocarbon production, refining or chemicals including knowledge of pressure equipment and piping fabrication and welding processes. You will also have materials/metallurgical experience with materials selection, failure analysis and corrosion mitigation plus an understanding of NDT techniques.
Pipeline Engineer
You will support, develop and maintain programs to ensure the ongoing reliability and integrity of field pipelines and associated equipment across our onshore assets. A key focus is integrity management of the Cooper Basin pipelines and development of best practice risk-based programs.
With a degree in Engineering, you will be eligible for corporate membership of the Institution of Engineers Australia and have experience in hydrocarbon production, refining or chemicals. Your knowledge will include: field pipeline fabrication, installation, coating and inspection; cathodic protection; materials selection, failure analysis and corrosion mitigation of pipelines. Regular travel and time in field operations environments is required.
Production Optimisation Engineer
Partially field-based, you will be the senior production optimisation engineer for the Cooper Basin fields managed by the Production Optimisation Team. Your main responsibility will be optimisation of the short-term management of the Cooper Basin fields, acting as key production optimisation support engineer for field-based members of the asset team.
With a Bachelor of Engineering or equivalent, you will have sound petroleum engineering experience in a combination or reservoir, production, drilling and completions disciplines.
Staff Petroleum Engineer
You will be responsible for the reservoir/petroleum engineering management of a number of oil and/or gas fields in our South Australian operations. The role will involve developing and implementing integrated FDPs for your fields, as well as project managing development/delineation projects and monitoring scheduling activity, including compression projects.
With a Bachelor of Engineering or equivalent, you will have solid petroleum engineering experience in a combination of reservoir, production, drilling and completions disciplines.
Integrity Engineer
You will be responsible for developing and maintaining best practice, risk based integrity programs that assure the ongoing reliability of pressure equipment across Santos operated assets.
You will also provide technical support to the operations on pressure equipment integrity management and materials selections, and coordinate failure investigations and steward implementation of improvement recommendations.
With a Bachelor of Engineering, you will have experience within the hydrocarbon production, refining or chemicals industry that would include in depth understanding of managing pressure equipment integrity in accordance with relevant company standards.
Reliability Engineer, Power and Control Systems
You will provide technical support with a focus on performance of Power and Control Systems (P&CS) across Santos’ operational sites.
Working as part of a team you will develop, monitor and continuously improve Reliability Management Plans for all P&CS equipment and major rotating machinery. You will also be accountable for facilitating and stewarding failure investigations and actions and initiating and monitoring Capital Projects to address identified reliability issues.
With a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical, Electronic or Mechatronic disciplines, you will have experience in industrial or process Electrical and/or Instrumentation Engineering.
Plant Support Engineer
You will be responsible for monitoring and optimising plant performance to ensure preservation of plant capacities and product splits.
You will identify and implement improvement opportunities and steward failure investigations to actively reduce process, reliability and process safety risks. You will provide technical support and work closely with plant operations personnel.
With a Bachelor of Engineering preferably in Chemical disciplines you will have either operational or technical experience within the oil and gas industry.
Field Support Engineer
You will be responsible for the identification and closure of gaps between facilities capacity and actual performance including energy and machinery efficiency.
Within an operating field you will forecast field capability and using the management of change process, initiate and implement required changes to improve facility performance. You will carry out monthly reconciliation of field performance and use root cause analysis and production tools to develop improvement plans.
With a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical, Mechanical or Mechatronic disciplines you will have either operational or technical experience within the oil and gas industry.
Geoscience
Geologist
Responsible for assessing the hydrocarbon potential of sedimentary basins and prospects, including regional basin analysis, hydrocarbon systems analysis, detailed structural and stratigraphic studies incorporating surface and subsurface information, hydrocarbon play analysis and risk assessment. Also responsible for developing depletion plans for producing and yet to be developed fields, including focused reservoir studies building computer based 3D geological reservoir models.
Geophysicist
Responsible for seismic data analysis, including structural and stratigraphic interpretation, geophysical modelling, velocity analysis and depth conversion, and seismic attribute analysis.
Petrophysicist
Responsible for integrating well data and well logs to arrive at evaluations of the oil and gas content and productivity of wells and accumulations.
Palynologist
Responsible for the provision of subsurface age determination, inferred stratigraphic correlation, depositional environments, hydrocarbon source rock potential and maturity data by analysing the organic matter contained in the sediments.