How to Become a Wireline Logging Engineer: Part 1

A wireline logging engineer (Field engineer) is someone who manages the people and equipment involved in providing high quality petrophysical data about oil and gas well to operating companies using wireline logging technique. A career as a logging engineer (Oil and gas wireline logging) can be exciting, challenging, and rewarding. The oil field in general is challenging but being a logging engineer in a service company is even more challenging and demanding physically, emotionally, and mentally. You really need to understand the challenges involved before diving into the profession. To qualify for employment as a logging engineer, you must have a college degree in one of the following engineering disciplines: Electrical, Electronics, Petroleum, Mechanical, and Geophysics. Some organizations also hire candidates with degrees in Physics, Geology, and other physical sciences. In most cases organizations set a minimum grade point average (GPA) level for a potential candidate to achieve in order to qualify to apply. The human resources department of the organization will be able to provide the minimum requirement for the position.

In general, a GPA of 2.5 and higher will qualify to apply. Obviously the higher your, GPA the better chance of acceptance you have. The first step is to apply to one or more of the service organizations. A list of wireline logging services organizations is available here. The major players in the industry are Halliburton Energy Services, Schlumberger, Baker Atlas, and Weatherford. Most of the organizations have a career page where you can view available positions. Logging engineers’ positions are usually listed as field engineers. The organizations take great care to evaluate carefully applicants for the position of a field engineer because once employed, the company spends thousands of dollars in training before the engineer can make any money for the organization. So the cost involved in hiring the wrong guy who fails to make it through the training is enormous.

The selection process is very competitive because the organization does not usually hire many field engineers at the same time. Hiring of new field engineers follows the replacement plan depending on the turnover rate in the organization. In some organizations, the turnover rate among field engineers in the first three years is very high. If an organization selects you for an interview, you will likely be competing with several other candidates in a series of interviews. Although cognitive and technical skills are highly valued and every candidate must have these skills, the focus of the interview is mainly on attitude and emotional intelligence of the candidates. Because the job involves relationship management under intense work pressure, high emotional intelligence and people skills are important factors for an engineer to succeed in the job.

Your acceptance is the beginning of a long and hard training program lasting over 18 months beginning with pre-school and ending when the engineer breaks out and becomes a full-fledge field engineer capable of providing revenue generating services to customers. In part two, I will continue with the pre-school processes and what to expect in this stage of your training.

Sources Cited:

Well Logging Companies in the United States” MANTA.