15 Ways to become a Freelance Petroleum Engineer (Part I)

In this post I will show you 5 ways to become a Freelance Petroleum Engineer . I will show you that your knowledge can be done outside the office of a traditional company. If you have a desire for freedom, then this post is indicated for you.

One of the reasons that motivated me to create my blog, is due to the constant questions of several colleagues related to how a petroleum engineer can be a freelancer ?. Well, today I will start to share the best kept secret by many free agents. 

While it´s true that there are professions that can easily perform as freelancer, including web development, community manager, accountants, etc., engineering is not the best known or intended to be, but there is an open field for engineers who decide become a freelancer. In future blog entries I will talk about the differences between a freelancer and a consultant, so you should not assume that it is the same.

If you are petroleum engineering and you decided to get out of the rat race, then I welcome you to the wonderful world of freelancer.

Today I will give you 5 ways in which you can start multiplying your income exponentially and increase the recovery factor of your reserves.

1. Evaluating field development plans.

You feel familiar with the terms hyperbolic, harmonic, exponential, ultimate recoverable reserves, economic limits, net present value and apart you have experience in the application of technologies, so your target is the development of reservoir plans. In recent years many national companies have held negotiating meetings finding partners for the joint exploitation of their reserves, the good news is that these partners often request freelancer services for a rapid assessment of the possible exploitation schemes. So prepare your best proposal for the development of these reservoirs and increase your recovery factor.

2. Drilling engineering.

Are you the drilling man or woman? Then I recommend offering your services as a well design engineer. Prepare your spreadsheets, the pipe tally and start estimating casing sizes, fluid densities and trajectories. This area is highly demanded in the petroleum world, there are currently many well drilling plans for which basic, conceptual engineering and well development are necessary. Do not miss the opportunity and increase the Rate Of Perforation in your journey as a freelancer.

3. Translations of technical documents.

Are you a polyglot? I have good news for you, the petroleum world as freelance is all yours. At present, Chinese, Russian, Indian, French, Arab transnational oil companies has proliferated, which have emigrated to the West in search of oil businesses, these companies almost entirely request simultaneous translation services, or distance translation of documents. This is the opportunity that you expected to express your knowledge in all languages.

4. Interpreting pressure / Production tests.

Your specialty is the interpretation of well tests and you know how to program spreadsheets, so don't miss the opportunity to prepare your spreadsheets and start interpreting all available well tests.

5. Developing web solutions.

You are a petroleum engineer, and additionally you know how to work java script, html, css, wordpress, among others; So your proposal as a freelancer engineer must be focused on the design of engineering applications that solve specific problems, I remind you that as a freelancer your projects must be precise that solve problems in the short or medium term. Take advantage of the era of the web and host your knowledge in the best domain.

In the following post, I will show you 5 additional ways in which you can become as a freelancer.