Job: Senior Geothermal Reservoir Engineer, Contact Energy – Wairakei, NZ
Pipes at the Wairakei geothermal power plant, New Zealand (source: flickr/ Abaconda, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
14 Aug 2019
Contact Energy is seeking to fill the position of Senior Geothermal Reservoir Engineer for its team on site at Wairakei, New Zealand.
Contact Energy in New Zealand has published an open position for a Senior Geothermal Reservoir Engineer to join Contact Energy’s team at the iconic Wairakei Power Station. The company has a number of exciting project on the go, including appraisal drilling at Tauhara and considering options of the future of the Wairakei geothermal field. The candidate should have geothermal experience and can hit the ground running, as described by Warre Mannington on LinkedIn. Modelling experience using TOUGH2 would also be a plus. Attention deadline is August 21, 2019 (details see below.)
Here below the description.
It is exciting times at Contact Energy as we look to grow our geothermal teams with new positions in the reservoir, operations, maintenance and engineering areas. We are New Zealand’s leading geothermal electricity generator, owning and operating six existing geothermal power stations whilst holding consents for a further 250 MW of generation on the Tauhara field. We also have some key decisions to make on the future of the Wairakei geothermal field where resource consents expire in 2026, so we’re are not short of awesome, market leading renewable projects!
Context of the role
Our purpose is to put our energy where it matters and to decarbonise the New Zealand energy sector.
We are committed to delivering market leading performance to shareholders and value to our customers. We achieve this by developing and procuring competitive sources of energy and related products and services that better meet customers’ energy needs. Ng? Tikanga (our compass) and principles lead us to create value from the resources that come under our control, ensure sustainability of our business and take care of the environment by looking after our natural and shared resources.
What you’ll do
You will use your extensive reservoir engineering experience to provide technical leadership to our team of engineers and scientists. You will be responsible for the development of conceptual models of the geothermal system, resource development strategy, reservoir surveillance and performance monitoring. You will also assist with the development of reservoir models to guide our future development strategy.
How you’ll be successful
- Supervise production and injection well testing and reservoir performance monitoring including down hole data capture and surface data capture and reporting.
- Perform the role of Discipline Technical Authority to support the technical risk management process.
- Scoping and managing contractors providing specialist scientific services.
- Analysis and reporting on well/reservoir behaviour.
- Perform forecasting of well production and resource trends.
- Assist with maintenance of geothermal well database.
- Provide expert technical input into resource consent monitoring and consent applications.
- Assisting the development team by incorporating geothermal reservoir engineering knowledge into the project evaluation process.
- Interacting with staff and contractors providing specialist geothermal reservoir modelling tools and services to ensure that their outputs are appropriate to meet Contacts requirements.
- Effective at incorporating geoscientific and reservoir engineering data into conceptual models which underpin geothermal numerical reservoir models.
- Interact regularly with the team’s geologists, geochemists, geophysicists and reservoir modellers to ensure continuity between the reservoir models and field data, as well as providing recommendations for additional data gathering to aid reservoir engineering workflows.
- Assist with the development and maintenance of geothermal resource software and database systems.
- Report issues, identify opportunities for improvement of systems and processes, and suggest strategies to minimise risks.
- Contribute to the performance of the team by assisting in other areas or sites as required, including identifying opportunities for improvement of systems and processes, and suggest advice and/or strategies to other staff to minimise risks.
The type of experience you’ll bring to the role
This position will require a broad set of skills and experience. Contact will seek and recruit talent that have the following key attributes and behavioural competencies:
- An advanced understanding reservoir engineering techniques and their application.
- Tertiary qualification in engineering (science, mechanical), mathematics, or geoscience.
- At least ten years of relevant industry work experience.
- Skills and experience in commercially available reservoir engineering tools, such as Wellsim, GDManager, TOUGH2, Saphir, Fekete, etc.
- Well defined research and analytical skills with ability to initiate discussion based on quantitative and analytical findings.
- Skilled in the use of Microsoft Excel. Knowledge and experience with programming languages such as Python and MATLAB would be advantageous.
- High level of attention to detail.
- Excellent relationship building skills with the ability to develop strong working relationships with external parties.
- Good communication skills, in particular relating to the presentation of material to non-technical/specialist audiences.
- Ability to persuade and influence others.
- Flexibility towards work practices and be responsive to new ideas.
- High level of self-motivation and a desire to challenge the status quo to improve work processes
- Strong interpersonal skills.
- Committed to working within a team.
- Able to develop tools that allow problems to be solved on an ongoing and long term basis.
- Integrity and high personal and professional standards.
Applications close Wednesday 21st August. For more information please feel free to contact our Talent Team at resourcingteam@contactenergy.co.nz
Source: Contact Energy
