Steve Dumontet, Operator, Well Testing Operator, Central Production Testing
"Hi, I'm Steve Dumontet and I've been working in the patch for about a year and a half now. When I got out of high school I apprenticed as a cabinetmaker but it was pretty boring work. Then a friend who was working on a well testing crew told me there was a job available and the money sounded good.
Our crew is just about the last people at a well before it starts sending oil and gas down a pipeline. We do tests to get information on things like flow rate, pressure, salinity, or anything else the operator wants to know about what's going on down there.
In the winter when it's busy, we go from job to job with just a couple of days off in between. I don't mind the hours, because as well as a base salary I get a day rate on the job, so the more I work, the more I make. We travel to well sites all over Western Canada, so it really varies from job to job, and that keeps things interesting. The only part of this job I don't like is being away from home for so long at a time.
Anyone who wants to work on a well testing crew has to get used to working outside. It can get really cold in the winter, especially if there's a wind chill. In the summer it can be great, although when you're carrying heavy pipe around it can get pretty hot. Personally, I don't mind the weather because I like being outdoors.
Each testing crew has a supervisor, an operator and an assistant operator. I'm the operator on my shift, which means that after the supervisor I'm in charge. I take care of the equipment and fix it if it needs it."
Base salary: $40,000 - $60,000, plus most companies offer additional compensation in the form of a 'field bonus'
Education: Grade 12 preferred
Advancement: Potential to move up to Supervisor or Project Manager, with an annual salary of $100,000 - $150,000
Salary, education and advancement may vary from company to company.
Thursday, 13:00 -- The first thing we do when we get on site is talk to the operator's safety people. On a sour gas well like this one, we have to know the safe areas and all the procedures to follow if there's an H2S leak. In this job, I work on both sweet and sour gas wells. When people ask me if I worry about working around sour gas, I tell them that I stay safe by staying trained, respecting H2S and trusting my equipment.
Thursday, 13:30 -- After the safety meeting, the supervisor spots our equipment and then the operators pack pipe, which means we connect joints of testing pipe on the ground to the well. It's not exactly light to carry around, but it's good physical labour. Then we pressure test the pipe to make sure it has no leaks. After that we can start flowing the well. Our job is to control the liquids and gas coming up from the well and feed them through our equipment in separate streams so we can run tests and gather numbers.
Friday, 07:00 -- When we're on site, we have two crews working 12-hour shifts from seven to seven. When I come on shift I'll talk to the other crew to touch base and see if there have been any changes in the well or if anything has gone wrong in the last 12 hours.
Friday, 10:00 -- We calibrate all of our meters three times each shift to make sure they stay accurate. I've learned a lot about oil and gas and its chemistry on this job. My math is also a lot better than it used to be because there are a lot of numbers involved when we take readings.
Friday, 12:30 -- We do different tests at specific times during the day. One of them is called a differential pressure reading. We take it every half-hour to calculate the rate of gas flow from the well.
Friday, 15:00 -- At nine, noon and three, we take a fluid test. There's H2S in the sample, so we get masked up and have a safety hand backing us up. We have to be very careful all of the time on this job when we're working with sour gas. You can't just go opening valves if you don't know what's behind them.
Friday, 16:15 -- The flow from the well is separated with the gas getting flared off or sent down the pipeline, and the oil and water stored in a tank. The oil or condensate we produce can also be sent down a pipeline. One of my jobs is to take a gauge tape, climb up the tank and then dip it to see how much fluid is in it.
Friday, 17:30 -- We do a test on the fluid that we call grinding out. That means we take some samples and put them in a centrifuge to break out the solids and find out what they are. It could be condensate or it could be sand left over from a frac job. Taking tests and gathering data is what working on a well testing crew is about. We enter those numbers into a computer software program that calculates all of the various rates. The customer uses that information to make decisions, like if we should change the flow rates or whether we can shut down and move on to our next job. We can be on a site for a day or for two or three weeks.
Friday, 18:30 -- When the customer has all the data he needs we rig out the equipment and either go to our home base or on to another project.
