Development and Production Geoscientist (In-Situ Heavy Oil)
Raise is currently hiring a contract team member on behalf of our client. They’re expanding their team to meet growing needs, making this a unique opportunity to work with an industry leader.
Responsibilities
- Provides integrated subsurface leadership for in-situ heavy-oil development, reservoir management, and production optimization. The role connects geology, geophysics, petrophysics, geomodelling, reservoir engineering, geomechanics, drilling, completions, production technology, facilities, and commercial disciplines to maximize resource recovery, improve operating performance, and support economically robust development decisions.
- The successful candidate will integrate seismic data, well logs, core, pressure and temperature data, fluid properties, injection and production history, and reservoir-surveillance results to characterize reservoir architecture, bitumen distribution, connectivity, compartmentalization, and remaining resource potential. Particular emphasis will be placed on identifying geological controls that affect thermal recovery, including reservoir thickness and continuity, mudstone barriers and baffles, inclined heterolithic stratification, water and gas intervals, thief zones, fluid contacts, caprock integrity, and geomechanically constraints.
- The role will support SAGD, cyclic steam stimulation, steam flood, and potentially solvent-assisted thermal developments. Responsibilities include identifying and maturing well-pair, infill, wedge-well, pad-extension, recompletion, and conformance-improvement opportunities; defining well objectives and target intervals; supporting horizontal well placement and geosteering; and evaluating post-well results. The individual will work closely with reservoir engineering and operations teams to ensure static geological models are consistent with observed steam-chamber development and reservoir performance.
- The position will monitor production and injection performance, investigate underperforming wells and pads, and recommend surveillance, operating, or intervention activities. Geological interpretations will be integrated with observation-well data, temperature logs, pressure surveillance, production logging, tracers, distributed temperature sensing, and 3D or 4D seismic to assess steam conformance, chamber growth, bypassed bitumen, water movement, and containment risk. The specialist will help optimize recovery, steam-oil ratio, injection strategy, and pad-development sequencing while clearly communicating uncertainty and business implications.
- As a senior integrator, the individual will lead multidisciplinary technical reviews, provide assurance of development and production recommendations, mentor less-experienced geoscientists, and communicate subsurface risks and opportunities to asset and investment leadership.
Skills and Qualifications
- Master’s degree or equivalent advanced degree in geology, geophysics, petroleum geoscience, geological engineering, or a related discipline.
- 10 + years of oil and gas industry experience, including significant involvement in in-situ heavy-oil development or production operations.
- Strong understanding of unconsolidated clastic reservoirs, sedimentology, stratigraphy, structural geology, petrophysics, geomodeling, and heavy-oil fluid behavior.
- Demonstrated ability to integrate geological models with injection, production, pressure, temperature, geomechanical, and surveillance data.
- Working knowledge of thermal-recovery processes, particularly SAGD and cyclic steam stimulation.
- Experience maturing well-pair, infill, pad-extension, conformance, or production-optimization opportunities.
- Strong technical judgment, uncertainty assessment, project leadership, and multidisciplinary communication skills.
- Ability to provide technical assurance, mentor staff, and influence operational and investment decisions.
- Right to work in the USA
Preferred Knowledge and Experience
- Direct experience with SAGD well-pair performance, steam-chamber development, conformance management, and steam-oil-ratio optimization.
- Experience with horizontal well placement, geosteering, pad planning, thermal surveillance, and post-well evaluation.
- Knowledge of caprock and reservoir geomechanics, maximum operating pressure, induced fractures, casing deformation, subsidence, heave, and containment risk.
- Experience integrating static models with thermal simulation, production forecasting, reserves assessment, and economic scenario analysis.
- Familiarity with applications such as Petrel, Geolog, Eclipse, INTERSECT, Spotfire, Power BI, and Python, or comparable tools.
- Experience with 4D seismic, observation wells, distributed temperature sensing, tracers, production logging, or other thermal-surveillance technologies.
- Demonstrated leadership of integrated pad-development studies, reservoir-management reviews, production-optimization programs, reserves evaluations, or investment decisions.
Looking for meaningful work? We can help
Raise is an established hiring firm with over 65 years of experience. We believe strongly in making the world a better place through work, which is why we’re a certified B Corporation and donate 10% of our profits to charity.
We strive to build teams that reflect the diversity of the communities we work in. We encourage all qualified applicants to apply, including people from traditionally underrepresented groups such as women, visible minorities, Indigenous peoples, people identifying as LGBTQ2SI, veterans, and people with visible/nonvisible disabilities.
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