Decarbonizing the energy sector is an urgent challenge, and with the right technology, geothermal energy can play a central role. We are expanding our team to help make this vision a reality. Fervo Energy has developed technology to make geothermal power scalable and cost-effective. Join us and work alongside world-class engineers, researchers, investors, and developers in making geothermal a key pillar of our climate-friendly energy future.
Description
The Reservoir Engineering Manager will be responsible for supervising and leading Fervo Energy’s reservoir engineering team to manage the company’s growing portfolio of geothermal assets across exploration, appraisal, development, and production. The Reservoir Engineering Manager will work alongside peers from Subsurface, Operations, Finance, and Development to develop strategic initiatives that align with near-term and long-term corporate growth plans. This role will be responsible for both technical engineering tasks (including wellfield development planning, executing data acquisition programs, production forecasting, and reserves characterization) as well as team management activities (hiring, budgeting, and planning). The Reservoir Engineering Manager will report directly to the CTO.
Responsibilities
- Team Leadership and Development: Lead, motivate, and inspire the reservoir engineering team, fostering professional growth and a collaborative work environment to enhance team performance and capabilities.
- Economic Evaluations: Collaborate with the finance team to create economic models that incorporate technical data to evaluate various development scenarios. Identify and characterize key technical risks and uncertainties and their economic implications. Evaluate investment opportunities and participate in data room management and technical due diligence requests.
- Wellfield Development Planning: Work closely with exploration and development geoscience teams to generate and recommend field exploration, appraisal, and development plans, assess well locations and spacing, and predict future field performance. Collaborate with power generation and surface facilities teams to insure alignment on well performance and power output requirements.
- Data Acquisition and Well Testing: Design and execute field trials, data acquisition programs, and well tests to gather essential reservoir diagnostics. Analyze datasets to optimize future well design and reservoir management strategies, using techniques such as fiber optics, DFIT tests, microseismic monitoring, pressure transient/rate transient analysis, and tracer tests.
- Geologic Modeling and Reservoir Simulation: Collaborate with geoscience teams to develop basin-wide geologic models. Integrate geomechanical models and subsurface stress characterization. Create and run pad and field scale reservoir simulation models, performing sensitivity analysis to optimize well performance. Evaluate and optimize stimulation treatment designs in close coordination with the completions engineering team.
- Production Forecasting: Develop type curves and conduct decline curve analysis for Fervo’s horizontal geothermal wells. Use reservoir simulation for history-matching production and forecasting future performance.
- Exploration and Land Acquisition: Identify and evaluate new exploration prospects and land acquisition targets to expand Fervo Energy’s geothermal asset portfolio.
- Reserves Management: Oversee all aspects related to corporate reserves, ensuring accurate reporting and compliance with industry standards. Conduct heat in place modeling and reserves characterization to support asset valuations and corporate growth strategy.
- Budget Management: Collaborate with Subsurface, Land, and Operations teams to develop budget forecasts and manage budgets for activities related to land acquisitions, drilling and completions, and data acquisition. Support cost reconciliations and identify cost savings opportunities.
- Technical Evaluation and Recommendations: Prepare and present comprehensive technical evaluations with actionable recommendations to executive leadership.
- Innovation and Technology Deployment: Partner with the CTO and cross-disciplinary teams to identify and evaluate opportunities to deploy innovative technologies that enhance reservoir performance.
- Industry Involvement: Actively participate in industry meetings and conferences to stay updated on the latest developments and foster networking opportunities.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering, chemical engineering, geological engineering, or related field of study.
- 8+ years of reservoir engineering experience in the oil and gas or geothermal industries.
- 10+ years of direct E&P experience working on a cross functional team, including 3+ years of management experience.
- Exposure to development planning and production analysis in multiple onshore unconventional plays and basins.
- Team oriented mindset: Ability, willingness, and proven track record of teaching and mentoring junior staff.
- Proficiency running commercial reservoir simulation software including Eclipse, Intersect, CMG, or TOUGH2.
- Experience running commercial or research hydraulic fracture simulation software, including ResFrac, GOHFER, Kinetix, StimPlan, FrackOptima, or similar
- Preferred: Master’s or PhD degree in an engineering discipline.
- Preferred: Project management experience in SAGD, water floods, hydraulic fracturing, and well stimulation techniques in unconventional oil and gas
- Preferred: Forecasting production and performing economic analysis using ARIES software
- Preferred: Experience in data analytics, machine learning, and AI for subsurface applications
- Preferred: Proficiency with Python programming
