Kyle May had the opportunity to work at Liberty Pioneer Energy Source and gain footing in his desired career. Click here to read more!
Please briefly describe your internship experience.
During my time at Liberty Pioneer Energy Source, I have learned a plethora of valuable skills that I strongly believe will give me the advantage in my pursuits toward a career in the oil and gas industry upon graduation. Liberty Pioneer is a smaller company located in Orem, Utah licensed to drill in the states of Utah, Colorado, and Texas. They specialize in upstream oil and own thousands of acres of mineral rights across these three states. During my experience with the company I have had the opportunity to inspect these currently producing wells and take part in on-site chemical treatment meetings. In all of my endeavors with the company, I have truly felt that the CEO and Vice President have done all they can to benefit me in my career path; they truly want me to succeed. One of my main tasks within the company are to locate and acquire mineral rights in Duchesne and Uintah Counties. The process involves looking at hundreds of leases a day, deciphering whether or not the lease has expired/released, and contacting the owner of those mineral rights if that particular parcel of land is not held by production. To enhance this somewhat tedious procedure of checking for land held by production, I took on the task of creating a comprehensive guide to well spacing orders for held-by-production wells increasing time efficiency by 60% compared to previous processes. This finding process facilitates company expansion into other mineral rich territories. Thus far, the company has signed leases for 3% of a 640-acre section I have located in Duchesne County resulting in steady company profits of $30,000 per year. Within the upcoming weeks, they plan to sign more leases on land I have found. Another one of my main tasks as an oil and gas intern is to project conservative economic decline curves via PHDWin, an oil and gas production analysis software. Doing this allows our investors to get an idea of how consistent our oil and gas production has been the past 10 to 20 years. This is also essential in the decision-making process as to where to drill next. By analyzing public data of currently producing wells held by other companies, we are able to get an idea of where the mineral rich lands lie with help from our geologist team. They take the oil and gas production analysis to the next level through a series of ground tests that tell us where to frack.
What was the most useful thing you learned from your internship?
The most useful thing I learned during my time at Liberty Pioneer was how to interact on a professional level. Since it is a smaller company, I had the opportunity to have daily face time with the CEO and Vice President. I learned valuable communication skills through them that I have since taken with me to my second internship at Northrop Grumman Propulsion Systems in the aerospace engineering industry. Though these fields are far from similar in a plethora of ways, The business and communication skills I learned at Liberty Pioneer translate in my meetings, assignments, and even my schoolwork.
How did your courses and your major prepare you for your internship?
One of the main ways in which this internship has helped me with my future career goals is its influence on my desire to work in the oil and gas industry upon graduation. I am fascinated by the extraction process as well as the refinement process. One experience in particular that was a major factor in persuading my decision was on a business trip to Price, Utah. While visiting a wells site, I was given the opportunity to track production of a coal bed methane field and analyze chemical treatment. This was in order to improve production and mitigate well decay and damage caused by salts and other impurities in the pipes. It was hands on experiences like this that helped me relate principles that I had learned in my reaction engineering classes at Brigham Young University to my work at Liberty Pioneer. I was able to apply chemical engineering process principles such as kinetics and reaction rates in a plug flow reactor to the work force. My fascination has only grown as I have developed greater understanding of the extraction and refinement procedures of these coal bed methane fields.
Would you recommend this internship to other students? Why?
Yes, it is a great way to get your foot in the door to the chemical engineering industry no matter what field you want to end up in. For all those interested, a job description is listed below. Liberty Pioneer Energy Source Internship Job Description 1. Finding open land parcels on the Duchesne County Database that have not currently leased mineral rights so we can purchase said rights and start oils and gas extraction processes. 2. Analysis of trends and abnormalities concerning currently producing oil and gas extraction wells using PHDwin software (in the future) 3. Creating maps that accurately portray land held by currently producing oil and gas wells. 4. Contacting land owners about purchasing mineral rights (in the future). 5. Create a database of leases to expire in the future and updating that database regularly. 6. Use iLandman software to monitor and track Rockies Standard Oil mineral rights as well as land percentages owned by the company. 7. Regularly make trips out to our currently producing oil and gas wells and be trained on how they operate as well as begin extraction operations ourselves. 8. Trained on the oil/salt reaction that takes place that causes wells not to produce any longer and engineer possible solutions that will prolong that period to optimize extraction efficiency
