Petroleum Engineer.

Duties

• Duties will be developmental in nature when filled below the full performance level.
• Reviews and analyzes drilling proposals to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and BLM policy.
• Prepares final determinations and recommendations for approval/denial of the applications and prepares related correspondence for management's signature.
• Serve as a highly skilled specialist providing advanced petroleum engineering expertise in oil and gas field operations on federal oil and gas leases when complex and unconventional practices are regularly encountered.
• Provide technical expertise and support to the Petroleum Engineering Technicians and Petroleum Accounting Technicians concerning oil and gas inspection and enforcement issues.
• Identify potential drainage situations using standard engineering and economic principles including decline curve analysis, ultimate recoverable reserves and economic limit.
• Reviews operator submittals to plug and abandon wells.
• Evaluates wire line logs and drilling reports to determine amount of cement, cement bond, size of hole, condition of hole, casing in hole, and fluid shows in order to design a well plugging program that protects surfaces.
  
  

Requirements

Conditions of employment

• U.S. Citizenship is required.
• Be sure to read the 'How to Apply' and 'Required Documents' Sections.
• You cannot hold an active real estate license: nor can you have an interest or hold stocks in firms with interest in Federal Lands.
• Direct Deposit Required.
• Appointment will be subject to a favorably adjudicated background/suitability investigation/determination.
• Your resume must contain enough information to show that you meet the qualification requirements as defined in the announcement. In addition, your responses to the questions must adequately reflect in your resume.
• If selected for this position, you will be required to annually complete a Confidential Financial Disclosure Report, OGE-450 within 30 days of reporting to duty.
• You must be 18 years of age or older to be assigned to a hazardous position.
• May require a one-year probationary trial period.
• Merit promotion applicants must meet time-in-grade requirement as defined in 5 CFR 300, Subpart F.
• Individuals assigned male at birth after 12-31-59 must be registered for the Selective Service. To verify registration, visit SSS.gov.
  
  

Qualifications

In order to be rated as qualified for this position, we must be able to determine that you meet the qualification requirements - please be sure to include this information in your resume. No assumptions will be made about your experience.

You must meet one of the following Basic Requirements in order to be eligible for this position; please see the Education section for the Basic Requirements

• AND--
  
  

To qualify for the GS-09: At least one full year of specialized experience comparable in scope and responsibility to the GS-07 grade level in the Federal service (obtained in either the public or private sectors). This experience may include all of the following:

• Assisting higher-level petroleum engineers in the exploration, development and production of oil and gas resources including: well design, well completion, workover, and plugging
• Working independently to carry out routine engineering assignments that require the applications of mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences to the petroleum engineering field and progressively carrying out more complex assignments (i.e., abandonment and reservoir engineering and analysis) under supervision
• Providing basic recommendations and advise senior staff regarding onshore oil and gas situations or complications; assist with diverse engineering projects
• Provide technical guidance and assist with on-site onshore oil and gas inspections
  
  

-OR-

EDUCATION: 2 years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to a master's degree or master's or equivalent graduate degree.

• OR-
  
  

Successful completion of a combination of education and experience as described above. You must include transcripts.

To qualify for the GS-11: At least one full year of specialized experience comparable in scope and responsibility to the GS-09 grade level in the Federal service (obtained in either the public or private sectors). This experience may include all of the following:

• Providing petroleum engineering expertise to carry out difficult and conventional assignments
• Unconventional applications including those covering unprecedented, complex and/or novel proposals needing senior engineering assistance
• Investigating and analyzing reservoir management problems and drainage determining drainage areas and volumes providing professional petroleum engineering and regulatory review and making recommendations for approval of conventional oil and gas applications and inspecting oil and gas activities for conformance with standards and compliance
  
  

-OR-

EDUCATION: Successful completion of at least 3 years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree. You must include transcripts.

• OR-
  
  

Successful completion of a combination of education and experience as described above.

To qualify for the GS-12: At least one full year of specialized experience comparable in scope and responsibility to the GS-11 grade level in the Federal service (obtained in either the public or private sectors). This experience may include all of the following:

• Performing technical review and makes recommendations for approval of all down-hole operations
• Reviews downhole pressures, casing and cementing plans, blow out prevention equipment, geology and other procedures to protect people, minerals, and aquifers
• Coordinates with other specialists; provides on-the-spot instructions and authorizations for final plugging and abandonment of wells
• Provides technical expertise and support to junior Petroleum Engineers, Petroleum Engineering Technicians, and Petroleum Accounting Technicians concerning oil and gas inspection and enforcement issues; conducts both engineering and economic analyses to determine viability of proposals/variances and their respective short and long term benefits
• Reviews well data, leases, spacing units/communization agreements and/or federal units for various compliance issues, and maintains relative spreadsheets
• Provides various technical reports to management and state office for higher level meetings
• Provides expertise to management regarding complex technical issues
  
  

There is no substitution of education for experience at this grade level.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

You must meet all qualification requirements by the closing date of the announcement.

Time In Grade Requirement: Applicants must meet both eligibility and qualification requirements for the position of interest by the closing date of the JOA. Specifically,

i. Area of Consideration.

ii. Time-in-grade (TIG) requirements as specified in 5 CFR 300, Subpart F.

iii. Time after competitive appointment as specified in 5 CFR 330.502.

iv. Qualification requirements outlined in OPM's Qualifications Standards for General Schedule Positions or for Federal Wage System (FWS), wage grade positions, applicants are evaluated using the OPM Job Qualification System for Trades and Labor Occupations and the job element examining method

Education

You must meet one of the following Basic Requirements in order to be eligible for this position;

Petroleum Engineer- 0881 Series Basic Requirements

• Degree: Engineering. To be acceptable, the program must: (1) lead to a bachelor's degree in a school of engineering with at least one program accredited by ABET; or (2) include differential and integral calculus and courses (more advanced than first-year physics and chemistry) in five of the following seven areas of engineering science or physics: (a) statics, dynamics; (b) strength of materials (stress-strain relationships); (c) fluid mechanics, hydraulics; (d) thermodynamics; (e) electrical fields and circuits; (f) nature and properties of materials (relating particle and aggregate structure to properties); and (g) any other comparable area of fundamental engineering science or physics, such as optics, heat transfer, soil mechanics, or electronics. --OR--
• Combination of education and experience -- college-level education, training, and/or technical experience that furnished (1) a thorough knowledge of the physical and mathematical sciences underlying engineering, and (2) a good understanding, both theoretical and practical, of the engineering sciences and techniques and their applications to one of the branches of engineering. The adequacy of such background must be demonstrated by one of the following:
• Professional registration or licensure -- Current registration as an Engineer Intern (EI), Engineer in Training (EIT), or licensure as a Professional Engineer (PE) by any State, the District of Columbia, Guam, or Puerto Rico. Absent other means of qualifying under this standard, those applicants who achieved such registration by means other than written test (e.g., State grandfather or eminence provisions) are eligible only for positions that are within or closely related to the specialty field of their registration. For example, an applicant who attains registration through a State Board's eminence provision as a manufacturing engineer typically would be rated eligible only for manufacturing engineering positions.
• Written Test -- Evidence of having successfully passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE)2 examination or any other written test required for professional registration by an engineering licensure board in the various States, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
• Specified academic courses -- Successful completion of at least 60 semester hours of courses in the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences and that included the courses specified in the basic requirements under paragraph A. The courses must be fully acceptable toward meeting the requirements of an engineering program as described in paragraph A.
• Related curriculum -- Successful completion of a curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in an appropriate scientific field, e.g., engineering technology, physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology, may be accepted in lieu of a bachelor's degree in engineering, provided the applicant has had at least 1 year of professional engineering experience acquired under professional engineering supervision and guidance. Ordinarily there should be either an established plan of intensive training to develop professional engineering competence, or several years of prior professional engineering-type experience, e.g., in interdisciplinary positions. (The above examples of related curricula are not all-inclusive.)
  

PROOF OF EDUCATION: All applicants who are using education or a combination of education and experience to qualify must submit copies of official or unofficial transcripts which include grades, credit hours earned, major(s), grade point average or class ranking, institution name, and student name. If any required coursework is not easily recognizable on transcripts, or if you believe a portion of a particular course can be credited toward meeting an educational requirement, you must also provide a memorandum on letterhead from the institution's registrar, dean, or other appropriate official stating the percentage of the course that should be considered to meet the requirement and the equivalent number of units. Unofficial transcripts are acceptable; however, if you are selected for the position, you will be required to produce the original official transcripts.

GRADUATE EDUCATION: One academic year of graduate education is considered to be the number of credits hours your graduate school has determined to represent one academic year of full-time study. Such study may have been performed on a full-time or part-time basis. If you cannot obtain your graduate school's definition of one year of graduate study, 18 semester hours (or 27 quarter hours) should be considered as satisfying the requirement for one year of full-time graduate study.

FOREIGN EDUCATION: If you are using education completed in foreign colleges or universities to meet the qualification requirements, you must show the education credentials have been evaluated by a private organization that specializes in interpretation of foreign education programs and such education has been deemed equivalent to that gained in an accredited U.S. education program; or full credit has been given for the courses at a U.S. accredited college or university. For further information, visit:

Additional information

DOI uses E-Verify to confirm employment eligibility of all newly hired employees. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, please visit

PCS INFORMATION:No PCS entitlements authorized.

Certain incentives (such as Recruitment, Relocation or Student Loan Repayment) may be authorized to eligible selectees. If eligible and qualified, you may be offered a recruitment or relocation incentive. The decision to offer an incentive will be made on a case-by-case basis and is neither promised nor guaranteed. For information visit: or or

Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP)/lnteragency Career Transition Assistance Program (ICTAP): These programs apply to employees who have been involuntarily separated from a Federal service position within the competitive service or Federal service employees whose positions have been deemed surplus or no longer needed. To receive selection priority, you must: 1) meet CTAP or ICTAP eligibility criteria; 2) be rated well qualified for the position with a score of 90 or above; and 3) submit the appropriate documentation to support your CTAP or ICTAP eligibility. For more information:

Males born after 12/31/59 must be registered for

Travel and relocation expenses will not be paid by the Department of the Interior. Any travel, transportation and relocation expenses associated with reporting for duty in this position will be the responsibility of the selected employee.

Required

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary or two-year trail period or during which your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest will be evaluated. This probationary or trial period is an extension of the appointment process and therefore requires the agency to determine if continued employment would advance the public interest, meet the organization goals and mission of the agency, and/or otherwise promote the efficiency of the service. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, the agency will consider:

• your performance and conduct;
• the needs and interests of the agency;
• whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
• whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.
  
  

Under applicable law, the employment of an individual serving a probationary or trial period automatically terminates when that period ends unless the agency affirmatively certifies, in writing, that the individual's employment should continue and that their appointment should be finalized. In the absence of agency action to affirmatively certify continued employment beyond the probationary or trial period, such appointments are terminated. Upon completion of your probationary period or trial period your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding.

Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.