3 Ways You Can Make A Living Off Mud

The moniker "mud man" can be quite unsettling

, but a drilling fluids engineer is responsible for what is one of the most important engineering feats in our modern economy. Of course, like mathematical engineers who wire up our finance system or the humble Major sitting in front of the NATO nuclear trigger terminal, these hardworking women and men seldom get the credit due to them.

A mud engineer works on one of the countless oil well or rig all over the world, ensuring that drilling fluids are dumped down the deposit without a glitch. It is hardly the most glamorous job description in the world if you don't know anything about oil exploration, so let's start from the basics.

*A Note On Mud: When you bore a hole down the bedrock, all sorts of geological fluid are going to creep up. Mud pushes it back where it belongs, and in the process lubricates and cools the drill bit. The fluid needs to be of a carefully controlled consistency so that it neither blocks the nozzles nor becomes as fluid as to leave rock cuttings behind. Unless hydrostatic pressure is properly controlled, a kick or even a blowout can occur.

*So What Does A Mud Man Do? You will first need to work out a mud programme that sits well with the on-site geology. Since many offshore oil rigs now use an oil-based synthetic "mud", you will need to determine which chemicals to use in specific ratios. A deeper borehole needs proportionally more mud, so you need to make sure all additions stay within specification.

As anyone who's worked at a construction site will attest, the ground holds up quite a few surprises. All the surveying in the world will not prepare you for the boulder deep down that simply wouldn't budge, or an unwelcome swamp of a substrata just when you're about to reach bedrock. In this case you'll simply have to change the mud in order to accommodate with Mother Nature.

The mud engineer gets to make the call, because if anything goes wrong, he or she will definitely take the blame. The mud logger will update you as soon as the readings come through, but you'll have to keep an eye on the equipment, the physical and chemical properties of the mud, and make an instantaneous judgement when and if the esteemed geologists turned out to be completely clueless. (They often are.)

*How To Get A Job As A Mud Engineer: You could be a degree holder or a high school dropout: as with many oil rig jobs, nothing really matters so long as you know what you're doing. A derrick hand on shore or a pump man offshore would be the ideal prerequisite for attendance at a training course, imaginatively named "mud school". You will be working as an apprentice under a senior mud engineer, because no amount of schooling can compete with hands-on experience.

This career lubricates the whole world's economy, and calls for an attention to detail, technical know-how, as well as a dash of bravado. Give it a go today.

by: Susan Bean

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