Development Engineer – Reservoir & Production

Pennhills Resources•State College, PA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Pennhills Resources is seeking a full-time Development Engineer – Reservoir & Production to identify and execute development and production optimization opportunities across its growing asset base. The role combines reservoir analysis, economic evaluation, production data analysis, and field operations. The engineer will work closely with geology, land, drilling, operations, finance, and senior management to maximize the value of Pennhills Resources’ assets. The primary location is State College, Pennsylvania, with travel as needed to Kane, Pennsylvania, and field visits throughout Pennhills’ operating areas. Hybrid or remote flexibility is available based on business needs. The position is approximately 85% office-based and 15% field-based.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering or a related engineering discipline.
3–5 years of upstream oil and gas engineering experience.
Strong reservoir engineering fundamentals, including decline curve analysis, production forecasting, reserves, and EUR estimation.
Experience evaluating development, drilling, recompletion, or workover opportunities.
Meaningful exposure to production operations and field optimization.
Strong Excel, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
Ability to translate technical analysis into practical business recommendations.
Must be a U.S. citizen, national, permanent resident, or otherwise authorized to work in the United States.

Nice To Haves

At least 3 years of conventional oil and gas experience; Appalachian Basin experience is a plus.
Specialized coursework in petroleum economics or reservoir rock characteristics.
Experience with PDP/PUD reserves.
A&D or due diligence experience.
Experience with artificial lift, workovers, compression, or production optimization.
Experience with ARIES, PHDwin, ComboCurve, Enverus, Spotfire, or similar software.

Responsibilities

Evaluate producing and undeveloped assets to identify drilling, recompletion, workover, and other development opportunities.
Perform decline curve analysis, production forecasting, EUR estimation, reserve evaluations, and type-curve development.
Generate and mature development prospects in coordination with geology, land, drilling, and operations.
Develop multi-year development plans and rank opportunities based on production, reserves, capital requirements, risk, and economic return.
Develop technical assumptions for new projects, including IP, decline parameters, EUR, production profiles, CAPEX, and LOE.
Track actual well performance against forecasts and apply lessons learned to future development plans.
Develop cost-effective reservoir monitoring and surveillance programs, potentially acquiring and analyzing data for characterization, including decline curve analysis and PTA.
Work cross-functionally to maintain long-term budget forecasts and regularly update type-curve and expense forecasts.
Partner with field operations to optimize production and asset performance.
Evaluate artificial lift, pressure and drawdown management, compression, workovers, wellhead and flowline constraints, and facility optimization opportunities.
Analyze production underperformance, identify root causes, and recommend corrective actions.
Evaluate inactive wells and recommend whether to reactivate, work over, leave shut-in, or plug and abandon based on economic return, risk, and strategic value.
Work directly with field personnel to identify and implement practical production improvements.
Build technical and economic evaluations for drilling, workovers, production optimization projects, and acquisitions.
Support acquisition and divestiture due diligence by evaluating production, reserves, decline trends, operating costs, development upside, and technical risks.
Work with finance to incorporate engineering assumptions into budgets, forecasts, and investment models.
Evaluate projects using metrics such as IRR, NPV, payback, reserves, production, and capital efficiency.
Monitor project performance against original underwriting assumptions.
Serve as a technical bridge between engineering, geology, land, operations, finance, and management.
Present technical findings and recommendations clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
Help prioritize capital and development opportunities across Pennhills’ asset base.