Office of Permitting & Compliance – Engineering

The Office of Permitting and Compliance (OPC) oversees all permitting and regulatory functions within the Department, ensuring clarity, consistency, and regulatory integrity. By streamlining processes, accelerating permitting timelines and enhancing data-driven decision-making, the Office ensures compliance with environmental standards while supporting responsible economic development.

OPC centralizes all permitting and compliance functions, aligning engineering, geology, ecology, design, and compliance divisions into a single workflow. Its structure includes integrity and production audits, UIC and storage regulation, groundwater protection, coastal permits and mitigation, and reservoir and legacy site management.

This Petroleum Scientist 1, 2, or 3 position will ensure waste disposal practices regulated by the Engineering Division will not result in the introduction of contaminants into surface waters, subsurface geologic strata containing underground sources of drinking water, or endanger mineral resources of the state.

A bachelor’s degree in a geoscience field or engineering.

The official job specifications for this role, as defined by the State Civil Service, can be found here.

This Petroleum Scientist 1, 2, or 3 position is located within the Engineering Division of the Office Permitting & Compliance and is domiciled in Baton Rouge, LA. This position reports to the Petroleum Scientist Supervisor. The incumbent performs highly responsible engineering work of an administrative and technical nature pursuant to the Louisiana UIC program and certain additional E&P and industrial waste disposal activities. All work is performed in accordance with departmental policies, procedures, rules, and regulations. The position requires inter-parish travel. The Incumbent can expect to travel approximately 15% of the time.

Duties include, but are not limited to the following:

• Reviews permit applications submitted to the IMD for conformance with state regulations, including those for drilling, converting, and working-over injection wells.
• Reviews applications requesting authority to permanently plug and abandon injection wells to ensure that the procedure used will conform to state and federal protection criteria.
• Conducts technical review of applications to encapsulate NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) contaminated waste in wells slated for abandonment.
• Performs technical reviews of active injection wells to ensure that the method of well construction adequately provides for isolation of the USDW from the injection zone.
• Conducts investigations concerning the design, construction, maintenance, and operation of wells at existing facilities.
• Inspects and monitors by-product operations, including hazardous waste injections wells, solution mining of salt, hydrocarbon storage in solution-mined salt caverns, enhanced oil recovery wells, oil and gas exploration and production waste injection wells, commercial waste disposal facilities, and carbon sequestration injection wells.
• Performs the review and interpretation of pressure transient tests, radioactive tracer surveys, well logs, in-situ reservoir stress tests, and any other test data required in the permitting process.
• Maintains files on waste disposal wells, salt dome cavern operations, carbon sequestration operations, and site operations.
• Performs technical review of applications for permits to dispose of drilling and/or workover waste down the annuli of production wells pursuant to LAC 43:XIX.315.
• Provides training of coworkers in any tasks presented herein or otherwise requested by a supervisor.
• May perform other duties as assigned.

POSITION-SPECIFIC DETAILS:

Appointment Type: Probational

Career Progression: This position does participate in a Career Progression Group PETROLEUM SCIENTIST 1-3.

Work Schedule: Work hours are flexible.

Compensation: The salary offered will be determined based on qualifications and experience. This position is eligible for premium pay of up to $2.00 per hour for licensed employees. A Special Entrance Rate (SER) is offered to qualified applicants.

Louisiana is a State As a Model Employer (SAME) that supports the recruitment, hiring, and retention of individuals with disabilities.

How To Apply:

No Civil Service test score is required in order to be considered for this vacancy.

To apply for this vacancy, click on the “Apply” link above and complete an electronic application, which can be used for this vacancy as well as future job opportunities. Applicants are responsible for checking the status of their application to determine where they are in the recruitment process. Further status message information is located under the Information section of the Current Job Opportunities page.

* Information to support your eligibility for the position must be included in the application (i.e., relevant, detailed experience/education). Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of completed education and experience sections. Applications may be rejected if incomplete.

For further information about this vacancy contact:

Human Resources

Department of Energy and Natural Resources

PO Box 94396

Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9396

Email: DNR-Recruiting@la.gov