Chemical Technician and Technologist Spotlight

Chemical Technicians and Technologists help transform raw materials into a variety of products. From conducting experiments to quality testing chemicals and materials, their knowledge of chemicals and their transformations is a valuable commodity in oil and gas exploration, production, transportation, storage and upgrading.

What a typical day looks like:

Most Chemical Technicians and Technologists spend their days in a laboratory or production facility conducting experiments and compiling the results. While in the lab, they experiment with industrial processes in the upstream, midstream or downstream oil and gas sectors. They create formulas, optimize environmental performance and develop synthetic products. They also maintain, clean and sterilize the lab instruments and equipment that they use.

Chemical Technicians and Technologists can also have specialties. For example, they may specialize in cement and experiment with creating the ideal cement formula for a new well. Depending on where the well is located, ground conditions may dictate a slower or faster setting rate for the cement. Occasionally, they will be sent out to the field to gather samples for future testing.

Chemical Technicians and Technologists may be exposed to potentially hazardous materials, so they need to wear protective or safety equipment including safety glasses, hearing protection, hard hats and gloves.

The kinds of problems Chemical Technicians and Technologists solve at work:

Chemical Technicians and Technologists are expected to experiment with the expected and the unexpected. They are presented with existing dilemmas and work hard to develop new processes and formulas that will make things better. They might be involved in environmental research and development which would allow them to develop new technologies, energy efficient extraction and new cutting-edge processes for land reclamation.

Skills used most on the job:

Chemical Technicians and Technologists are naturally curious and like to continuously learn new things. They understand chemical properties and processes and are able to use that knowledge to solve problems and troubleshoot. Since their final products are used in various areas of operations, they also need to work well with other people from a variety of backgrounds.

Using laboratory experiments and chemical know-how, these technicians and technologists make new formulas and products that make the oil and gas facilities work better. They help take the industry two steps forward.