Josh Prater

About Josh Prater

Hi, I\'m Josh and here’s my story. I entered college as a geology major not really knowing what that career would entail. The geo\'s really try their best to hook you with camping and field trips but my passion and brain are ultimately more suited to engineering.After graduation I landed my first job. As a field engineer, I was overseeing workovers and completions. The most interesting job I helped coordinate was on a pad in the Fayetteville where we had 3 frac companies completing a simul-frac.From there, I started as a Production Engineer. The other Production Engineer I worked with broke up the AOR and gave me the old, depleted, problem wells. The fun thing about old depleted wells is that there\'s plenty to fix! I was able to install the first PHL pumping unit in the company, add 1.6 BCF reserves to a 2-year shut in well from a simple methanol water block treatment, reduce LOE by resizing WH compressors, etc.As much as I enjoyed the Production role, CHK was running 170 rigs. I wanted to make an impact and drilling was the place to be. Day 1 I was given 2 rigs with no supervision, seriously NONE! It worked out though and in <6 months I was the DE for 5 rigs. It was fun and the problems to solve in the Miss Lime were dry drilling laterals with 0 returns, eliminate major NPT, and improve flat time with better planning.In 2013 I moved into the Marcellus which is my most proud career accomplishment to date. The Marcellus was established with ~800 wells drilled, 5-6k avg LL, and flat performance. The wells are faulted, fractured, and geomechanically complex with bed dips and targets climbing to 100 deg, down to 80, and back up in the same well. Lasering in on mud/solids control, hole cleaning/drilling practices, T&D modeling, employing larger step-outs to reduce pads, casing floatation, etc. transformed the asset. The well cost reduced ~$1.3MM and have avg LL of 10-12k. Twice the lateral for 2/3 the cost = a lot of 100% ROR inventory.Too much success leads to a lot of DUC\'s, which moved me to Reservoir. Reservoir was great and I wish I had more time to learn and master the role before business need brought me back to drilling. Over the next several years I worked the Utica, got in early on the Brazos Eagle Ford wells from the Wildhorse acquisition, and took on more leadership r••••••••@gmail.com

Experience

1. Drilling Superintendent

   repsol

   Jul 2025 — Present · The Woodlands, TX, US

   Serving as a hybrid office/field based Drilling Superintendent for the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas and the Marcellus Shale in Northeast Pennsylvania. Responsibilities include ensuring execution of engineering design and procedures, operational decision making, rig evaluation/selection, directly managing Drilling Foreman and Wellsite Drilling Engineers, location/pad layout configuration, SIMOPs reviews and risk assessments, ensuring compliance with internal and external policies and regulations, and shepherding a behavioral based S&E culture,

Education

• Missouri University of Science and Technology

  Bachelor of Science - BS, Petroleum Engineering

  2003 — 2008

• Missouri University of Science and Technology

  Bachelor of Science - BS, Geology & Geophysics

  2003 — 2008

• Oklahoma State University

  Master of Business Administration - MBA, Business Administration and Management, General

  2021 — 2024