Open to new roles

Professional Engineer (PE) · Project Management Professional (PMP)

Dylan Chennault

Petroleum engineer who turns field data into measurable savings. Five years across heavy oil production, subsurface reliability, and data systems in California's Central Valley.

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Based in: Bakersfield, CA
Most recently: Project Engineer, Project Management Office, California Resources Corporation
Focus: Industrial Operations & Data Science

$1.4M

Annual savings from a field-qualified pump technology

100+ BOEPD

Barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOEPD) added to base production on minimal capital

$500K

Annual material spend cut with no rise in failures

SELECTED WORK

California Resources Corporation · Project Engineer

Rescuing a flat rig-schedule pilot

A field-wide pilot of alternative rig schedules came back flat at the topline. I designed the pilot, then dug into the well-level data to isolate the wells that actually responded.

An estimated 20% cut in non-productive time on the responding wells

Python
SQL
Tableau
TIBCO Spotfire

California Resources Corporation · Project Engineer

One source of record for an acquisition

Two companies' subsurface data lived in hundreds of schemas with thousands of unique fields. I paired generative AI with SQL to map and reconcile them.

A single queryable source of record for the combined asset

Generative AI
SQL
Data Integration

Aera Energy · Production Engineer

Production from surveillance data

Mined surveillance data into a targeted package of stimulation candidates, and built a Tableau system for tracking non-rig jobs that kept working after handoff.

100+ BOEPD of added base production on minimal capital

Python
SQL
Tableau
Well Stimulation

Aera Energy · Production Engineer

Reliability that pays for itself

A field-qualified pump cut failure rates, netting $1.4M a year after pump cost. A non-American Petroleum Institute (API) rod classification kept thousands of reclaimed rods out of scrap and in non-critical wells, saving $500K a year with no rise in failures.

$1.9M a year in combined savings

Artificial Lift
Root Cause Analysis
Workover Design

ABOUT

I'm a licensed petroleum engineer and project manager based in Bakersfield. I trained as a chemical engineer at USC, went on to a master's in data science engineering at UCLA, and have worked from internships through project engineering at Aera Energy and California Resources Corporation.

My best work happens where operations and data overlap: finding the wells that responded in a pilot that looked flat, turning reclaimed rods into real savings, or reconciling an acquisition's data into one place people trust. I use Python, SQL, Tableau, and generative AI to get there, and I measure success by whether the gains hold after handoff.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

California Resources Corporation

Bakersfield, CA

Project Engineer, Project Management Office (PMO)08/2024 – 02/2026

Led data science projects across drilling, operations, capital, and well abandonment programs, building dashboards and SQL data pipelines for the California asset portfolio.

Designed and ran a field-wide rig-schedule pilot; when topline results were flat, isolated the responding wells with Python, SQL, Tableau, and TIBCO Spotfire, securing an estimated 20% cut in their non-productive time.
Unified subsurface data for the Aera Energy acquisition, pairing generative AI with SQL to reconcile hundreds of schemas and thousands of unique fields into a single queryable source of record.

Aera Energy LLC

Bakersfield, CA · Acquired by California Resources Corporation in 2024

Production Engineer, Coalinga Heavy Oil Surveillance04/2023 – 08/2024

Maximized safe production for the Coalinga heavy oil asset through lift optimization, acid stimulation, and cyclic steam; led production meetings and business reviews.

Grew base production by 100+ BOEPD on minimal capital by mining surveillance data with Python, SQL, and Tableau into a targeted package of stimulation candidates.
Built and owned a Tableau-based system for tracking and executing non-rig jobs, cutting non-productive time with gains that held after handoff.

Production Engineer, Subsurface Reliability06/2021 – 04/2023

Engineered workover well plans, including rod, pump, and tubing design, and managed rig and checkout crew backlog with on-site oversight in Belridge and Lost Hills.

Generated $1.4M in annual savings by field-qualifying a novel pump technology and driving it into standard practice.
Cut $500K in annual material spend with no rise in failure rates by authoring a non-American Petroleum Institute (API) sucker rod classification that rerouted thousands of reclaimed rods from scrap to non-critical wells.

Data Science Intern05/2020 – 08/2020

Shipped a Python tool that scored every add-pay opportunity in a deep, light, sweet crude reservoir, producing a self-updating shortlist of the top 3% of candidates.

Production Engineering Intern05/2019 – 08/2019

Prioritized flowing-risk mitigation across a 1,500-well portfolio using probabilistic models in JMP.

USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Los Angeles, CA

Sustainable Energy Engineer10/2020 – 12/2020

Developed plans to convert orphaned wells into compressed-air energy storage, identifying sites capable of holding 5+ MWh of surplus renewable generation.

Researcher, Geosystems Engineering and Multiphysics (GEM) Lab03/2018 – 05/2019

Coupled lab experiments with finite element modeling to image hydraulic fracture geometry from offset-well pressure data; published and presented at the 2020 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Western Regional Meeting.