Well Logging Supervisor Licence Conditions in Qatar
October 6, 2026
11 min read
DITEC Experts, Radiation Protection Team, ALDuha Institute for Training and Environmental Consulting
The one entry in this group with a stated course duration
One point before anything else. Meeting the conditions in the Decision is what you can prepare for. Whether a licence is granted, and when, is a decision of the competent authority alone, and nothing in this explanation and nothing in any course is a commitment that a licence will be issued or that it will be issued within a given period. What this article does is set out the condition as the instrument states it and point to the training that bears on it.
Well logging is the radiation practice that sits closest to the contracts in the Qatari market. A logging run lowers a sealed source into a borehole inside a tool on a cable, logs the formation on the way out, and recovers the source to its shielded container, and the run is not treated as finished until a radiation measurement establishes that the source is back in that container. It is done on a rig floor that belongs to an operator, by a crew that belongs to a service company, under a programme written by a third party. The licence that the Qatari framework puts at the top of that crew is the well logging supervisor, and the conditions for it are in the schedule attached to Decision 4 of 2007 at item 4 of the industrial applications.
The conditions are not in the Radiation Protection Law and not in the 2003 Executive Regulation. They are in a separate instrument whose preamble records that it was issued having regard to the Regulation and in particular to Article 25 of it, and on the recommendation of the Radiation Protection Committee. Its issuing article then does one thing only: the conditions for licences to work in the fields of radiation work, attached to this Decision, shall apply. So the conditions live in the schedule and not in the two short articles that issue it, and a reader who stops at the two articles finds nothing.
Item 4 is worth reading on its own before it is read against the two entries below it, because it carries two features that appear nowhere else in the three well logging entries. It is the only one of them whose training condition states a minimum duration, and it is the only one that asks for the course to come from a body rather than from a centre. Both of those are differences in the wording of the instrument, and this article records them without reading a rule into either.
The opening formula, and the condition that is not in the item
Item 4 opens with the formula that opens all three well logging entries: the following conditions must be present in the person who is granted a licence to work as a well logging supervisor. The formula attaches the conditions to a person and not to an employer, requires them cumulatively, and ties the licence to a named function. A company does not hold a supervisor licence for its crew, and a person licensed as a logging operator is not a supervisor because the rig programme calls him one.
Then come four conditions, and that number is itself the first thing to notice. Item 4, quoted here in full, lists the first university degree, the specialist well logging course, five years of practical experience, and the prescribed medical examination. There is no condition in item 4 requiring a radiation protection course in industrial applications. The entry below it, the logging operator, carries that condition in both of its paragraphs, and the entry below that, the assistant, carries it as well.
We state that as a reading of the item and we stop there. It is not an invitation to treat radiation protection as optional for a supervisor, and it is not a claim that the instrument intended the gap. Two things are worth holding together. The first is that a licensing condition is not the whole of the obligation: the protection duties that the Law, the Regulation and the conditions of a facility licence place on a licensee are not reduced by the absence of a training condition in this item. The second is that a supervisor who has not passed the industrial radiation protection course is supervising two licensed roles who are both required by name to have passed it, which is a practical argument for taking it and not a condition of the Decision. If your file turns on this point, put the item to the Ministry as it is written and ask.
The four conditions, read one by one
The academic condition is that he hold the first university degree in engineering or sciences, at minimum. The field is fixed to engineering or sciences, the level is a first university degree, and at minimum raises the floor without widening the field: a first degree in a family the condition does not name is not reached by the phrase at all. Whether a particular qualification sits above or below that floor, and how it is treated as equivalent, is for the competent authority, and the question is put in the words of the item.
The training condition is the one that distinguishes this item: that he pass a specialist training course in the field of well logging of not less than four weeks in duration from an approved body. Four separate requirements sit inside that one line, and collapsing them is the commonest defect we see on a supervisor file. The course must be a training course; it must be specialist; its subject must be the field of well logging; and its duration must be not less than four weeks. On top of those, the source of the course is qualified: it is to come from an approved body.
The duration is the condition that is easiest to measure and the one most often left without evidence. A certificate that names a course and a date but no duration does not show that the condition is met, and a course of three weeks does not meet it however specialist its content. Ask the provider for the contact hours or the calendar dates on the certificate itself, before the course rather than after it. And note what the condition does not say: it does not say four weeks of a particular kind of week, it does not name a syllabus, and it does not name a provider. Those are matters the Decision leaves to the authority, and the Institute does not fill them in for you.
The experience condition is that he have practical experience in well logging of not less than five years, and the medical condition is that he pass the prescribed medical examination. The experience is qualified twice: practical, and in well logging. Five years on a rig in another discipline is not in the field the condition names, and a letter that gives a job title and a date range is evidence of employment rather than of that field. The medical condition says the examination is the prescribed one, and this item does not set out its content: ask the Ministry which examination is prescribed, by what standard, and at what interval, and keep the answer in writing with the licence file. The medical examination is a condition of fitness for the licence. It is not a protective measure, and it does not stand in for radiation protection training or for anything in operational protection.
The three well logging entries compared
The schedule builds the three logging entries as a ladder, and the differences between the rungs are where the practical questions sit. The table compares items 4, 5 and 6 of the industrial applications. It is a reading of those three items, all three of which are quoted in full in the verified text behind this series, and nothing is added to it.
Items 4 to 6 of the industrial applications
| Condition | Supervisor, item 4 | Operator, item 5 | Assistant, item 6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academic level | First university degree in engineering or sciences, at minimum | General secondary or equivalent at minimum in paragraph A; a diploma in a branch of engineering or sciences, two years after general secondary, at minimum, in paragraph B | General secondary certificate or its equivalent |
| Well logging training | Specialist training course, not less than four weeks in duration, from an approved body | A training course in the field of well logging from an approved centre, with an alternative examination decided by the authority, in paragraph A; a specialist training course from an approved centre in paragraph B | Training course from an approved centre |
| Industrial radiation protection course | No such condition in the item | Required in both paragraphs | Required |
| Experience | Not less than five years, practical, in well logging | Not less than three years in paragraph A, not less than one year in paragraph B, practical, in well logging | No experience condition in the item |
| Prescribed medical examination | Required | Required | Required |
| Split into practices before and after the Law | Single set of conditions | Split into paragraph A and paragraph B | Single set of conditions |
What to settle before the file is assembled
The condition is one thing and the file that demonstrates it is another. Below is the order we use when a client asks us to look at a logging supervisor file before it is submitted. It is the Institute's own working practice, and the items set out in this explanation impose no form of file.
Preparing a logging supervisor file
Put the duration on the certificate before you put the certificate in the file
- Item 4 is the only entry in this group whose training condition states a minimum duration, and a certificate that does not state a duration cannot evidence it. Ask the provider to state the dates or the contact hours on the certificate, and ask before the course is paid for.
- A later letter from the provider is second best and is sometimes all that can be obtained. It is still better than an inference from a course title.
Ask about the approved body in the words the item uses
- This item asks for the course from an approved body, and the two entries below it ask for their courses from an approved centre. The items quoted here do not define either term and do not say who gives the approval. So the question to the Ministry names the course, names the provider, and quotes the words of the item, and the reply is kept.
Document five years against well logging, not against the rig
- The condition is five years of practical experience in well logging. A letter that says five years in wireline services, or in field operations, is not evidence of the field the condition names. Ask the previous employer for the dates, the practice, the source types worked with and the role held.
Decide the radiation protection course on its merits, not on the item
- Item 4 does not require it, and the two entries the supervisor supervises require it by name. We put that to clients as a competence question and not as a licensing condition. The absence of a training condition in this item reduces nothing: the protection duties that the Law, the Regulation and the conditions of the facility licence place on the licensee, and on the person supervising radiation work, apply in full whether or not the course has been passed.
- Whatever you decide, do not record a radiation protection certificate in the file as though it answered the specialist well logging condition. They are different subjects and the item names only one of them.
Questions we are asked about this item
Does a well logging supervisor need the industrial radiation protection course?
Item 4, quoted here in full, lists four conditions and none of them is that course. The operator entry and the assistant entry below it both require it by name. We read the item as it stands and we do not read the gap as a statement that protection training is unnecessary for a supervisor: the protection duties a licensee carries under the Law and the Regulation are a separate matter from the training conditions in this schedule. If the point is material to your file, put item 4 to the Ministry as written and ask.
Is a three-week specialist logging course enough?
The condition states a minimum of four weeks, so a three-week course is below the figure the item gives whatever its content. The condition is one line with four requirements inside it, and duration is one of the four: the course must be a training course, specialist, in the field of well logging, and not less than four weeks. A certificate that is silent on duration does not evidence that fourth requirement, which is why we ask clients to settle it with the provider before the course and not after the file is returned.
What is the difference between an approved body and an approved centre?
The Decision uses one word for the provider of the course in the operator and assistant entries and another in the supervisor entry, and it defines neither and does not say who gives the approval. So we record the difference in wording and we do not build a rule on it, which is the practice we follow throughout this series. The useful step is to ask the Ministry in the Arabic words of the item, naming your course and your provider, and to keep the written reply.
Can a service company hold the supervisor licence for its logging crews?
The wording attaches the conditions to a person: they must be present in the one who is granted a licence to work as a well logging supervisor. A licence tied to conditions about a person's degree, course, years of experience and medical fitness is not a corporate permission, and a crew on a well where no licensed supervisor is present is not covered by a licence held by someone who is elsewhere. How the authority applies that to a specific rig and a specific programme is a question for the Ministry.
I have the degree and the years but not the specialist course. Is there a route?
Not through the trainee provision, on its wording. The third part of the schedule provides that a licence to practise radiation work as a trainee is granted to a person in whom the conditions of the licence sought are present with the exception of the experience condition, so the exception is for the experience condition and for that condition only, and a course that has not been passed is not a condition that is present. The route to the course condition is the course itself, from a provider whose standing you have confirmed with the Ministry first.
How the Institute can help
Two findings recur on logging supervisor files. The first is a specialist course certificate that is silent on duration, offered against a condition whose fourth requirement is a minimum of four weeks, so the file evidences three of the four requirements in a single line and looks complete. The second is five years documented as time on a rig or in wireline services rather than as years in well logging, which is the form of evidence that is hardest to repair once the previous employer has been left.
The Institute reviews a licence file against item 4 condition by condition, drafts the enquiry to the Ministry about the standing of a named course and a named provider and about the prescribed medical examination, and advises on the written records that demonstrate years in the field rather than years of employment. The specialist well logging training the Decision names is a separate qualification obtained from a provider that offers it, and the Institute does not issue it. What the Institute delivers is the radiation protection course in industrial applications that the operator and assistant entries name as a subject; whether a particular course at a particular centre satisfies the approved-centre limb of the condition is for the Ministry to say.
Scope of what the Institute does: training and consulting. Field radiation surveys are carried out through specialist partners. The Institute does not carry out laboratory analysis, instrument calibration or equipment testing.
A technical note. The conditions in this Decision are licensing conditions, not site work instructions. Meeting them, and the licence that may follow, replaces nothing in operational protection. A logging run lowers a sealed source into a borehole and brings it back, and the pattern that recurs in incidents in this practice is a source that did not come back and a crew that did not establish that it had not. The controlled area is monitored at its boundary with a survey meter that is within its calibration validity and response-checked before the run, and the run is not finished, and the source container is not handled as empty or as full, until a measurement says which it is. That is not inferred from a cable depth counter, from a mechanical indicator, or from the run having gone as planned. If the measurement does not establish that the source is in its container, the operation stops where it is, no one approaches the tool, and the licensee acts on his own emergency arrangements and notifies the Ministry. A source that may not have been recovered is not a matter to be settled on the wellsite between shifts. These are obligations on the licensee under the Law, the Regulation and the conditions of his own licence, and their place is not this Decision.
A note on two words the Decision uses for the source of a course. In the well logging entries the Decision asks for a course from a centre it describes with an Arabic word that this explanation renders as approved, and in one place, the supervisor entry, it asks instead for the course to come from a body described with that same word. The items set out in this explanation do not define either term, do not say who gives that approval, and do not say whether it is a general status or given for a particular course. In the Decision this description qualifies the provider of the training and no other party. The English word is a rendering chosen for this explanation and is not a term of art: our practical reading is to ask in the Arabic wording of the Decision, naming the specific course and the specific provider, and to keep the answer in writing, because what the instrument leaves open the authority settles. The Institute is a licensed training provider and describes itself that way and no other way.
A note on one place in the text. In the printed copy of the schedule that we hold, the tail of the examination condition in paragraph A of the well logging operator entry arrives damaged: the last word has collapsed in the print. We therefore quote from that condition only the two parts that are clean, and we do not quote its tail or build any reading on its wording. Anyone who intends to rely on that alternative should read the condition on the page image of the Official Gazette, or ask the Ministry for the wording in force, before acting on it.
A note on the authority named in the text. The word the Decision uses for the authority is the Council. It is the word of a 2007 instrument whose preamble refers to the Executive Regulation issued by decision of the President of the Supreme Council for the Environment and Natural Reserves, number 4 of 2003. The body that word names no longer exists. Competence today sits with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, and the unit concerned is named in the organisational decisions as the Radiation Protection Department. The word Council is kept only where this explanation renders what the instrument itself says, because that is the instrument's own word; in the Institute's own advice it is written as the Ministry. Read Council as the Ministry throughout.
This explanation is published for awareness by the radiation protection team at ALDuha Institute for Training and Environmental Consulting. The English text is an explanation, not a certified translation: the Arabic text published in the Official Gazette governs in case of any difference, and the official Arabic wording of every condition discussed here is quoted in full on the Arabic version of this article. This explanation is introductory. It is not a legal opinion, it does not replace the conditions of your own licence, and it does not replace review by the regulator. Last updated 6 October 2026.