Water Treatment Engineer
Saudi Aramco
Total years of experience :34 years, 2 months
Provide water treatment consultation to upstream and downstream field operations of Saudi Aramco. Offer operational support and troubleshoot water treatment issues at oil and gas separation plants, water utilities such as boilers for power generation, refineries, gas plants and terminals. Provide consultation for brackish and seawater desalination (thermal and membrane methods) for drinking water, demineralization, boiler water treatment and chemical optimization and steam and return condensate treatment for conventional and combined power generation (HRSG). Oversee the treatment issues of all types of cooling water treatment (open and closed systems), macro and micro fouling control of seawater used for industrial cooling through different disinfection methods and develop strategies to prevent the biological fouling of industrial heat exchangers. Offer seawater treatment consultations for reservoir injection for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) wherein the activities include disinfection of seawater, mechanical (deareator) and chemical de-oxygenation and biocide optimization program for corrosion control of pipelines. Evaluate vendor’s water treatment and chemical optimization packages. Prepare company standards, procedures and best practices in the area of water treatment. Evaluate and develop new water treatment technologies for Aramco operations. Develop research and industrial wastewater reuse projects for oil and gas industry. Serve on international standards writing bodies and provide consultation and review for capital project developments and engineering design packages. Attend project review meetings in or out of Saudi Arabia
Develop the Water Treatment service in collaboration with existing services and clients
Lead and direct water treatment design projects and design teams including project planning and direction
Fulfill a senior technical role focussed on detailed engineering investigation and design of water treatment
Assist clients in solving water quality problems they experience on operating mine sites
Undertake project management and client management duties for projects and complete report writing and presentation
Coach junior and intermediate staff as required including mentoring, teamwork and staff
development
Dealing with active and passive treatment technologies to treat acid mine drainage (AMD)
Techno economic evaluation of treatment technologies for AMD
Environmental impact assessment of contamination due to AMD and remediation
Water quality assessment due to AMD contamination and evaluation of treatment technologies
Water source assessment and treatment technology evaluation for providing drinking water
Treatment of drilling mud cuttings for safe discharge into the environment
Working on Phreeq C and AMD treat AMD treatment software
Responsibilities
Studied the processes selection for waste water treatment and reuse
Researched wastewater treatment by advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) such as, ex-situ and in-situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) using Fenton’s process, Photocatalysis, Adsorption/biodegradation, Ozonation and by innovative permeable reactive barrier (PRB) for treatment of contaminated ground water
Investigated waste water treatment by single (individual) and sequential treatment processes such as, AOPs combined with granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption/biodegradation in a processes integrated approach.
Studied the removal of contaminants from waste water by adsorption/biodegradation on adsorbents such as GAC and also investigated isotherm evaluation and mathematical modelling
Developed analytical methods for the chemical analysis of metsulfuron methyl-a pesticides, Trimethoprim - a pharmaceutical and chlorophenols (pentachlorphenol) by HPLC
Responsibilities
Worked on wastewater treatment by membrane technology (MF, UF and RO) and issues related to water treatment by membranes such as membrane fouling
Developed a cross-flow sampler membrane fouling index (CFS-MFI) that can be used as a pre-treatment tool to ascertain the feed water quality for membrane (reverse osmosis) desalination
Analysed membrane foulants by SEM
Responsibilities
Worked on desalination process design (both by evaporators such as multi stage flask (MSF) and by membranes - reverse osmosis (RO)
Addressed and solved the issues of MSF plant and RO plants by converting them into research projects in research and development centre
Worked on brackish and seawater pre-treatment and post treatment research projects and processes optimisation of seawater desalination
Played a lead role in the development and modification of pre-treatment techniques of feed for thermal and membrane processes such as hybrid NF-filtration (nano filtration) as a pre-treatment technique for Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO)
Lead a project pertaining to extraction, purification and characterization of humic acids from gulf and red seas to understand the membrane fouling propensity of seawater intake for commercial (seawater reverse osmosis) SWRO (published papers)
Performed RO membrane/module autopsy (SEM)
Evaluated the performance of different pre-treatment materials such as antiscalant, antifoaming and de-scaling agents used in water treatment and seawater desalination processes
Guided and completed a project that dealt with the study of seawater composition from gulf and red seas, for major, minor, and trace constituents with sophistication analytical equipment
Researched on seawater chlorination by-products such as Tri-halomethanes and halo-acetic acids during pre-treatment and post treatment (published papers)
Conducted different research runs in laboratory /pilot plant (both multi stage flash (MSF) and RO/Nano) and scaled them to main plant
Lead a team monitoring seawater and drinking water for heavy metal contamination such as Hg, Se, Cd, Cr, and As by hydride generation by AAS (VGA and GTA techniques)
Supervised analysis on different types of waters, corrosion products and deposits, ferrous and non-ferrous Alloys, biological materials such as fish and sea sediments
Responsibilities
• Managed the business development of chemical and environmental section of the company
• Liaised with regional managers of the company regarding the business development.
• Worked on water treatment and environmental projects with SAUDI ARAMCO and SABIC industries
• Interacted with different clients and provided technical support for their water treatment issues and prepared quotations for the different projects.
Supervised (as a Lab Manager) a diverse range of chemical analysis of the following materials with sophisticated analytical instruments such as AAS/ ICP, GC/ GC-MS, HPLC, Ion chromatograph, TOC analyser and general lab equipment.
• Water- drinking, brackish, wastewater and sea for water quality parameters according to international standards such as ASTM and WHO guidelines
• Environmental-waste water, sludge, contaminated soils, pollution due to industrial and sewage discharge
• Ferrous and non Ferrous alloys for composition
• Construction materials - concrete, cement and admixtures
• Oil & petroleum products-lube oil, transformer oils, and petroleum products
• Extracted and analysed dissolved gases from transformer oils (GC-TCD)
• Analysis of Flue gases by dragger tube methods
• Organic Fertilizers
• Bulk Chemicals
• Food and biological products