Senior Process Engineering
Saudi Aramco Exxon Mobil Refinery
Total years of experience :26 years, 8 Months
26 years (1989 - 2015) of rich experience in major world class oil Companies
o SHELL Technology Center; India
o EXXON MOBIL Joint Venture (SAMREF and Yanbu Refinery, Saudi Arabia)
o ARAMCO
o HPCL - INDIA Visakha Refinery
Versatile experience in different areas of Petroleum Refinery
o Process Design in SHELL
o Process Engineering in EXXON MOBIL & ARAMCO
o Shift Operations in HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd)
Rich experience with
o PROII and HYSYS simulation of major process units
o Process design of new or revamps
o Process safety and HAZOP reviews
o Capacity creep studies, rigorous rating of process equipment, hydraulic analysis, debottlenecking, trouble shooting etc.
Areas of experience include
o Crude Distillation Unit
o Vacuum Distillation Unit
o Visbreaker Unit
o UOP Merox Units
o Butane Splitter Unit
o Light ends/ Gas concentration Units in FCCU, SGP etc.
o Tank Farms & Environmental coordination etc.
Winner of SHELL RECOGNITION AWARD (SRA) for preparing process safeguarding manual for Refinery process units.
Conversant with SHELL Process Design practices, EXXON MOBIL & ARAMCO engineering standards and practices.
Was a Member of Exxon Mobil Europe and Middle East distillation network.
Successfully performed process design of several major projects in Brazil, Russia. Prepared process safeguarding memorandum for Refinery Process Units (see details of experience).
Participated in several refinery major turn arounds.
Successfully lead several trouble shooting tasks in the past 3 years. Success stories include but not limited to - Vacuum tower pressure spikes due to ejector problems, Vacuum tower bottom pump cavitation, crude overhead offgas flaring, Crude OH corrosion, High pressure in Butane splitter tower, Hydralic constraints in crude circuit (See details of experience).
Designed upgrades in the past 3 years - Crude tower wash section upgrade to reduce metals in HGO, upgrade vacuum tower packing to reduce delta P etc.
Have overseas (Gulf, Malaysia) experience. Able to work with multi national workforce as a good team player.
Participated in several engineering and project management training sessions, seminars, presentations and work shops both in-house as well as overseas. (see details attached)
Routinely use MS office, good computer skills. Excellent spoken and written English, leadership, motivation and communication skills.
CURRENT JOB PROFILE :
Working as SENIOR PROCESS ENGINEER since 2011 in Exxon Mobil’s joint venture refinery in Saudi Arabia (SAMREF - Capacity 400, 000 BPD) in Crude/Vacuum Distillation Unit, Visbreaker Unit, Jet Merox Treating Unit and Butane Splitter Unit
• Designed Vacuum tower wash bed and crude tower HGO section upgrade.
• Trouble shooting of Vacuum tower bottoms pump cavitation due to air ingress in the suction line.
• Trouble shooting of crude overhead off gas flaring. Successful chemical cleaning of OH condensers performed to restore duty.
• Trouble shooting of crude tower overhead corrosion and wash water upgrade.
• Trouble shooting loss of vacuum in vac distillation tower.
• Trouble shooting pressure spikes and loss of vacuum in vacuum tower in summer by resolving steam ejector nozzle and after condensers fouling issues
• Resolved butane splitter tower higher operating pressure.
• Resolved Jet fuel WSIM specification problem.
• Arrested high rate of coking in VB furnace.
• Worked as DISTILLATION TECHNOLOGIST in Shell Global Solutions Inc. SHELL Technology Center in Bangalore, India. Responsibilities include Process Design of Basic Engineering Packages for new Shell Licensed units, Revamps.
• Issued Basis of Design (BOD) package for Crude and Vacuum Distillation units of a new upcoming refinery in Brazil.
• Issued Basic Engineering Package (BEP) for Vacuum Distillation Unit in Russia.
• Conducted Performance test run and report for FCCU for Integrated Refinery in Thailand
• Prepared process safeguarding memorandum for Crude, vacuum distillation units and FCCU. Won SHELL recognition award
• Extensively studied and applied SHELL process Design guides for Distillation Units.
• Worked as SENIOR PROCESS ENGINEER in Exxon Mobil’s joint venture refinery in Saudi Arabia (SAMREF - Capacity 400, 000 BPD) in Crude/Vacuum Distillation Unit, Visbreaker Unit, Jet Merox Treating Unit and Butane Splitter Unit; Functionally acting as Process representative of business team. The following is a brief description of my accomplishments during this assignment.
• Lead a team for investigation of frequent damage to the vacuum tower bottom stripping trays and issued a comprehensive report with specific recommendations.
• Arrested /controlled coking of bottom wash bed in vacuum distillation tower by analyzing and suggesting to increase the top pressure using ejector recycle control.
• Revamped vacuum tower bottoms stripping trays by blanking active area to arrest weeping of the trays. Minimized the residue yield and maximized profitability.
• Accomplished vacuum tower wash bed modifications in 2002 T/A to reduce % vapour flood and prevent coking.
• Made a presentation on vacuum tower wash bed coking in crude roundtable conference held in Nov 2000 at Dhahran, ARAMCO Saudi Arabia.
• Fixed the problem of pressure swings in vacuum tower ejectors. Suggested low DP tube bundle in the 1st stage ejector after condensers. Project will be executed in Feb 2006.
• Developed process design basis to replace the third stage ejector in vacuum tower with a Liquid Ring Vacuum Pump.
• Developed Crude and Vacuum tower PROII simulation models for SAMREF refinery.
• Performed dew point calculations, conducted test runs and suggested mechanism of on-going crude tower overhead system corrosion. Based on the analysis, it was decided to replace crude overhead line with Hastelloy cladded line.
• Trouble shooting of gas oil section Visbreaker tower flooding and high DP problems confirmed by Gamma Scan.
• Upgrade of bed # 3, 4 of vacuum tower with IMTP rings for LVGO yield improvement.
• Solved high reactor DP and WSIM spec problems in Jet fuel (UOP Merox) treating unit by recommending higher DP across the mix valve before caustic prewash. Developed new criteria for most economical selection of rector bed charcoal vendors for Jet Merox Unit.
• Effectively participated major refinery turnaround March 2002 and Feb 2006.
Worked as PROCESS ENGINEER in SAUDI ARAMCO Yanbu Refinery, Yanbu Al Sinaiyah, Saudi Arabia. The following is a brief description of my accomplishments during this period.
Suggested measures for Crude preheat exchanger fouling control
Developed scheme for Merox spent caustic re-utilization system for Yanbu refinery in order to mitigate environmental problems of disposal
Process designed nitrogen purging facilities for LPG spheres
Conducted reliability study of surge relief system for marine loading pipe lines
Recommended modifications to ‘loading arm emergency shut down nitrogen purge system’ to minimize nitrogen losses.
Prepared process design basis and studied economic feasibility of setting up PSA nitrogen generation unit for Yanbu Refinery.
• Worked as PRODUCTION OPERATIONS Supervisor in HINDUSTAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION LTD. (HPCL-former CALTEX) - Visakha Refinery; INDIA. Brief description of responsibilities handled and accomplishments during this period are as follows.
• Responsibilities included safe and optimum operation of Crude Unit & Vacuum Unit, Lead the crew of operators in start-ups & shut downs of the unit
• Monitoring for efficiency and energy conservation.
• Involved in several major turnaround & inspection activities.
• Successfully handled plant emergencies due to utility and power failures, adjustment of process parameters to meet the changing demands and product specifications targets and processing of different feed stocks etc.
Obtained first class with DISTINCTION