Benjamin Ellis

• On business assignment with Power Systems Planning Department as Contract Manager for SA third party and Joint
Venture companies.
• Manage the Energy Conversion Agreement (ECA) between Saudi Aramco and Joint Venture Company, for three
cogeneration power plants (CCGTs), powered by GE 7FA and GE 7EA delivering 900 MW and 1480 ton/hour to SA
refineries and gas facilities and in addition support other Contract Manager responsibilities for third party and JV fleet
totalling 3, 995 MW and 5, 748 ton/hr steam.
• Leading the contract management processes with all stakeholders to ensure that contractual obligations are met for
the cogeneration plants.
• Technically lead all joint investigation teams to deliver Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for operational interruptions,
unreliability events, plant trips, in aim to implement all required solutions to prevent future reoccurrence.
• Guarantee all necessary improvements and problems are identified and resolved in order to provide highest reliability
sustained and uninterrupted power and steam to facilities.
• Validate third party and JV performance contractual compliance which includes analysing performance deviations and
applying contractors conditions and terms.
• Performing engineering functions such as commissioning and review Site Acceptance Test (SAT), participate in power
generation reliability assessment, witness and approve the annual Net Dependable Capacity Test (NDCT).
• Monitoring plant availability, plant efficiency, utilization and dispatch and compliance with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Regulations.
• Maintaining planning and communication between SA refineries and gas plants, contractor and all internal SA related
groups to overcome issues timely, negotiate, align and pursue most efficient solution.

• Recruited to Saudi Aramco as Lead Power Generation Turbine Engineer, a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Power
Systems Engineering Department, to provide expertise and advisories to all Saudi Aramco owned and Third Party /
Joint Venture Cogeneration Plants, totalling 6, 585 MW for the company.
• Led new cogeneration commissioning and operations for gas turbine control equipment.
• Champion cogeneration interruption investigations, covering mechanical equipment of generation units, including
HRSG and all auxiliaries.
• Support OEM combustion tuning and turbine control exercises, including optimization to avoid Lean Blow Out (LBO)
on Dry Low NOx (DLN) combustors.
• Key team member and contributor towards De-carbonization with Hydrogen Fuel project for the development of
hydrogen fuel blending for multiple gas turbines at Saudi Aramco oil facility.
• Reviewer of combustion behaviour for Advanced Power Generation Studies - Gas Turbine Real Time Dynamics
Simulation (RTDS) to validate the successfully run back of power generation units following an islanding condition,
while operating on syngas/diesel and to ensure reliability of power and steam to IGCC power plant.
• Technically advisory for troubleshooting start-up issues for diesel fired Gas Turbines suffering coking issues.
• Develop the Power Generation O&M recommendations to cover corrective and preventative maintenance for assets.
• Develop Cogeneration Reliability Assessment, based on last 5 years of history, which resulted in significant reduction
of plant trips following implementation of reports recommendations.
• Provide consultative services for non-conforming boiler feedwater and fuel gas quality issues.
• Technically advise on Condition Based Monitoring via real time iPower platform, support the development and edits of
digital twin models.
• Review early design packages for cogeneration and desalination projects for future planned gas fields and increment
expansions.
• Lead and review thermal cogeneration performance and evaluate by techno-economic analysis of new technologies.
• Active member and contributor to SA Engineering Standards for Power Generation.
• Provide a knowledge sharing with young Saudi engineers in the fields of gas turbines, combustion systems, testing,
thermodynamics and process flows.

• Appointed as professionally certified Senior Engineer for the Turbine Systems Engineering Department.
• Responsible for providing technical support and in-field supervision at the following power stations, totalling 2, 420 MW:
◦ Acacia and Port Rex, both powered by Pratt and Whitney aero-derivative gas turbines
◦ Ankerlig and Gourikwa, both powered by Siemens (OCGTs) open-cycle gas turbines
• Managed the concept, detailed design phases to replace 6 aero-derivative exhaust stacks which required completing
supplier technical evaluation and quality procedures for the Engineering Modifications and Projects Committee.
• Project managed a continuous emissions monitoring programme 2 months ahead of project schedule.
• Established a reliability-based optimization for maintenance scheduling for the open-cycle gas turbine stations.
• Replaced an underground fuel pipeline in accordance with ASME and SABS codes.
• Installed a new offline lube-oil filtration system for the Siemens turbines and generators.
• Inspected all static and rotating equipment, the reporting of which is actioned by maintenance.
• Reporting responsibilities included the health trend analysis from the lubrication predictive maintenance software
programme Wearcheck, at 9 of the Companys power stations in South Africa.
• Quality assurance tasks included the monitoring of turbine vibration analysis and maintainability of turbo-alternator
sets.

• Following an extensive initial training programme over one year in nuclear plant systems, appointed as a Mechanical
Engineer to the reliability department and contributed to the development of maintenance programmes for three
Nuclear systems.
• As Lead Engineer for the Maintenance Outage department, responsibilities included the preparation and execution of
statutory maintenance for reactor refuelling outages.
• Supervised in-house project team and French contractors during maintenance of Fratol diaphragm nuclear valves.
• Assigned to the mechanical maintenance section, which resulted in high exposure to plant operations, the Outage
Control Centre (OCC) and defects which required root cause analysis.
• Appointed as Component Engineer in the Engineering Department and provided guardianship of manual valves at the
Power Station, and as advisor on rotating equipment, including ventilation systems and fans. Analysed component
failures and prepared corrective action recommendations.
• Completed an 18 month in-house Supervisory and Leadership development programme.
• As the Mechanical Engineer, accountabilities included pressure vessel hydrostatic testing, torque calculations and
non-destructive testing (NDT) for wall thicknesses.
• Performed safety screenings and wrote position papers for the National Nuclear Regulator.