Assistant Manager Operations, HPCL Mumbai Refinery
Work Profile: Plant Operations / Production
Company Profile: Oil and Gas refining and marketing
‘Chemicals’ to Oil & Gas: The Journey AIL to HPCL
I worked in Aarti Industries Ltd, R&D Vapi, as Assistant Manager just after graduation. I was there for six months and I happened to work in flow chemistry projects, suffice to say continuous flow reactors. There were some batch processes that needed to be converted into continuous processes and lab to pilot scale-up.
In January 2018, I joined HPCL as an engineer refinery, hoping to pursue a career in oil & gas. Now I am Assistant Manager operations in the FCC (Fluidized Catalytic Cracking) unit licensed by UOP.
My work:
I lead a team of 15 employees and work in the plant. I am a DCS and plant supervisor, and all the proactive maintenance activities of rotary, static, instrument equipment are planned under my supervision. I am responsible for maintaining the process parameters within the operating envelope and troubleshooting any equipment failures or malfunctioning.
Our team is responsible for healthy and flawless shutdowns/startups of the plant. Profit maximization by using resources optimally and keeping the right track of valuable product yields as per market demands.
Who Should Aim?
Though the profession isn’t outwardly so exciting, FCC plants are advanced, and data are readily available, informative and fruitful. The domain is for someone interested in advanced process control, process optimization, designing unit operations, reactor, reaction calorimetry, heterogeneous catalytic reactions, heat integration, rotating equipment, etc.
Sometimes we really face some technical challenges, and troubleshooting them is what motivates me the most. This isn’t a duty requirement, however, it’s a great way to keep your concepts and knowledge handy.
All the refineries and petrochemical complexes like Reliance, Essar, IOC, etc offer more and less profile for chemical engineers (i.e., Plant operations, technical/technology, R&D)
Refineries: More Advanced
Once someone enters the oil and petroleum industry and pursues a career here for more than five years, it becomes hard to switch the field, especially in plant operations. Switching to FMCGs, the Chemical industry becomes hard as they like to recruit from the same field. The oil industry doesn’t have significant technical changes frequently, and volume handling is quite large. Product specs are not so tight and not so hard to achieve.
Controllers and APC systems are well developed in refineries wherein chemical industries rarely have those up to that extent (depends on type and requirement). Handling bulk volumes make heat integration and recoveries more economical in petroleum industries. A wide range of unit operations and continuous processes are radially available in refineries. Planning and automation become a critical part and make one handy in most of the operations.
Knowledge Stagnation?
Transfers in PSUs are not easy and working in a single plant for a long makes our skills narrow by the time.
Suppose one likes changes and is ready to learn more and more. In that case, they must choose the chemical industry or pharma R&D. Learning becomes part of the job and constant technical involvement is necessary to keep ourselves handy. One can analyze the data in the petroleum industry for designing, simulation, troubleshooting and this is the most attractive way I find to engage myself here.
The Future of Oil & Gas
Many refineries will convert into petrochemical cum refineries, not necessarily eventually. Renewable energy and alternative energy resources to oil and gas in the coming future will make a difference here. Working in the petroleum industry opens all the doors to big firms across the world. I find the technical or technology department vast than operations to pursue here, like a process development or change is what every industry seeks and switching the field won’t be any problem that way.
Over 15-20 years, electric vehicles and green fuel innovations will compete for the oil industry. Hence, instead of more refining capacities, these industries have to convert into chemical/petrochemical plants. Technology advancement in APC and automation will lead to fewer new opportunities and manpower, but upcoming plants will fill the gap.