Project Engineer

SUMMARY

Solves amazingly complicated problems.

Thirty years experience in the refining, petrochemical, chemical, pipeline and biofuels industries. Recognized for leadership & management skills with culturally diverse teams. Superior analytical ability. Skills include project definition, management, financial & schedule performance, safety and reliability. Expertise in process design and process optimization. Other experience includes operations & technical training, process modeling & trouble-shooting, operability & safety analysis, overseas project execution & management. Operations experience includes staff direction & management, startup/shutdown supervision, and turn-around inspection & planning. Experienced as an expert in technical and economic analysis for industrial, insurance and legal clients; Overseas experience includes interfacing with foreign government representatives.

Project Management activities include process unit & support equipment modifications, grass-roots unit design, process modifications and real time optimization projects Capital project management experience ranges $20M to $300MM. Process Design experience includes P&ID development, heat, material, pressure balances, hydraulic calculations, equipment sizing and specification, Experienced Hazop and Unusual Happening Team Leader.

Project financing involves Industrial Revenue Bond issuance for pollution control equipment, lease to buy financing and internal funding of over 10 projects (up to $35 million.) Project evaluations of several large refinery relocations and green field construction (up to $900 million.)

EXPERIENCE

2012 Deputy Director – Production, Quad Personnel Consultants, Dung Quat, Vietnam

Lead team of 14 in staffing Binh Son Refinery O&M for 145,000 bpd refinery. Staffing complicated by unplanned shutdown of plant due to operational problem. Work involved addressing many complicated operational issues. Also staffing included many challenges, such as benefits, housing, vacation rotation, etc.

2011 – 2012 Technical Manager, WorleyParsons, Houston, Texas

Refinery upgrade project in South America, owner’s representative for $300,000,000 project. Headed up interim team of 8 during staffing up of project – final manpower for WP – 25 personnel of all disciplines. Major revamp of FCCU unit and associated projects.

Topsides design project for Sakhalin drilling/production platform. Arkutun-Dagi

The Arkutun-Dagi development will employ an offshore, ice-resistant fixed platform which is expected to become the largest oil and gas production platform in Russia. This gravity-based structure has been named Berkut - from the Russian for golden eagle.

The Berkut platform will become the first ExxonMobil operated platform with friction pendulum bearing isolators to make it more seismically stable. Its topsides will be among the largest in the industry, weighing about 28,000 tons.

The Arkutun-Dagi field development (along with Odoptu) will help maintain Sakhalin-1 production as the Chayvo field production naturally declines. First oil is expected to be produced there in 2014.

Headed up team of 6 engineers to close out detailed design of project.

2007 – 2011 Director, Isthmus Fuels Group, Houston, Texas

Director, Biofuels Project Development, Isthmus Fuels Group, Houston, Texas, 2006-present. Responsible for economic & technical feasibility assessment of green & brown field biofuels (ethanol & biodiesel) facilities in developed and under-developed regions. Interface with technology vendors, contractors and clients on infrastructure & feedstock requirements, technical & economic feasibility and product marketing & distribution requirements. Manage & coordinate project development & progress with financial stakeholders. Manage project execution for clients to meet scope, schedule & budgetary constraints.

2005 – 2007 Process Design Manager, ExxonMobil, Baytown, Texas

Along with 6 direct and 40 indirect reports, lead effort to transform FEED to detailed design. Performed detailed design, implementation, equipment selection and bid preparation. Performed process design for Crude Unit expansions including hydraulic analysis and pump rating & NPSH requirements. Advised & consulted with client on available options for achieving design production, throughput and efficiency. Revised Pro II models for generating fluid properties required for hydraulic designs. Guided both contractor and client staff’s process engineering group for, manpower loading estimating, and guidance for junior engineering staff. Extremely time sensitive project required over 3000 hours worked in 2006.

2003 – 2005 Primary Expert, LECG, LLC, Houston, Texas

Provided expert report for the State of Hawaii in State’s effort to cap wholesale gasoline prices. Other work included several refinery relocation/optimization efforts. Several site visits to idled Texaco refinery near Colon.

2002 – 2003 Management/Consultant, Vietross (Dung Quat) Refinery JV, Quang Ngai, Viet Nam

Reviewed design of Viet Nam’s first oil refinery project. Provided guidance on appropriate use of instrumentation, automation and control systems. Performed complete PFD and P&ID review of EPC Contractor’s detailed designs. Generated in excess of 100 reports covering numerous facets of process design, refinery operations, control & instrumentation and Oil Movement & Storage systems. Resolved many issues with pipelines between refinery and product storage terminal (12 miles.)

2001 – 2002 Domain Engineering, General Manager, Houston, Texas

Owner of company based in Oklahoma funded a new office in the Houston market. Over the course of 6 months, selected new office location and developed manpower resources (about 12 individuals) consisting of draftsman, engineers and secretarial staff for work in Houston market. Domain had 30 individuals working out of the home office at the time. Office opened August 2001. Events of September 11th closed any opportunity to make a profit out of Houston office. During downturn, serviced several clients in Wyoming and Europe. Work included pipeline right of ways, pipeline construction, gas plant acceptance and BTX fractionators. Office closed 2002 with continuing loss in P/L statement.

1998 – 2001 Shell Refining, Staff Project Engineer, Shell Deer Park, Texas

Responsible for Capital budget projects within fuels portion of plant. Each project had to prioritize on a quarterly basis, garner funding then designed, construct and turn over to operations. Projects included new reactor on hydrotreater for ULSD, plant air (45,000 scfpm) optimization, cooling tower systems reliability improvement, Vacuum unit debottlenecking, troubleshooting new cooling loop on propylene splitter, new sulfur pits and debottlenecking of the saturate gas plant. Financed some projects with Lease to own option.

1995 – 1998 Equilon Enterprises, Senior Project Engineer & Operations, Port Arthur, Texas

Managed project financial performance, directed engineering resources, refined engineering methodologies, and facilitated development & training of technical personnel for multiple project sites. Provided technical assistance to junior staff as required. Projects included two deep cut revamps, Crude unit atmospheric tower overhead fin fan banks realignment due to severe corrosion issues. Debottleneck of Vacuum heaters due to Lungstrum heat recovery issues. Cooling water survey resulted in major improvements to cooling on Crude distillation units. Completed several flare studies and brought a rental flare into plant for the first time to cover a flare maintenance period. Streamlined naphtha fractionation units and idled 40,000 bpd gasoline splitter. Resolved many operational issues and lead numerous unusual happing investigations. Other troubleshooting investigations included FCCU and DCU recovery section issues. Resolved design issue with crude unit light end towers dating back to original construction from 1966.

1992 – 1995 Motiva Enterprises, Operational Project Support Team, Port Arthur, Texas

Managed project and directed engineering resources, for multiple project sites. Projects included revamp of flare knock out drum and installation of facilities to handle “wild” naphtha previous routed to CCR. CCR liquid yield improvement of 0.6% documented after naphtha was rerouted. Coker improvement project involved minimization of flushing oil to pumps used to move resid to coker. Coker coke yield declined about 0.5% after switch. Several assignments related to pipeline contamination issues due to unusual happenings.

1991 – 1992 Restart Manager, Abqaiq Plants, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abqaiq Plants, Restart Manager, Abqaiq Plants, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.Managed project and directed engineering resources, for multiple project sites. Installed Compressor Controls on 450,000,000 scfpd of wet gas compression. Previous control systems were seriously flawed. During build up to and during Gulf War, Lead team to restarted three (3) large compression plants idled about 10 years previously.

1988 – 1991 Senior Design Engineer, Shedgum Gas Plants, KSA

Shedgum Gas Plants, Senior Design Engineer, Shedgum Gas Plants, KSA, 1988 – 1991

Managed numerous projects and shake out items still outstanding from 1982 plant startup. Highlights were identification of hydrate issue, troubleshooting nitrogen storage facility, debottlenecking 240,000 bpd condensate stripper. Numerous turnarounds of plant equipment requiring round the clock engineering coverage. Worked with Facilities Planning Team to resolve issues with slugging in plant feed pipelines (60 KM 42” diameter lines) lines during winter months. Encroachment of settlements upon pipeline right of way required derating of operating pressure of cross country pipeline. This study and resulting derate severely limited gas plant operation.

1980 – 1988 Operational Support Engineer, Texaco, Port Arthur, Texas

One year as operator of Alkylation and Gas Plant due to work stoppage, Operational support engineer to Hydrotreater complex. Planned numerous catalyst change outs for hydrocracker and hydrotreaters. Debottlenecked Hydrocracker from a monthly average of 13,000 bpd to over 25,000 bpd by revamping hydrogen system, new catalyst system, segregated feed system, new feed filters and improved check valves. Provided financial analysis for $40,000,000 issuance of Industrial Revenue Bonds for construction of Amine stripping plants and sulfur block. Environmental work included permitting, sampling both air and water and tracking of solid waste shipments.

EDUCATION

Texas A&M University B.S. Chemical Engineering 1979 Cum Laude

Rice University Jones School of Management MBA 2009,

Additional Training/Education: Finance, Economics & Business Management, Project & Personnel Management, Process Improvement and Biotechnology (Ethanol, Biodiesel & Biomass.) Hazop Training by many years of experience.

REGISTRATIONS/AFFILIATIONS

FEWA, AIChE and AOPA

PUBLICATIONS/PRESENTATIONS

None to date.

SPECIFIC TECHNICAL EXPERTISE/SPECIALIST COURSES

Expert technical and economic analysis for industrial, insurance and legal clients.

Expert in Design, Operation and Optimization of Refining and Natural Gas processes. API, ASME, AFPM(NPRA)

Refinery hydrogen system expert.

Expert in Clathrate Hydrate effects on process equipment.

Experienced in safety in design and operation of process plants. Experienced HAZOP leader.

Specialist in Pressure relief determination and design. PSV and Flare facilities.

Expert in operation of pumps, heat exchangers,fin fan coolers fired equipment, compressors and piping components.

Specialist in inventory control and reduction.

Expert in distillation technology

Expert in utility systems, acid, hydrogenation, amine and sulfur plants.

Knowledgable in Distributed and Advanced control.

Expert in modeling of process plants and pipelines, both steady and non steady state. HYSIS and PROii (SIMCSI) conversant.

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