Chemical Engineers go with the title Process Engineers in the Oilband Gas Industry. This work covers what role these class of Engineers do in the oil and gas industry. It will cover their role in Engineering, Drilling Production, and Operations. Credit goes to Oliver who shared his 10years experience as a Process Engineer in the oil and gas sector.
Engineering
Working in engineering covers the pure aspects of chemical engineering. You will find yourself, problem solving, creating process flow diagrams, piping and instrumentation diagrams, datasheets, cause and effect diagrams, control philosophies, operating manuals, standard operating procedures, assisting with layout drawings, costing, going out for quotes, sizing pumps, instruments, valves, pipes, actually engineering. If you work in engineering at a service level, you can have the freedom to be more creative at what you may be able to design as your company will be considered the expert, with teams smaller and engineering challenges greater due to exposure of multiple clients across many different geographical locations.
Generally speak you will be involved in these aspects of Pre FEED (Front End Engineering Design), FEED and Detailed Engineering. You will typically have the following project stage processes, Appraise, Select, Define, Execute, Operate. Opportunities for process engineers to work in field development (development engineering) at the appraise stage are less abundant. Whether you are working at a service level, engineering, procurement, construction level, consultancy or client level, these three aspects are quite regularly used. It may be a modification project, a totally new project, an entire platform or some fluid dynamics calculations/studies. You can expect a lot of time keeping, creation of CTRs, Cost, Time, Resource sheets more so in consultancies due to the tighter margins.
Pre FEED is between the appraise and select stage and involves process optimisation, PI&D development, top level cost estimates, risk mitigation plan basic project schedule, layout development. It is typically carried out by consultancies Recent acquisitions have allowed big EPC companies to acquire consultancies to provide more expertise and an all-in one, under one roof, start to finish solutions. FEED is a more detailed process of Pre FEED option, listing suppliers, issuing tender invitations, conducting bid assessments for equipment delivery and installation.
Operations
Generally speaking, process engineers tend to work more in production operations than drilling operations as by nature, production has more traditional facets of chemical engineering. There are more chemical engineers entering drilling operations through large service company on graduate schemes, becoming drilling engineers, completions engineers, well engineers.
As a process engineer in production operations, you will primarily be based on onshore with regular visits offshore. You typically will deal with the ‘administration aside’, the paper side, such as updating and maintaining P&ID’s, C&E diagrams, master line list, locked valve register, process models, operating procedures & manuals. As the asset/platform process engineer you can expect to be:
Analysing and resolving day to day operational issues and engineering queries to plant and process.
Responsible for operational risk assessments, safety device overrides and key performance indicators.
Analysing and evaluating plant data to input into studies and technical notes, to identify problems and opportunities to optimise the plant, maximise efficiency and minimise operational cost.
Reviewing process and platform blowdowns, shutdowns, turnarounds and performance/compliance standard failures.
Attending and closing out HAZOP, LOPA, SIL, HSSE action items.
Creating statement of requirements (SoR) and management of change (MoC).
Leading and managing project execution to modifications of the existing facilities.
Inputting changes into the company’s internal database for maintenance schedules, routines, operating limits, tag numbers.
Leading engineering studies to ensure best available technologies, cost effective solutions and inherent safer design.
Creating and checking technical notes, process datasheets.
Investigating process, plant and environmental failures and incidents.
Reviewing the work of other team disciplined engineers, consultants, engineering contractors.
Attending daily platform calls, weekly hub meetings, offshore visits, Joint Venture partner and external contractor meetings.
Working closely with EPC’s seconded and not seconded to your team.
Depending on how the company is structured you may be working as part of disciplined team of engineers focused on one asset or as part of a group of process engineers focused on multiple assets. Sometimes asset process engineers are rotated around the various assets so that you can get good exposure to difference equipment, process variables, ways of working, geographical locations and people.
Travel tends to be limited to the asset with visits 2-4 times a year as the norm and working hours tend to be fixed, anytime from 7am-5pm depending on platform calls, core meetings. You can expect a lot of meetings to be held during lunchtimes as those staff onshore need to fit around the offshore team. The pace can be steady but as to the nature of live production, you may find yourself working intensely to investigate a process issue, platform trip/shutdown, turning around seasonal plant shutdown.
Drilling
Process engineers have only recently become an entity within drilling. Traditionally drilling was seen as something simple in terms of the overall process. You have a drill bit, drill pipe and drilling fluid and away you go. However if you break it down, it does have a level of complexity. Ever since the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster there has an industry acknowledgment that process engineers are required both at the client level (Operator) and EPC (Engineering Procurement Construction) level within drilling.
To give a background into drilling, it primarily consists of two aspects, the DES (Drilling Equipment Set) and DSM (Drilling Support Module).
The DES envelope in terms of fluid flow is from the top drive to the drill bit and includes:-
Drill bit
Drilling string (Drill pipe)
Top drive
Crown block
Rotary table
Drill floor
Travelling block
Drawworks
Hydraulic power unit
Traditional process engineering doesn’t cover any of the above as these usually are mechanical moving parts brought as single units made to ordered.
The DSM envelope in terms of fluid flow is from the bell nipple to stand pipe and includes:-
Bell nipple
Flow distribution box
Shale shakers
Mud gas separator
Mud tanks (drilling fluid tanks) consisting of degassers, agitators and centrifuges.
Bulk handling system
Charge pumps
High pressure mud pumps
As you can see already there are more traditional aspects of process engineering within the DSM than the DES. The BP Gulf of Mexico disaster, more process engineers were required to size pipes, pumps, safety and relief valves, agitators, tanks according to international API/BS/NORSOK process engineering standards. This is a relatively new area of oil and gas that was the least developed and so there still are opportunities to make significant safety and process improvements especially in land rigs which have traditional been left untouched by process engineers.
Process engineers within drilling can expect to size pumps, pressure safety valves, control valves, tanks, create and review PFD (Process Flow Diagrams), P&ID (Piping & Instrumentation Diagram), Cause & Effect diagrams, attend HAZOP’s (Hazard & Operability Study) just to name a few of the traditional and common aspects of process engineering.
Other tasks that process engineers can expect are site visits, land or offshore, to carry out feasibility, conceptual studies, inputting into proposals, attending kick meetings for projects to design a DES and DSM, create CTR’s (Cost Time & Resource), be part of a team in R&D.
You will find yourself working with other disciplined engineers such an electrical, control & instrumentation, project, mechanical (mainly DES) as well as AutoCAD designers, document controllers and project managers.
Most roles are based in projects and not in the asset, whereby you look after one asset.
Working for a service company you can expect to cover a broad spectrum of the drilling process. Studies are few and far between. However expect international travel primarily within your own company providing process engineering expertise.
You can expect if you are working for an EPC that a lot of the work is based around studies and projects and a result you will be dealing with a lot of contractors due to the nature the EPC business. Typically process engineers within Drilling will cover both the DES and DSM. Unlike EPC’s for the production side of oil and gas were the projects are naturally more complex and bigger, process engineers will cover and specialise in certain sections of the production plant.
Being a process engineer within an operator (client level), you can expect the role to be one that is global and you will find that you will input more into best practice documents, internal design standards, support local operations with technical queries, support tender design specification reviews, attend HAZOPS, be part of corporate projects that can effect operations globally. You can expect with less frequent travel in comparison to working for a service/EPC company. From the client perspective, you and the majority of other disciplined engineers are there to ultimately manage risk and money as the service, EPC, ship builders, carry out all the design work and so there is very little opportunity to impact the design unless critical ands safety related.
Production
Production is the process of producing oil and gas from beneath the surface (subsurface) to the surface ready for export. The three main components that are produced and separated from each other are, Oil, Gas and Water.
Production is seen as the most risky aspect of oil and gas for process engineers as you tend to deal with a continuous complex flow of high and low pressure oil and gas. Whilst the BP disaster was during drilling, generally speaking that amount of gas seen during drilling is minimal and mostly seen near the surface.
The equipment used to process these components are known as topsides equipment and they typically centre on the processing and conditioning of each component such as separators, dehydrators, compressors, hydrocyclones, gas dehydration. Then there have supplementary and polishing equipment which support these systems such as scrubbers, desanders, glycol regeneration, lube oil, flash drums.
Process engineers can expect to size a greater variety equipment and detailed items within production such as separators, baffles, packed columns, pumps, valve flow coefficients and stem sizes. Most of the chemical engineering modules taught at university, you can expect to practice such as fluid dynamics simply due to the nature and complexity of the production process, in particular flow assurance.
As a process engineer you can expect much like drilling to create and review PFD, P&ID Cause & Effect diagrams, attend HAZOP’s however on a small/lesser section of the plant. So it is, there are many process engineers within Production each working on a certain section of the plant and hence why you may see job adverts asking for a process engineer with venting and flare experience or gas dehydration/glycol regeneration experience. Whilst many process engineers are versatile around other sections of the production plant, there pros and cons to becoming an expert within a certain section of the plant.
You can expect a similar set up to that of drilling regarding service companies that deal with production equipment. You may have a broad spectrum, across three or four items of production equipment or you may just specialise in one piece of equipment. Travel can equally be frequent to EPC, client offices. You may be seconded for a certain period of time. Equally you may find opportunities to take part in commissioning activities of your particular equipment.
Being a process engineer for an EPC, primarily focuses on engineering, procurement and construction deliverables such as drawings, diagrams, datasheets, cost time resource, calculation sheets (using process simulation tools). This could be a greenfield (new) or brownfield (existing) project. Travel can be frequent especially if seconded to a client’s office is quite normal. The duration of the secondment can vary from 3 months to 1-2 years. You will have less variety, less exposure to other projects as you will typically be expected to stay on one particular project, delivering/focusing on one particular area of the production plant. It is at the EPC level were you will find junior, senior, principal and lead process engineers. Principle and Lead process tend to oversee and sign off on project deliverables.
Being chartered is key when working for an EPC as you are effectively designing a plant on behalf of your client and is typically expected after a few years if you are joining at a junior/entry level. Working hours are typically longer at an EPC as you will be covering the client and service companies. They can be fixed and regular as you are billing your working hours to the client and therefore having to fill out timesheets. You can expect to work alongside other process engineers and disciplined engineers whom are contractors and not staff. There are benefits to being a contractor, such as being paid over time.
Being a process engineer for an Operator is more about sense checking, reviews at stage gates, being the focal point of contact for technical queries, attending HAZOP’s, again similar to Drilling in terms of minimising financial and safety risks to a particular project. In some smaller operators you can expect a much more involved and broader role. Here you can expect to be the responsible process engineer for an entire asset. This leads me onto the next aspect of working in Operations.
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