Industrial training for Chemical Engineers

Overview:

Petroleum engineering is the application of chemistry, physics, math, geology, and engineering principles to discover a cost-effective way to identify promising areas for exploration, access this natural resource, and refine it into desirable products. Chemists in the oil and petroleum industry work with crude oil and the products derived from it right from  the identification of the Oil well till the getting of the end product.

The industry can be divided into two major components: upstream and downstream. The upstream takes care of the exploration and production of hydrocarbon, i.e. crude oil and gas, whereas downstream industry refines the produced hydrocarbon into usable products such as naphtha, kerosene, aviation turbine fuel, gasoline, diesel & LPG and markets these refined products. The integrated oil and gas organizations are involved in both components of the petroleum industry. This industry needs chemical engineers, organic, analytical, inorganic, physical chemists, biochemists etc

Our training includes…

  • Introduction to Refineries
  • Distillation columns, pressure vessels, Heaters, Furnaces, heat exchangers, Cooling towers, Turbines, Pumps, Compressors – Design basis & philosophy, Installations & Commissioning
  • Process Instrumentation, Measurement devices
  • Process flow drawings,
  • Pipiing & Instrumentation Drawings
  • NEBOSH, OSHA – Safety Engineering
  • Basic Hydro carbon chemistry, crude oil seperation
  • Hydro cracking, thermal cracking
  • Plant Automation, PLC & SCADA
  • Pipelines and Storage tanks

Roles and Responsibilities of a Chemical Engineer

  • testing new processes
  • collecting data required to make improvements and modifications
  • overseeing the construction of new plants
  • using and developing process simulation software to work out the best production methods
  • purchasing and installing equipment
  • using scientific principles related to magnitude, momentum, heat transfer etc
  • supervising plant operations
  • investigating and troubleshooting plant/process problems
  • scheduling and coordinating work to tight deadlines and within financial budgets
  • ensuring that equipment works to its specification and to appropriate capacities
  • assessing safety and environmental issues
  • liaising with installation/project engineers and specialists
  • ensuring safe working conditions and compliance with health and safety legislation.

Petroleum refining processes are the chemical engineering processes in petroleum refineries to transform crude oil into useful products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil and fuel oils.

Petroleum refineries and Petrochemicals production are the major industries in Downstream operations.  In Refineries; the main units that process crude oil are surrounded by hundreds of auxiliary operations. For example, a major refinery may have seven or eight main processing units. Each of those may be supported by 10 to 20 sub units.

Pertecnica trains the students on Downstream technologies right from Installation of equipment till the production of end products, its logistics and supply chain.

Petroleum, Oil and Gas Downstream Technologies for Chemical Engineers

Processing Units in Refineries

  • Crude Oil Distillation unit
  • Vacuum distillation unit
  • Naphtha hydrotreater unit
  • Catalytic reforming unit
  • Alkylation unit
  • Isomerization unit
  • Distillate hydrotreater unit
  • Merox (mercaptan oxidizer)
  • Amine gas treater, Claus unit
  • Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit
  • Hydrocracker unit
  • Visbreaker unit
  • Delayed coking and fluid coker units

For more details (demo class & sample course material) contact the Course Co-ordinator, Pertecnica at 07842430123

Stages in Downstream processing

Removal of insolubles

It involves the capture of the product as a solute in a particulate-free liquid. Typical operations to achieve this are filtration, centrifugation, sedimentation, precipitation, flocculation, electro-precipitation, and gravity settling.

Product isolation

This is the removal of those components whose properties vary considerably from that of the desired product. For most products, water is the chief impurity and isolation steps are designed to remove most of it, reducing the volume of material to be handled and concentrating the product. Solvent extraction, adsorption, ultrafiltration, and precipitationare some of the unit operations involved.

Product purification

This is done to separate those contaminants that resemble the product very closely in physical and chemical properties. Consequently steps in this stage are expensive to carry out and require sensitive and sophisticated equipment. This stage contributes a significant fraction of the entire downstream processing expenditure.

Jobs available in Downstream technologies

Refining

Oil refineries cost billions of pounds to build and maintain, and run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Because they’re such an expensive and essential part of the oil and gas industry, hiring the right people is of paramount importance. In fact, it’s estimated that somewhere in the region of 1.5 million people work within refining worldwide.

Processing

Jobs within the processing part of the oil and gas industry are also primarily found within oil refineries. However, roles vary greatly depending on what material is being produced. Processing jobs include Process Engineer, Plant Operator, Product Controller and Turnaround (TAR) Manager.

Job scope for a chemical engineer

  • Design and development of chemical processes and equipment
  • Optimisation and control of industrial operations
  • Plant operation and management
  • Fundamental and applied research from the molecular level to full industrial scale
  • Environmental management, monitoring and pollution control

Projects & Case studies

  • A critical analysis on Different Equipment used in Downstream technologies
  • Operations, Maintenance, Troubleshooting of equipment
  • Thermal cracking, Refining and Processing technologies
  • Piping, Pumps, Logistics and Transportation of chemicals
  • Environment, Pollution control and Legal compliance
  • Health, Safety and Risk Management