Accountabilities

• Medium to Long term support of refinery operation to ensure that the units are being operated efficiently and safely.
• Lead the Process Support Team for Hydrocracking (2 direct reports).
• Act as the primary source of technical information on the plant design and operation.
• Process Investigation Reports of process upsets or incidents.
• Site representative on the BP group Hydroprocessing Continuous Improvement Forum (CIF).

Achievements

• Lead technical development of project to convert Vegetable Oil into Diesel. This is the first time that this process has been used inside an oil refinery anywhere in the world on a long term basis. This project was implemented with no capital spend and has provided significant information back to the BP group. Several other refineries in Europe and the USA are considering using this processing route and I have been communicating our findings via a Continuous Improvement Forum over the last 12 months.
• Played key role in route cause analysis into several plant reliability incidents including completion of key recommendations.

Accountabilities

• Day to day and long term operations support which ranged from ensuring that we met the production plan to troubleshooting to ensuring that the units were being operated efficiently and safely.
• Lead the Process Support Team for Area North (4 direct reports).
• Provide coverage during the absence of Process Area Manager.
• Act as the primary source of technical information on the plant design and operation and process safety.
• Senior Process Signatory for Management Of Change.

Achievements

• Covered both the Refinery Economist and Process Support Team Lead roles for extended period of time while training my successor.
• Worked with the central IT team to carry out a implementation review of a major upgrade of our plant monitoring and historical data systems. Presented findings to senior management (including outside Australia) and recommended a number of significant opportunities for improvement for future projects to ensure that the right Business are achieved.

Accountabilities

• Key role in Shell S&OP process
• Led annual business planning activities for the refinery, a key part of Shell Australia business plan. Communicated results to senior management and through the refinery to ensure alignment.
• Supported delivery of monthly refinery production plans and implemented day to day optimisation in close cooperation with Scheduling Team.
• Worked closely with Business development, supply operations, and retail and commercial stakeholders to provide the latest information on key site activities and projects.
• Performed short-medium term economic evaluations for hydrocarbon margin improvement proposals & project evaluations.
• Carried monthly reconciliation of plan to actual performance. Communicated insights to senior management and assisted the refinery in identifying lost business opportunities each month.

Achievements

• Led a manufacturing review of the long term viability a processing unit and recommended that it should be decommissioned. I also provided the economic viability study that was a key part of the end to end review of the Shell Australia Chemicals businesses. Identified improvement opportunities are now being implemented.
• Supported key projects for improving Jet fuel supply logistics to Melbourne region airports with local knowledge of supply logistics constraints and opportunities.
• Proposed and implemented a plan for improving the retention of graduates in Manufacturing. I was then invited to become a Business Champion at a Country level working to improving Graduate support systems. This work solved a number of long standing issues and significantly improved Shell’s graduate offer going forward.
• Key member of the cross functional Shell S&OP review process each month specifically aimed at improving cross functional communication. The team from across the business solved a number of long standing business problems that were impacting on some of our key customers.

Accountabilities

• Ensuring that the day to day refinery schedule allowed the right products to be made at the right time at the right quality using the monthly plan & daily economic guidance as an anchor. This was the main activity in the Shell S&OP Plan execution activity.
• Minimised quality giveaway (making the product better than it needed to be) on key products
• Scheduling Focal Point for Tank Maintenance Activities across the region to ensure that local decisions did not impact on supply chain feasibility.
• Coordinating and ensuring consistency of schedules with the other two refinery schedulers and the distribution team based in Melbourne.

Achievements

• Managed the Petrol and Avgas import and pipeline logistics during a 90 day shutdown of the Refinery in 2009. All products were imported during this time and it was the first time the refinery had been completely shutdown for that long. There were zero stockouts, zero product quality incidents and ship demurrage was significantly below plan. I successfully managed supply situation around a 10 day planned Geelong-Melbourne pipeline outage (pipeline normally transferred 10 million litres of product each day) with no impact on our customers.
• Managed refinery schedules, pipeline and ship logistics for 4 grades of Diesel (specifications changed monthly), 3 grades of Petrol (specifications changed monthly), Jet Fuel, Avgas, 3 grades of Bitumen and 4 grades of Solvents with over 50 different feedstocks that changed every 3-4 days.
• While acting Economics and Scheduling Manager, lead the team through an two week unplanned plant shutdown that occurred three days before Christmas. Continuously kept the wider business updated with stock projections while continuing to supply a much product as possible from the other production units that continued to operate at reduced capacity.

Accountabilities

• Medium and Long Term Production Support for Distillation Units, Oil Movements and Product Quality.
• Project Development (identification and development of projects including business case justification)
• Leadership and Development of staff (between 3-5 staff including graduates)

Achievements

• Successfully developed and commissioned project scope modifying part of a processing plant to allow refinery to comply with clean fuels legislation when construction of a new plant completion was delayed. This was completed in less than 12 months and started up schedule producing on spec product.
• Provided production advice and support to a cross functional project team during successful development and implementation of Shell Optimax Extreme (VPower Racing) fuel. This was the first of its type in the world.
• Lead development team that met the challenging requirements of the Refinery’s Environmental License implementing a project that reduced the emissions from key Refinery Tanks to better than World’s Best Practice.
• Lead development team that successfully designed and commissioned minor plant modifications to allow the refinery to meet Government mandated reductions in the volatility of Petrol during Summer. The implemented project cost was slightly over $1 million. Several previous studies had concluded the only viable options would cost over $100 million.
• Lead development team that allowed refinery to reduce the amount of Benzene in Avgas by 90%. This was done using a new formulation with less than $50 000 in plant modifications. The first batch of Avgas was produced on spec and on schedule and significantly reduced aircraft refueler’s Benzene exposure.
• Lead team implementing Product Quality Giveaway system improvements. Substantial reduction in giveaway (making the product better than it needed to be) in 2007 on gasoline grades over previous years.

Accountabilities

• Management of Safety, Health & Environment
• Development, Control & Forecasting of $20 million operating budget
• Leadership & Development of production support staff (two) and process operators (50)
• Annual Capital budget development
• Monthly production plan input and compliance
• Recruitment of plant operators
• Asset Owner for Management of Change Process

Achievements

• Lead Operations teams for two large shutdowns (maintenance periods) that were First Quartile in terms of Cost, Schedule and Safety. This was the first time that no injuries were sustained during a Shutdown.
• Successful negotiation of Operations EBA Team Member
• Chosen by the site as a role model/key influencer during the successful role out of a company wide behavioural safety program.

Accountabilities

• Management of Safety, Health & Environment
• Development, Control & Forecasting of $20 million operating budget
• Leadership & Development of production support staff (two) and process operators (50)
• Annual Capital budget development
• Monthly production plan input and compliance
• Recruitment of plant operators
• Asset Owner for Management of Change Process

Achievements

• Sucessfully negotiated a number of reliability issues that caused short unit shutdowns and threatened to reoccur continuing development and sucession planning for operators while acting as Superintendent.

Accountabilities

• Working with Operators to develop Job Safety Analyses
• Day to Day Production Support & Target Setting for FCCU & Utilities Plants
• Maintenance Priority Setting and Development of Weekly Plan
• Monitoring of Catalyst & Chemical Usage
• Operations Coordinator 2001 FCCU Shutdown

Achievements

• Lead operations team during execution of 2001 FCCU Shutdown
• Refinery representative for FCCU Shutdown Best Practice Meeting in USA

Accountabilities

• Advanced Control & TDC Support for FCCU & Utilities Plants
• Maintenance & Creation of Advanced Controls & TDC Software
• Development and Implementation of Small Regulatory Control Changes
• Management of Change for Honeywell TDC 3000 system for Area South
• Chairperson for Alarm Review Process

Achievements

• Developed a simple software solution that automated the generation of summary reports for plant alarms. This saved many hours of work and meant that my team and I could focus on resolving the issues that caused the alarms rather than just reporting that there were issues.
• Development & Modification of Advanced Controls for FCCU
• Design & Implementation of Regulatory Control Changes for Export of Fuel Gas to nearby Ammonia Plant

Accountabilities

• Day to day technical support of FCCU & Utilities Plants
• Development of Improvement Projects
• Process Monitoring, Optimisation & Investigation
• Technical Recommendations to Production Management regarding FCCU catalyst selection

Achievements

• Identified operational issues on a key refinery processing unit following maintenance that resulted in high quality diesel being downgraded to a lower value fuel oil. This downgrade was valued at approximately $4 million per year.
• Redesigned a system for collecting steam condensate that had caused an unplanned site wide shutdown due to failure of a vessel. Once commissioned, all of the daily operating issues with this equipment were resolved. Subsequent inspection three years later revealed that all of the long term issues had also been mitigated.
• Process inspection of FCCU complex during 1998 shutdown.