PROFILE: Design of Refineries  & Chemicals Plants

2009    Borger Gasoline Benzene Reduction
GBR is a federally-mandated reduction – WRB Refinery chose to also do a major upgrade in overall efficiency.
Bob was Systems area Lead for light ends distillation section including P&IDS, datasheets, and PHA closure.

2008    Ras Tanura Integrated Project
RTIP is a grass-roots petrochemical joint venture between Dow and Saudi Aramco. Bob set up the smart tools to manage Interfaces between infrastructure (pipe, civil, cables etc), Licensors and Offsites/ Utilities/Power systems

2007    Marathon Garyville Major Expansion

The $3+ billion GME grassroots refinery provides heavy oil processing alongside the existing Garyville Refinery. Bob was P&ID lead for Kerosene Hydrotreater and Hydrocracker through to Issue for Design, plus Specialty Piping items.

2006    Yorktown Refinery Low-Sulfur Gasoline
Giant refinery was completing Clean Fuels-mandated sulfur reduction in diesel and gasoline. Bob did all design and procurement for SO2 scrubber, packaged cooling tower, conducted HAZOP for off-sites and did all flaring analyses.

2005    BP Cherry Point extra Heavy Crude Oil

BP was evaluating three of their US refineries near the Canadian border. Bob was part of the study team for Cherry Point. He did steam/water/fuel/power balances, coker capacity evaluations, specs for merchant H2 and flare options.

1995    API Refinery MACT Regulations

Bob served on API Committee reviewing the proposed regulation, chaired the Storage Tank committee, worked with EPA for more accurate emissions estimates. He wrote the training material used by EPA Refinery MACT workshops

1992    Mobil Refinery Process Advisories

Bob supervised a team of MRDC Princeton engineers in developing/calibrating monitoring & optimization tools for catalytic processes in all Mobil refineries, using real-time data gathered from Process and Lab computer systems

1985–1990       New Zealand Synthetic Fuels

NZ SynFuel was a $1.2 billion Natural Gas – Methanol – Gasoline project. Bob trained the first intake of nine unit engineers, worked on acceptance tests of all O&U facilities, then debottlenecked the twin reformers in Methanol.

1978    Ergon Refinery Expansion
Bob did process simulation, rating, equipment specification, data sheets, equipment layout and P&ID development

His role beyond process design for this expansion included setting up control systems parameters prior to startup.

1977    Gladieux Refinery Revamp

This revamp enabled Gladieux to produce military grade jet-fuel. In addition to process design, Bob’s role onsite was in expediting and logistics for critical equipment. He was coordinator in the control room during the refinery startup.

1975    Merichem Cresylate Springing

Merichem had been using H2S as an acid gas in their process – decided to switch to safer CO2. Bob did all the site data gathering of samples and process conditions, then developed a revised mass-balance for new process design