gas-oil unit, a hydro-cracker, a long residue catalytic cracker, an isopropyl alcohol plant, and a large generation and utilities complex. There were a number of other smaller processing units and a large oil-movements area consisting of tanks, blending, and a pipeline operation. Operations were controlled from a number of control rooms. Waterfront operations moved thirty million tons per year of product over 11 wharves with 3,500 shipping movements. The facilities described above varied in age from the geriatric to brand new and had a replacement value of about US $4 billion.
About 600 people lived on the refinery site and another 2,000 came to the refinery each day.
The organization was as traditional as you could get with Operations, Technology, Finance, Personnel, and Engineering Managers. Under the Engineering Manager were discipline heads for Mechanical, Electrical, Projects, etc. Expatriates held a number of key positions, but most positions were filled by very competent local staff.
The refinery was well run and profitable but significantly overstaffed. Benchmarking studies showed there were areas of superior performance with excellent practices that others could copy to their benefit. However, they also showed that this refinery was, at best, an average performer and hadn’t moved with the times. Reliability, manning levels, and operating costs needed attention.
2.2.3 Facility: New Medium-Sized Complex Oil Refinery
This was a brand new joint venture; an 8-million-tons-per-year refinery situated on the coast and designed to process a mix of Middle East crude oils (by ship, over a single buoy mooring loading facility) as well as indigenous crude oils over jetties. The main plants included atmospheric and vacuum distillation units, hydro-cracker, visbreaker, hydro-desulfurizing unit, hydro-treater, and a reformer (platformer). The electrical power generation capacity met internal requirements fully. Similarly, there was capacity to produce other utilities. Thus, the refinery could operate effectively on a stand-alone basis, although it was connected to the local electrical grid.
The refinery was designed to perform at world class standards in e.g., process efficiency, plant availability, utilization, organization style, manning levels, safety, environmental impact, and overall costs.
The management structure was traditional with Operations, Engineering, Finance, and Personnel functions. Maintenance engineers and technicians provided the core expertise at the working level. The philosophy adopted in recruiting staff was, however, definitely non-traditional. Plant operators were recruited from a craft background and then further trained in a specific craft skill, e.g., mechanical, instruments, or electrical. These operators then spent two thirds of their time in operations and one third in maintenance. During the latter period, they did the bulk of the maintenance work while specialized technicians provided the high-level competencies. A competence framework helped manage the concept, rewarding acquisition of needed skills.
2.2.4 Facility: A Medium-Sized Simple Petroleum Refinery
Commissioned in the late 1960s, this was a medium-sized, simple (hydro-skimming) refinery. Together with primary distillation capability, it had a platinum reforming unit to obtain high octane naphtha and hydrogen for its hydro-treating processes. A short period before the events described in this book, a refrigerated liquefied petroleum gas storage and export facility had been constructed and added to the refinery assets. As the country has very high literacy, the refinery had a well-educated work force. Traditionally, the population is highly skilled in crafts and people are proud of their handiwork. The value system also includes respect for elders, obedience to authority, and help and support to one another within the community.
2.2.5 Facility: A Regional Oil Company Operating Refineries and Downstream Operations
The company operated four refineries located in various parts of the country as well as a national marketing network. All refineries processed imported crude oil. The refineries ranged from medium–sized, semi-complex to large complex units. Between them, they had a full range of petroleum refining process plants, with sophisticated, state-of-the-art process control systems. Although the region was technologically very advanced, they did not apply sophisticated computerized methods to refinery maintenance. The refineries functioned with very hierarchical organizations in which communication was strictly via the official chain of command.
2.3 Locations in Europe
2.3.1 Facility: A Large Petroleum Refinery
This very large refinery was located on the coast. It was a ‘swing’ refinery, processing several types of crude oil. Because it had many process plants, there were a number of plant shutdowns every year. In this facility, they did a number of things very well, and others learned from them. Staff were disciplined and generally performed competently. Their technical knowledge base was excellent, but typical large facility silos had developed, leading to indifferent business performance. In benchmarking studies, they came out about average.
The refinery was located in an industrial belt, along with a number of other large chemical plants, refineries, and manufacturing facilities. All the companies used contractors extensively for shutdown work. Most of the shutdowns were scheduled in the April-October period, avoiding the cold weather as far as possible. Contractor manpower requirements peaked significantly during these periods. Inter-company agreements were in place to minimize bunching, which could result in dilution of skills.
2.3.2 Facility: Large Oil and Gas Production Company
The company carried out Exploration and Production (E&P) of hydrocarbon oil and gas. It was one of many companies in a large multi-national oil and gas group of companies.
The facility had several offshore oil and gas reservoirs. Some of these were exploited from fixed Platforms, others from Floating Production Storage and Offloading facilities (FPSOs). There were also a number of sub-sea installations feeding Platforms or FPSOs.
The company was innovative and used leading edge technology. It provided skilled staff on loan to other companies in the group.
It suffered from some of the large company problems. These included working in silos, optimizing things to benefit the department rather than the overall business, and slow speed of decision making.
2.3.3 Facility: Corporate Technical Headquarters
This facility was the technical headquarters of a very large multi-national oil and gas group of companies. From these offices, the corporate staff provided technical support to a large number of exploration and production facilities, refineries, gas plants, and chemical plants located around the world. A small maintenance and reliability team provided a benchmarking and consultancy service to the refineries and gas plants. The team identified maintenance best practices for sharing within the group to promote increased profitability and plant availability. They used written guidelines, newsletters, training courses, workshops, and conference events to transfer knowledge between locations. The three authors were founding members of a reliability improvement team, which worked with sites to promote performance improvements. This process proved to be very successful.
2.3.4 Facility: A Small Complex Oil Refinery
This was a small, rather aging asset onto which was being grafted some modern world-scale plants for product upgrading. It had the usual refinery plants of atmospheric and vacuum crude distillation and lubes along with thermal gas oil, reformer, hydro-cracker, catalytic cracker, bitumen, and a large electrical generation and utilities operation. There was a large tank farm, dated both in age and technology, with a fairly new blending facility and jetty area handling significant shipping movements.
Poor industrial relations with resistance to change sapped managerial energies. Outdated attitudes and work practices typified this location.
2.4
