Acetic Acid Process & Development Engineer

About the role

The Acetic Acid Process & Development Engineer is responsible for continuous improvement in production capability, variable cost, product quality, process safety, environmental compliance, and reliability. They support the development of innovative process technologies.

Responsibilities

• Ensure compliance with SHE standards and expectations.
• Reduce/investigate plant Loss of Containment events (LOCs).
• Provide leadership in PSM and Environmental efforts including PHAs, MOCs, Risk Assessments, and incident investigations.
• Evaluate and approve MOCs.
• Conduct PSSRs for MOCs.
• Participate in PHAs as the process engineering representative.
• Own process safety information for the assigned process unit.
• Complete all assigned action items from PHAs, incidents, audits, etc. in a timely manner and keep status and plans for action items updated.
• Deliver the INEOS 20 Principles for Behavioral and Process Safety, thereby promoting plant integrity and personal safety.
• Manage the morning plant operations meeting, setting the agenda, allocating actions, and ensuring they are promptly followed up.
• Discuss plant incidents, new near misses, and outstanding actions with Operations Supervisor.
• Compile nightly and weekend instructions and advise shift teams, Operations Supervisor, Work Execution Supervisor, and Site Shift Lead on requirements and upcoming workload.
• Manage relationships with onsite tenants and key vendors and customers.
• Manage plant upsets, shutdowns, and restarts.
• Support technical troubleshooting during plant recovery situations.
• Oversee plant shutdown/restart, ensuring Shift Team Leaders and Operations Supervisor are aware of the overall picture and intentions and that this is effectively communicated.
• Single point of contact for operational aspects of plant restart audits.
• Develop plant isolation envelopes, procedures, preps, and permits aligned to plant outage or TAR work scope.
• Manage the generation of permits through self, Operations Supervisor, Asset Manager, and Shift Team Leaders.
• Single point of contact for catalyst strategy development and implementation.
• Monitor catalyst life, optimize catalyst performance to deliver business targets for MPR and efficiency.
• Work with catalyst/support suppliers and Procurement Manager in defining catalyst orders to meet recat schedule.
• Monitor PI data/trends to identify areas for process optimization to meet plant performance targets.
• Work with Asset Project and Reliability Engineer and Asset Support to identify and take forward opportunities for process improvement.
• Manage the operational variable costs budget and conversion efficiency performance.
• Investigate deviations from plant technical standards and update the technical standards of plants each year to demonstrate continual improvement.
• Work with logistics planning team and site operations team to determine any restrictions and the optimum way to meet business tonnage and efficiency requirements.
• Carry out reviews and updates for all operational aspects of existing plant documentation.
• Approve complex plant preparation procedures.
• Act as responsible engineer role for MOCs (as applicable) and act as MOC Manager when needed.
• Develop critical operating procedures.
• Own and manage the DCS Alarm System for the asset, including trending and analyzing alarm data to drive reductions in alarm counts.
• Define, maintain, and track observance of operating envelope for the assigned process unit.
• Develop and maintain process focused KPIs.
• Provide cover for the Operations Supervisor and Asset Manager roles as required.
• Conduct engineering studies and troubleshoot processes to support manufacturing.
• Develop, evaluate, calculate, and design plant equipment and process changes to achieve safety, environmental, production, reliability, quality, and cost goals.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Chemical Engineering from accredited college/university or degree in another engineering discipline with prior chemical process manufacturing experience.
• 5+ years of experience in a chemical plant or refinery.
• Experience & Technical Skills:
• Knowledge of Safety, Health, and Environmental Quality issues.
• Statistical process improvement skills preferred.
• High familiarity with common industry practices such as Management of Change (MOC), Root Cause Investigation (RCI), Risk Identification and Management.
• High familiarity with common industry software applications such as Aspen Process Simulation Tools, Aspen Process Explorer, PI Process Book.