Full Time
ConocoPhillips - Houston, TX - Jan. 2015 to October 2014
Graduate Facilities Engineer - L48 Discipline Engineering
ConocoPhillips (COP) is the world’s largest independent exploration and production company, based on proved reserves and production of liquids and natural gas. As a company, employees explore for, develop, and produce crude oil and natural gas globally. I joined the company straight out of college. I was hired on as a Graduate Facilities Engineer for the Discipline Engineer group under the Lower 48 Project, Supply Chain and Engineering division. I always viewed Discipline Engineering as an internal consulting group for the Lower 48 Business Units (BUs). Our main role was to support operations and the engineers assigned to each BU. The majority of our work included sizing equipment, facilitating Process Hazard Analysis (PHAs), troubleshooting, writing/updating guidelines and procedures, writing the Scope of Work (SOW) of projects and working with third parties to complete a project.
Although I was with the company for a relatively short amount of time, I was able to contribute to the company by automating and improving several processes. My main project involved identifying gaps on documentation for sizing Pressure Safety Valves (PSVs) after one of the gas plants got red flagged during an internal audit. I was originally given a spreadsheet with approximately 500 PSVs, along with their description. My goal was to populate the spreadsheet with critical information and parameters to size the PSV, such as fluid properties, set pressure, applicable over pressure scenarios, manufacturer, location, size, and available documentation. Halfway through the project, I decided to switch gears and create an Access based database to consolidate these fields into one datasheet and to facilitate querying and managing the information. Since not that many people are familiar with Access, I crated a Power Point Presentation with detailed instruction on how to use the tool. The people at the plant and at the office truly appreciated the easiness to handle information using this tool. Similarly, I automated the verification of line sizes of Third Parties by creating a spreadsheet that estimates velocity and pressure drop in a pipe and compares these values with limits set by COP standards and flags the lines in violation.
My VBA skills were furthered developed after participating in the creation of a PSV sizing Excel-based calculator for over pressure scenarios required by API standard. I primarily supported VBA coding needed for certain features needed in the tool. I also developed an Equipment Summary workbook that separates equipment by type and creates an automatic summary sheet with specified parameters. Although this was a simple task, it automated a process that the group had been doing manually for years.
Other minor tasks involved:
Although I was with the company for a relatively short amount of time, I was able to contribute to the company by automating and improving several processes. My main project involved identifying gaps on documentation for sizing Pressure Safety Valves (PSVs) after one of the gas plants got red flagged during an internal audit. I was originally given a spreadsheet with approximately 500 PSVs, along with their description. My goal was to populate the spreadsheet with critical information and parameters to size the PSV, such as fluid properties, set pressure, applicable over pressure scenarios, manufacturer, location, size, and available documentation. Halfway through the project, I decided to switch gears and create an Access based database to consolidate these fields into one datasheet and to facilitate querying and managing the information. Since not that many people are familiar with Access, I crated a Power Point Presentation with detailed instruction on how to use the tool. The people at the plant and at the office truly appreciated the easiness to handle information using this tool. Similarly, I automated the verification of line sizes of Third Parties by creating a spreadsheet that estimates velocity and pressure drop in a pipe and compares these values with limits set by COP standards and flags the lines in violation.
My VBA skills were furthered developed after participating in the creation of a PSV sizing Excel-based calculator for over pressure scenarios required by API standard. I primarily supported VBA coding needed for certain features needed in the tool. I also developed an Equipment Summary workbook that separates equipment by type and creates an automatic summary sheet with specified parameters. Although this was a simple task, it automated a process that the group had been doing manually for years.
Other minor tasks involved:
- Sizing PSVs to ensure that the ones in uses are adequate
- Provided Process Safety Management (PSM) support by creating Process Safety Risk and Self Audit checklists to be used during a Management of Change (MOC)
- Prepared Process Safety Information, including separating P&IDs into nodes, and pre-populated a PHA Pro file with expected causes and deviations for a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA)
- Reviewed and approved Control Narratives for instrumentation in facilities equipment to ensure that they accurately describe the control system shown on P&IDs
- Recommended a sampling system to be used to collect a sour stream from a gas plant after discussing several systems with three different vendors - created sketches for each using Visio
- Volunteered to be Floor Warden - ensure everyone is safe and out of their office during an emergency
- PHA Training for Team Leaders with PrimaTech
- Introduction to Collaboration for Decision Quality (CDQ)
- Piping and Valve Training with Cameron
- Utilities Awareness Level Training
- Gas Processing Training
- Flare and Relief Systems
- Basic Petroleum Engineering Practices with Petro Skills
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