Want to work for Oil Refinery as a Mechanical Engineer. Am I on the right track? 1

[MechEngineer2012]

Hello All,
I graduated with BSME five years ago. I work as an Engineer in a pump repair shop. We receive all types of Centrifugal pumps (Overhung, Between Bearings, vertical pumps, etc), disassemble them and suggest the customers what they need to do. For example,
-The shaft may have excessive run outs and may have to replace it.
-Bearing housing bores may be oversized and need to be sleeved.
-Impeller wear rings may have heavy contact marks and need to be replaced.
-Mechanical seals and bearing isolators may have to be replaced.

My job is to analyze different pump components and suggest the customer what they need to bring the pump back to OEM specs. Our customers are companies like chevron, Tesoro and Valero. I am thinking to ask my Manager to let me assemble and disassemble the pumps so I can learn more. But I am not sure about his response because I work in the office and mechanics are in different group and the requirements may be different.

Now, My goal is to work as a mechanical/machinery engineer for one of these Oil refinery. Am I on the right track? What else should I focus on? Is the above knowledge and experience valuable for oil refineries?

Note: I am also working to get my PE mechanical license.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Refineries surely have a lot of pumps running, so your experience might be helpful.

I'm guessing you would be more valuable if you learned more about applying the pumps to systems, and about recognizing the symptoms they express when they are not working correctly,
and when the system is not working as it should.


<tangent>
I used to work in a shop that made exhaust systems, mostly for big yachts.
I had to work out the backpressure that would occur in the gas stream at speed, which had to be limited so the engine manufacturer would issue a warranty. As you might expect.

Many of those systems use seawater that's already been used to cool the engine coolant, to cool the jacketed portions of the pipes.
The water is used again, being injected directly into the gas stream at the distal end of the pipes, to cool the gas before it reaches the silicone hose and fiberglass tubes and mufflers that are commonly found downstream.

So I had to find ways to size the injection nozzles, which was a compromise between getting high water velocity and not causing so much water backpressure that the engine's heat exchangers would be overstressed, and the seawater pump would stay within its rated pressure while producing adequate flow for all purposes. I ended up analyzing the seawater system of many boats, just so my pipes would work.

On one particular boat, I had a couple of go-rounds with an Owner's Representative (basically a professionally abrasive person who insulted everyone on behalf of the owner), who insisted that we ream out the water nozzles in our pipes because the boat's engines were overheating. I went there and found our pipes full of barnacles, which are a huge mess to get out. The boat was actually in port to have some strainers fitted in the seawater suction because it had sailed through a sea of barnacles at some point.

I had done enough systems by that time to know exactly what the water pressure at the seawater pumps should have been, and it was too high even after cleaning our pipes, and the seawater flow was too low, but neither of those was our fault.

The Owners Rep insisted that I hadn't done enough measurement, and wanted me to install more pressure gages, and who knows what else. I told him that the single pressure measurement was sufficient, when combined with the word of my techs, who reported that the water coming out of the heat exchanger was too hot. A third clue was that the boat had not been able to get the engines up to max speed at sea trial, meaning the engines were way down on power. ... I was disappointed that the dealer techs had signed off on the engines anyway.

The guy had made so much noise with my boss and the boat's captain that we were about ready to go there and rape the pipes open with a plasma cutter just to shut him up, when we got a call from the captain calling all that off.

Earlier in the day, I had casually mentioned to the captain that his engineer had done a hell of a job of opening up the aftercoolers to clean out the barnacles, and restoring the factory yellow paint so perfectly there were no wrench marks in it.

It turned out the engineer had paid his brother to disassemble and clean the aftercoolers, but the brother had not quite gotten around to actually doing it.

</tangent>

You might have to do some roughly similar things, e.g. measuring and calculating and then inferring what's really going on, instead of what 'everybody knows', when you leave the pump repair office.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[SandCounter]

I don't work in a refinery, but I do work with pumping some of the nasties you would see in a refinery. A while back a head-hunter had contacted me about a great opportunity in Oil and Gas terminals. With all my good pump/system experience to that point, I had none designing systems for hazardous and explosive fluids and I missed out. Since, I have gotten into a position where I have been able to learn more about those systems.

While hands-on experience is always good, I don't think it would necessarily contribute to your goal. Perhaps getting up to speed on rules and regulations surrounding the refinery systems would be time better spent. One step might be to get yourself out to the sites where the pumps are used (if you haven't already), and really look to learn the systems and components where the pumps are used. When a customer purchases a pump, from my experience, it is a black box that should meet the power and output requirements. Troubleshooting anything within that envelope is on the pump vendor or service outfit.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[awhicker84]

I wouldn't count it entirely out. Many refinery companies have technical representatives that know rotating equipment really well. They travel the globe visiting OEM's / vendors to make sure their equipment is built / repaired correctly. Have you had to deal directly with customers? I think these guys have a 'home base' at a refinery, but their job seems to mainly require travel. Ask the next customer representative that comes and visits. (I've never been interested in that much travel)