Caltex’s magazine for employees, franchisees & resellers
Issue 42 Apr – May 08
Article Highlights
For everyone involved, safety is the single most important issue. But the teams have embraced the Caltex Incident and Injury Free program which is making a difference.
Gallery
Area specialist Ian Ottaway watches as the top 10 metres of a 67-metre concrete stack are removed and replaced with an 80-tonne steel cap during the Kurnell shutdown.
In this issue:
The shutdown, a fine balance
Safeguarding supply, from left: Mike Charlton, Fran van Reyk and Steve Thorsby.
10am on a humid February morning. At Caltex's Kurnell refinery on the southern end of Botany Bay, it's a busy day. Hundreds of people in blue overalls and hard hats swarm like ants over a maze of pipes, platforms, pressure vessels and machinery. Vehicles, cranes and forklifts manoeuvre slowly through the throng.
"It's a finely balanced operation where all activities must dovetail with the supply process"
Shutdown superintendent Mike Charlton is standing beside a thoroughfare with a mobile phone clamped to his ear, talking to his manager Steve Thorsby.
"The work's going well, especially on the CDU," Mike tells Steve. "And it's all progressing safely. I reckon we're on track to finish in just over three weeks time."
Non-refinery people might find it impossible to comprehend what's going on here. Today is a milestone, the halfway stage of a 50-day-long shutdown where some of the units responsible for turning 120,000 barrels of crude oil a day into petrol and diesel lie silent, closed for cleaning and maintenance. The work will cost Caltex $30 million and involve a labour force of over 750, mostly contractors.
Planned major maintenance – a "turnaround" in refining jargon – is all part of Caltex's work to help ensure the reliable supply of fuel to keep the country moving.
Safety first
For everyone involved, safety is the single most important issue. But the teams have embraced the Caltex Incident and Injury Free program which is making a difference. "We're really seeing a change in how we do things," Steve says.
Much is at stake. While the crude distillation unit (CDU), sulfur recovery plant, diesel hydrotreater, splitter and reformer are down, the refinery is like a body through which blood has stopped flowing. It simply can't function.
Though the Supply team and others have been planning for this event for 18 months and have imported and stored fuel to cover the shortfall, delays can have dire consequences in cost blowouts and lost sales. In addition the Supply people have had to time the purchase and storage of enough crude oil to ensure the units can run at peak capacity when they come back on line.
"It's a finely balanced operation where all activities must dovetail with the supply process," explains Refining Engineering Manager Fran van Reyk.
Injury free hours
On site, as he does every day, Mike Charlton works with controlled speed, reallocating workers to priority jobs and constantly monitoring their safety and progress. Today he is delighted. "The shutdown has just completed 100,000 work hours without an injury," he tells colleagues with a smile.
It's also good news for Sydney. Shell's Clyde refinery in western Sydney has had an unexpected shutdown that's disrupted production, threatening to result in weeks of tight petrol and diesel for the metro area. With the Kurnell shutdown running ahead of the planning schedule, Caltex Refining might be able to better help overcome the supply shortfall caused by the Shell outage.
Having people on site like Mike helps, says Fran. A Chevron secondee, his specialist knowledge is essential for smooth operations.
Part of the process
Shutdowns are a key part of the refining operation and are critical to maintaining safety and reliability. They usually take place every four to five years to comply with statutory requirements for inspecting and maintaining pressure vessels and related equipment as well as fouling and general wear and tear.
"A shutdown requires a lot of effort from an integrated team from all parts of Refining," says Fran. "If we didn't run them properly the results could be catastrophic for the whole supply chain and the economy of the state."
Fran's journey from rig to refinery
Fran van Reyk took the job as Refining Engineering Manager at Caltex two years ago, relishing the challenge of improving safety performance and the way the company executes turnarounds and minor capital projects at Lytton and Kurnell refineries.
Her role is pivotal in ensuring the refineries keep operating. Processing millions of tonnes of crude oil at high pressure and temperature through a complex of pipes, distillation columns, catalytic cracking towers and bulbous reactor vessels takes its toll in wear and tear as the oil is transformed into petrol, diesel and jet fuel. Major maintenance and replacement of refining plant is carried out about every four years in a way that makes a refinery a bit like grandfather's axe: it's had quite a few resharpened heads and lots of new handles in its lifetime.
In addition to maintenance, in her job at Caltex Fran also oversees procurement, long-term planning and the introduction of best practices into the capital execution and turnaround process. All up she's responsible for overseeing around 1.2 million work hours a year, an annual capital budget of $100 million and a turnaround budget of over $50 million.
"Many of the projects and turnarounds we're planning today will not be completed until 2009 and beyond," says Fran. "Only then will we know we've been successful in ensuring supply reliability. There is a long-term focus in this role."
Fran's role is far removed from her childhood dream in Melbourne of becoming a professional photographer. But coming from a long line of lawyers and as dux of Year 12, the expectation was that she would follow in the family footsteps.
Her parents, wanting her to go university, wouldn't support her photography studies. "I said fine. I'll do engineering. They were horrified. I chose it out of petulance perhaps but it ended up being a great choice. I love it!"
In her 23-year career Fran has built an impressive track record. Having topped her final year in Civil Engineering at the University of Melbourne, she was recruited by Esso (now Exxon Mobil) and started her career as a drilling engineer in Bass Strait.
"That was a shock to the system for a 21-yearold," she says. "It was seven days on, seven days off."
Next she got a taste of the commercial building industry as manager of the design team that built the £30 million combined flow sewerage pumping station for London's Docklands development. Later she worked on the expansion of Melbourne international airport and saw "the real tough side of the industry" as operations manager for a galvanising plant.
She got a feel for lobbying as state manager for the Australian Institute of Steel Construction and developed her leadership and organisational skills moving through the ranks at Fluor as an international engineering and construction contractor, where she eventually joined the leadership team.
Her full-time return to the oil industry is not Fran's first contact with Caltex. That happened during a stint with the engineering design contractor which designed Caltex's Clean Fuels Project and handled other work for the company.
After following her husband to Sydney, she went out as an independent consultant. When her current position became vacant she started talking to Caltex. Soon after, she got the job.
"Having worked on the Clean Fuels Project I was aware of the challenges of the job so went in with my eyes wide open," Fran says. "But I knew there was plenty I could do to make a difference."
Fran will take on a new role as Manager Major Projects Kurnell in May.