Bio E10 takes the cake. Biofuels Manager Mabelle Reyes and Operations Development Project Manager Peter Burns celebrate the Banksmeadow facilities opening

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Caltex upgrades biofuels facilities in two states

The commissioning of new biofuels blending and storage facilities at Caltex’s Banksmeadow terminal in Sydney and Lytton terminal in Brisbane will help to ease constraints on Caltex supplying more Bio E10 Unleaded petrol to its networks.

“We will be able to offer more of our customers the choice of using a fuel that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels," Caltex Managing Director Des King said.

The new $3 million facilities at Banksmeadow were officially opened in June by state Minister for Lands, Rural Affairs and Regional Development Tony Kelly.

Mr Kelly said he looked forward to rapid increases in Caltex’s E10 sales to meet the New South Wales 2% ethanol mandate and to continued cooperation in developing a sustainable biofuels industry in the state.

At the Lytton fuel distribution terminal, a $3 million biofuels upgrade was officially launched in August by the Queensland Minister for Tourism, Regional Development and Industry Desley Boyle.

Ms Boyle said the new facilities would help meet rising demand for ethanol blended fuel, particularly in south-east Queensland, and was another major step forward in the state’s commitment to a 5 per cent ethanol mandate by 2010.

“The Queensland Government is working in close partnership with industry to grow the state's ethanol industry, with Caltex agreeing to buy at least 30 million litres of ethanol annually for three years from the new Dalby Biorefinery, due to open later this year,” said Ms Boyle.

Caltex now has around 230 service stations nationwide offering Bio E10 Unleaded petrol which is blended with 10 per cent ethanol. The upgraded facilities will aid expansion to further sites in Queensland and NSW.

Precision repair job

Maintenance teams at the Lytton refinery in Brisbane faced a challenging exercise to replace the mid-section of a 27-metre steel column in June. But they achieved it within a tight deadline and without incident despite high winds and heavy showers.

The six-metre section of the stripper column on the refinery’s diesel hydrotreating unit was replaced following corrosion problems.

It required the removal of the top and mid sections of the column along with all attached pipe work, electrical and instrumentation equipment, ladders, platforms and 30 internal trays.

The steel mid section was oxy cut off and replaced with a newly fabricated carbon steel cylinder 1.2 metres in diameter with an overlay of two different grades of stainless steel. It was tricky precision work to lift the new seven- tonne section into place then fit and weld the top section back onto it.

Caltex appoints Climate Change Manager

Caltex now has a Manager Climate Change with the appointment in August of Fran van Reyk to the new role.

Fran is a civil engineer who has held senior management roles with Caltex Refining in engineering and major projects. She is enthusiastic about her new role as she admits to having “a bit of a passion” when it comes to the environment.

In announcing Fran’s appointment, Caltex General Manager Strategy, Planning & Development, Mike McMenamin referred to her passion for the role, her strategic thinking capability, Refining expertise and project management experience.

“This is a major strategic issue for our company and I am delighted that Fran will lead the project to develop the enterprise’s response to the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme,” said Mike.

Fran will be working with colleagues from Refining, Marketing, Supply & Distribution, Government Affairs, Accounting, Operational Excellence & Risk IT, Treasury, Tax and Strategy, Planning & Development to meet Caltex’s obligations to reduce carbon pollution.

She has received a lot of positive and encouraging comments from Caltex colleagues saying they are very pleased to see the company create such a role. But one of the biggest enthusiasts is her daughter Lauren, 9, who has been proudly announcing that her mother’s new job is “to help with climate change” when she meets people

Hi-tech research helps meet customer needs

People visiting a new-style Caltex '21CC' Star Mart convenience store may have noticed a fellow customer wearing what appeared to be a small camera lens strapped to his forehead.

They were witnessing high-tech market research. The forehead device is an eye tracking goggle that shows where the wearer’s eyes are focussing as he walks around the store – what catches his attention, what routes he takes and where he become hesitant or confused.

This is all part of intensive qualitative research Caltex is doing on its new concept convenience store. In a trial which started just over twelve months ago, Caltex has opened six of these stores in NSW which have a different internal design and products on offer than existing standard Star Marts.

Consumer response to the new style stores is being researched in a number of ways, including the eye-tracking study, focus group discussions, and in-depth studies. The studies involved individual shoppers visiting 21CC stores, a standard StarMart and competitors’ stores and comparing their shopping experience

The research is targeting consumer segments based on demographic (age, gender, profession) and psychographic (behaviour and needs) factors which studies have shown are most likely to prefer convenience store shopping. The results will enable Caltex to refine its offer to better meet their needs.

The research results to date have been positive and are helping Caltex improve the 21CC store layout and product line before deciding whether to roll it out further through its 600 strong convenience store network.

LPS at work

What started with a Loss Prevention System (LPS) investigation into spills at Caltex terminals has finished with a new leading edge technology component that will be used in fuel tankers around the world.

It’s a story that National Operations Manager (Terminals and Pipelines) Paul O’Loughlin and his team are proud to tell. Back in March 2007 after a spate of spills involving contractor vehicles loading at Caltex terminals, the Terminal Operations group conducted a workshop at Newport terminal to review the causes identified in LPS investigations.

Evidence pointed to the vehicle overfill systems. The team shared their findings in a series of workshops with firms that supplied transport, maintenance and equipment for the terminals, inviting them to help devise solutions.

Closer testing revealed shortcomings in a device on tanker trucks that is meant to shut off the system when the tanker is full. The component, an overfill probe extension, was often tripping too late and its settings could not be easily verified. What’s more, when the probes were being replaced the practice was simply to line the new one up against markings made on the old one without reference to calibration charts or manufacturers settings.

As a result of ideas generated at the workshops, a leading manufacturer was asked to design a new overfill probe device that could be easily set and verified and would be linked to correct settings listed on a vehicle compliance plate located near the probe. A number of meetings and design changes later, the final product emerged: a probe that enabled self diagnosing through a laser edged trip point setting that could be easily reconciled back to the compliance plates.