Our Corrosion Engineer also known as "Professor"

We called him " Professor". His real name is Mr. Johann Taverner from Germany. He was our Lead Corrosion Engineer for previous RBI Rehab Project.

Eventhough his title was Corrosion Engineer but he has vast experience and knowledge in Pressure Vessel, Tank Design and Assessment. He even had worked for the university couple of years before joining Germanisher Lloyds. He spend almost 2 years with the team and left the project in April 07. Now he is in Germanisher Lloyds main office in Hamburg, Germany.

I learn a lot from this guy. He always trying to help and answer every question we asked him eventhough he was very busy man. I always have discussion with him regarding the job ( RBI, Vessel assessment) and sometimes I have disagreement with him on some issue but no problem, that is part and parcel of good discussion.

Other interesting point about him is he was very active person compared to his age. He is a marathon man and still actively participating in Marathon all over Germany. 5-10 km running per day is normal for him. I tried to follow him running once but huhhhhh.. cant match him. Our office that time was on 6^th Floor and he always watched us so that we are NOT using the lift to climb the floor. Hence, we used to climb 6^th floor using stair every day once he was there. Hahah.. But now, since he left, many of us use lift.

Wishing him all the best. Thanks a lot.

NEW YEAR 2008 and NEW PROJECT

Happy new year to all. Hope you have achieved every goal that you plan for 2007. Lets hope 2008 bring more cheer, joy and prosperity to all of us. It has been a while since my last post. Quite busy with my work here in Cairo. Last year I was working in the Offshore Facilities Rehabilitation Project for BP Gupco. Refer to the attached photo for Rehab Team. Standing 1st from right is me!!


New year coming and I was transferred to new and more exciting project. Now, I'm working with Germanisher Lloyds for Saqqara RBI project. The project is very exciting to me since I am involved from the start of the project. This project is basically to prepare and develop GALIOM RBI database for BP GUPCO new onshore facility, SAQQARA. The task include but not limited to :

1. Develop Asset Hierrachy
2.Define functional group and corrosion loop
3. Create feature and tag for each vessel, tank, piping. Uploading mechanical data.
4. Selecting TML (Thickness Measurement Location)
5. Assign Failure Mode
6. Define Probability and Consequence of Failure
7. Evaluate Criticality and Confidence Grading.

The team consist of Mr. Jose Jordan as Corrosion Engineer (Venezuela), myself as Reliability Engineer, Mr. Frankie as Data Coordinator / IT support (Hongkong) and supported by local Egyptian engineer. So far the project is progressing as per plan. Lets hope we deliver to BP Gupco in time.

Job Oppurtunity in Schlumberger

Schlumberger.. everybody in oil and gas know about this company.. I can tell you that everybody in this industry love to part of this company. I will also want work with Schlumberger someday if given the oppurtunity. And now they are hiring..Check it out.

There is a new job posted that might be of interest:

Mechanical, Exploration & Production

Salary indication: Very Competitive

Find out more, please click here

Job Opening..

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Looking for Senior Technician

There is a new job posted that might be of interest: Senior Mechanical Maintenance Technician, see in the Petrochemical category.

Salary indication: Competitive

Click here : Senior Technician Needed

Tips:
To increase your chance, be selective with applying: carefully match your capabilities, experiences and ambitions with the requirements.

Oil and Gas Industry Salary Checker

How do you know you salary youre getting is worth it? What is the market value for your position. This is very important info before you want to deal or attent interview. You don't want to deal very high salary which the oil company cant pay you and you also don't want to get lower salary compared to your friend in the same position. How the check it? Here it is.

The Oil and Gas Industry Salary Checker works by searching through our database for salary information that matches your query. This should give you good idea of what people in specific situations are being paid and will allow a direct comparison with your own position. The salary information is entered directly by people when they enter their CV/resume. The results show how many people match your query, the average salary for all those matching and detailed salary data for 20 people around the median result. The detailed information displayed includes salary, job title, age, experience, qualification and country of residence.

For more info, click here Oil & Gas Salary Checker

Reliability Engineer

I'm working as a Reliability Engineer. What is it really Reliability Engineer do? How to get into this line? What is the qualification needed? Let me tell you one by one. Currently I'm working in Rehabilitation Project for BP Egypt. Some of their oil facilities ( drilling platform, pipeline, refinery, offshore structure, vessel) were built during years of 1970 and above. That’s mean this facilities are near to end of its life span. Normally the designer will design offshore facilities, refinery to be in safe working condition of around 30-40 years. After this period, if the owner still wants to use these facilities, they need to engage Consultant to perform detail inspection and assessment in order to justify that it is safe and reliable for operation.

This is where Reliability Engineer will play its part. With the aid of NDT (non-destructive test), Reliability Engineer will assess and give recommendation, approval whether the item is safe and reliable for operation. Thus, if you can imagine that Reliability Engineer have very huge responsibility since each of his recommendation will be the final decision whether to use or scrap the facilities. This is very the use of advanced NDT will help a lot in determining and recognizing defect, imperfection. For me, working as a Reliability Engineer is very challenging and interesting career. I will touch later in next posting on how to be a qualified Reliability Engineer. Don’t forget to visit this blog again.

Non Destructive Testing (NDT)

In the oil and gas industry, particularly in the new construction and maintenance stage, NDT (Non Descructive Test) is widely used and compulsary to check the integrity of the vessel, tank, piping and other equipment. Most widely used nowadays including RT (radiograpic), UT (ultrasonic), AE (accoustic emission), IR (Infra red), ET (electromagnetic).

NDT Methods


Acoustic Emission
When a solid material is stressed, imperfections within the material emit short bursts of energy called "emissions". In much the same manner as ultrasonic testing, these acoustic emissions can be detected by special receivers. The source of the "emissions" can be evaluated through study of their strength, rate, and location.

Eddy Current
In eddy current testing, one of several electromagnetic testing methods, electrical currents are generated in a conductive material by an induced magnetic field. Interruptions in the flow of the electric currents (eddy currents), which are caused by imperfections or changes in a material's conductive properties, will cause changes in the induced magnetic field. These changes when detected, indicate the presence of a change in the test object.

Leak Testing
A variety of techniques are used to detect and locate leaks in pressure containment parts and structures. Leaks can be detected by using electronic listening devices, pressure gage measurements, liquid and gas penetrant techniques, and/or a simple soap bubble test.

Liquid Penetrant
Liquid penetrant testing is probably the most widely used NDT method. The test object or material is coated with a visible or fluorescent dye solution. The excess dye is removed from the surface, and then a developer is applied. the developer acts like a blotter and draws penetrant out of imperfections which open to the surface. With visible dyes, the vivid color contrast between the penetrant and the developer makes the "bleedout' easy to see. With fluorescent dyes, and ultraviolet lamp is used to make the "bleedout" fluoresce brightly, thus allowing the imperfection to be seen readily.


Magnetic Particle
Magnetic particle testing is done by inducing a magnetic field in a ferro-magnetic material and dusting the surface with iron particles (either dry or suspended in a liquid). Surface imperfections will distort the magnetic field and concentrate the iron particles near imperfections, thus indicating their presence.

Radiography
Radiography involves the use of penetrating X or gamma radiation to examine parts and products for imperfections. An X-ray machine or radioactive isotope is used as a source of radiation. Radiation is directed through a part and onto film. When the film is developed, a shadowgraph is obtained that shows the internal soundness of a part. Possible imperfections show up as density changes in the film, in much the same manner as an x-ray can show broken bones.

Ultrasonics
Ultrasonic testing uses the transmission of high frequency sound waves, into a material to detect imperfections within the material or changes in material properties. The most commonly used ultrasonic testing technique is pulse echo wherein sound is introduced into the test object and reflections (echoes) are returned to a receiver from interal imperfections or from geometrical surfaces of the part.

Visual Examination
Probably the oldest and most common method of NDT is visual examination, which has numerous industrial and commercial applications. Examiners follow procedures ranging from simple to very complex, some of which involve comparison of workmanship samples with production parts. Visual techniques are used wih all other NDT methods.

MARITIME INJURY AND FATALITY

I think working in offshore or oil and gas facility is the safest place to work. Safety is the big and important aspect to be taken care before any work or job can be carried out. However, some people may take not take safety seriously. They prefer to do 'short cut' job without fullfill the safety aspect of their work. That why sometimes maritime accident, maritime injuries happen. This is one example of the maritime accident.

Think Safety , Work Safely

Work was in hand to position new panels of steel grating on the 5th level of a process train (See photo). Several supporting cross beams had been located incorrectly. Hence the gratings did not fit properly as designed. However the decision was made to lay down all the gratings and to tie those necessary in place temporary by using thin wire.The contractor fixing the gratings placed wooden planks down over the unsecured gratings to assist him in carrying out safe operations. During the morning of the accident these wooden planks were removed to assist in the operation.

The contractor did not expect any other work to be performed at this level during the same day. At lunch time the site was left without the wooden planks being replaced and without any warning signs or tapes.In the late morning some welders requested that a scaffold platform be installed. During the lunch break the scaffolding supervisor went up to the 5th level to review the need for scaffolding. He walked along ontop of the grating unaware that some of the gratings were unsecured. When he put his weight ontop of the grating in question, the wire broke and he and the grating fell down through the platform and he hit his head on a scaffold pole. He died 9 hours later in hospital.