So refined!

Refining is a crucial part of the oil and gas industry. Two graduates talk about life and work at a refinery. Glen Howitt (25) is a lubricants development engineer. He studied chemical engineering at university. Kate Kiff (28) is an inspection engineer. She studied mechanical engineering at university. They both work for the Esso Petroleum Company Ltd at Fawley Refinery near Southampton.

You both did the same things at school so how did you end up as different engineers?

G: We choose different degrees at university. But whichever type of engineering you choose to do you could end up in vastly different jobs. All along I knew I wanted to do chemical engineering - I was partly attracted by the high salaries though!

K: I decided that mechanical engineering was the broadest. I didn't particularly enjoy chemistry at A Level and didn't want to do much more of it. But whatever type of engineering you do, maths is the most important subject to have.

G: There's also quite a lot of overlap between our jobs - Kate looks at processes and how they affect materials and I look at reactions and how they affect the processes.

So do you have outdoors jobs or are you in an office a lot of the time?

G: I think Kate is out a lot more than I am. As a development engineer, I probably get out 30 per cent of the time. Occasionally I have to go out and check what's going on in the plant itself. A lot of it is saftey related.

Is safety a big issue then?

K: Yes, safety is one of the main reasons why the company employs engineers.

Who actually fixes the problem?

K: The maintenance technicians - I don't go out there with my spanner. I'm the person who tries to think up the best practical solution to unusual problems. I don't supervise any of the maintenance work either.

How much do you have to worry about business considerations?

G: A lot - cost is the driving force for a lot of what we do.

K: The whole thing about engineering is that you can't just dream up amazing solutions. You have to come up with practical solutions which won't cost the earth.

How do you explain to the operators exactly what you want done?

G: That's one of the skills of the job. One minute you may be talking to your senior manager and the next you may be talking to an operator who has a different perspective.

K: You can't use jargon when talking to operators and they're probably not interested in the detailed calculations. You have to make them interested and explain why it's important in the long term.

Is that longer-term perspective also part of your job?

G: Yes definitely. For example, one of the things we are working on right now is replacing the internal parts of one of the towers. But I will probably have moved on when it happens in 2002.

K: If you're running the operations you just want to get the problem fixed then and there. But you also try and think about what the most sensible fix is in the long term

What other skills are important?

K: I think you need to be well organised and have the ability to sort out the priorities.

G: I think you also need a good understanding of the engineering basics. You need to understand where the equations come from so that when you're hit with a real problem, you know how to start applying the theory.

You talked a lot about relying on people. What about technology?

K: It's quite important to keep up to date. In terms of basic equipment, there isn't much change in the technology. It's more the way you deal with that equipment that changes, like modelling it with new computers.

G: We use touch-screen computer control panels to operate whole areas of the plant. There is a schematic picture of the plant and if you want to open a valve you just use the computer.

Within the whole process, from finding the oil to selling it, why is refining so important?

K: By the time you get to making plastics and chemicals, it's a high value product. But a barrel of crude oil isn't worth a great deal.

G: You can't run cars of fly planes, make chemicals and plastics using only crude oil. Each time you change the composition of the molecules you give it a more useful form.