Shutdown Project Engineering
Shutdown Project Engineering
(OP)
Is anyone familiar with shutdown/turnaround project engineering/management? This is more in reference to the petrochemical field and the type of work involved with this job as it pertains to the plants, refineries, and offshore platforms. Does anyone have any experience, good or bad, that they would like to share about this type of work?





RE: Shutdown Project Engineering
This is a very open question and the parameters to doing a "good" job can go on and on. Get a VERY good scope of work and make sure you understand what the customer expects.
We do a lot of Petro And Refinery Turn-Arounds - mostly on T&M basis or you will probably lose your a$$.
RE: Shutdown Project Engineering
I've recently been made aware of the possibility of moving into this type of career and was wondering what the pros and cons were. Especially for a design engineer making the switch. Any thoughts, positive or negative, are appreciated.
RE: Shutdown Project Engineering
RE: Shutdown Project Engineering
His job is to put the TA workscope together, plan and schedule for minimal duration, assign resources and follow up after the TA.
I wish the work was only a few days - Most of the TAs I have been through were weeks long, around-the-clock 24/7 work.
It can be interesting and fun if youu like field work. It can also be frustrating when you go in a TA with a certain plan and everything changes once you take the machine apart or see the inside of the vessel.
RE: Shutdown Project Engineering
Every one of them had a careful, measured approach to defining work scope, time frame, resources, lessons learned, etc, planning, as you said, from a year or two out. And the efforts still had the tendency to turn into massive clusterflusters. the saying is, "Plan for a month, schedule for three weeks when the shutdown actually happens, then execute in fourteen days because all of a sudden marketing NEEDS the unit back on line."
Best of luck, friend. And I wish you success.
old field guy