Engineer - Margin Optimization

Where you fit
Technical support roles reside in all the Business within Shell and are typically at the front line of the Company’s activities.  Technical support jobs in Engineering, Maintenance and Operations involve working in teams tasked with the safe and efficient day-to-day operation of our global projects and assets, and could include Instrumentation Technicians, Electricians, Welders, Mechanics, Pipefitters, and Field and Process Operators.

What's the role?

Economist is responsible for:

• Running sensitivities in the linear program (LP – PIMS) to ensure the refinery operation is optimized between monthly operating plan (MOP) cycles.

• Determining break-even pricing and advising Trading and Supply on spot purchase and sale opportunities.

• Completing the annual business plan LP runs, including collection of key process operating constraints, product pricing and volume tier availability, evacuation limitations, to deliver an optimized Y+1 mass balance.  Extrapolate into a full 10-year plan, considering planned future outages and material changes that will impact future margins.

• Assisting the Refinery Crude Economist in identifying LP model inaccuracies and general improvements to the Economic Model Coordinator.

• Providing economic assurance and steers to the Scotford organization for Fit4/MTO opportunity and threat prioritization.  Work may include multiple LP runs including sensitivities and may also include the need to work with the Economic Model Coordinator to modify the LP to adequately assess the project or opportunity.

• Evaluating the economic benefit of recently completed margin-generating opportunities and entering into Fit4 monthly to enable broader tracking of the margin growth funnel.  Close coordination with the Refinery Business Development Lead to ensure timely delivery.  Communicating same to the Economic Model Coordinator for inclusion in Margin Variance Analysis (MVA)

• Acting as focal point for Business for the Refinery margin forecasting process (LE – latest estimate), which involves coordination with Finance and central performance analysis teams. 

• Serving as key provider of benchmarking data on behalf of Business for external requests, ie Solomon.

• Providing vacation coverage and back-up support for the Refinery Crude Economist (whose vacation will generally be scheduled outside of peak workload demands, ie MOP) as well as providing vacation coverage for certain duties of the Economic Model Coordinator (EMC).

Role requirement

• Chemical Engineering Degree.

• Minimum 5 years in the Oil and Gas industry with at least two years of experience in Economics and Scheduling (operating refinery or petrochemicals plants preferred).

• Well versed with ASPEN TECH Planning Tools (PIMS) with experience in the Aspen Scheduling Tool (APS) is desired. 

• Excellent analytical, oral and written communication skills

• Team player and self-motivated.

• Advance skill level in MS Excel. 

• Understanding of IT technologies, Data Analysis techniques, databases, and reasonable computer programming skills is a plus.

• Fully versed with MS Office suite of software (Word, Powerpoint and Outlook)

• Expertise in refinery unit processes and modelling. 

• Process Engineering experience in a refinery required.