Coert Abrahamse:
‘KH ENGINEERING IS AN EXTENSION OF MY ORGANIZATION’
Safe and responsible means of production are of great importance to energy company Shell, as is cost efficiency. After all, the company is active in a very competitive market. Coert Abrahamse is Team Lead Capital Projects at Shell Pernis and has been working with KH Engineering for some time. ‘For me, KH Engineering is really an extension of my organization,’ says Abrahamse. ‘They bring in technical expertise, help with the development of projects and also feel responsible for the end result.’
Shell Pernis is the largest refinery in Europe. Oil products and base chemicals are made from petroleum in around sixty different factories. Most of the site is occupied by Shell's refinies. The terminal in Europoort is also part of the refinery. This location takes care of the reception, storage and pumping of crude oil and naphtha. From this point, products can also be shipped to overseas markets. The total surface area of Shell Pernis is 550 hectares, the same size as a thousand football fields.
SAFE AND RESPONSIBLE
‘At our location, we make all kinds of end products and raw materials for the chemical industry from crude oil,’ Abrahamse explains. ‘The better and more efficiently we do that, the more future-proof we are. In order to continue producing safely and responsibly, we continuously implement changes on site. This ranges from regular maintenance to adjusting factories or installing new units. This happens within a competitive climate, so cost efficiency is also a determining factor. We must achieve our goals smarter and cheaper. And that is also the challenge for Shell Pernis and KH Engineering together.’
Successful turnaround
In Abrahamse’ team work technical people who are responsible for the safe and proper delivery of the many projects on this site. Abrahamse: ‘We are working on various projects to respond to changes in the energy market, but in the past year, for example , we have also had very large and successful turnarounds . During such a major maintenance shutdown, we carry out countless maintenance and renovation projects, while the factories are temporarily out of operation.’
Extension
Abrahamse has been calling on KH Engineering for a number of projects for many years. ‘KH Engineering usually takes care of the engineering and procurement, and Shell does the initial scope definition, construction and commissioning . So in terms of order, KH Engineering is in the middle of our projects.’
RE-INSTRUMENTATION PIPELINE NETWORK
The relationship with KH Engineering started a long time ago, but the collaboration grew considerably ten years ago during a program to replace some operating systems in a number of factories. ‘At the moment we also use the services of KH Engineering for other types of projects,' Abrahamse says. 'They also work for us at the Europoort site, where we collect the crude oil for further processing at the Pernis location. But the biggest project we are currently doing together is taking place “outside the gate”. This is a re-instrumentation project for the pipeline network of Shell pipelines. The instrumentation is replaced which collects data about pressure, temperature and flow, among other things. Here KH Engineering again provides expertise in engineering and procurement and provides flexibility and capacity. For me, KH Engineering is really a professional additional extension of my own organization. They work from among other locations from Schiedam, which is nice and close when a face- to -face consultation has to take place.
KH Engineering helps us to ultimately find a better solution. In addition, I would like to know how we can do things smarter and cheaper. On that point, KH Engineering can think with us even more critically. I am sure that is possible: within Shell we often have an idea of what a solution should look like, but KH Engineering may know much better how to tackle something from other places in the industry.’
Driven
All in all, Abrahamse is certainly pleased with KH Engineering: ‘It is a technically competent, professional club with a lot of work drive towards a good quality end result. Constantly keeping an eye on cost efficiency is very important to Shell. We work in a changing and competitive market and we need engineering firms such as KH Engineering.’