Pijnacker, South Holland, Netherlands
I'm a Senior Process Engineer with 16 years of experience in Oil and Gas. My career started in coal gasification and crude oil refining in South Africa and has since taken me to hydrogen production, energy transition and carbon capture in the Netherlands. I enjoy technically demanding work, and I get particular satisfaction from taking a project from a blank sheet through to something that actually runs on the plant. Process design, plant support, simulation and functional safety are the areas I feel most at home in. I hold a Yokogawa/TUV Functional Safety accreditation and have led site-level transitions in HAZOP methodology. On the simulation side I work with Aspen HYSYS, Aspen Plus, Aspen EDR, AFT Fathom, AFT Arrow, UniSim and Flownex - and I use Python to automate calculations and reporting within engineering workflows. I also enjoy the people side of engineering - mentoring junior engineers, sharing knowledge, and building teams that work well under pressure. I've developed and delivered internal training courses on both Python for engineering applications and process engineering design. Currently based in the Netherlands and working at Air Liquide in Rozenburg, where I'm involved in some of the most interesting work of my career - including supporting the Porthos/CryoCap carbon capture project, one of Europe's largest CCS initiatives.
I joined Air Liquide as a plant support engineer for the SMR and Cogeneration units at Rozenburg, before transitioning into a broader process engineering role covering Benelux operations. In this capacity I took on lead and supporting roles across several concurrent projects. Plant support (SMR and Cogeneration units): • Day-to-day troubleshooting and optimisation, leading small projects. • Root Cause Analysis and Causal Tree Analysis. • Cogeneration test run: established operational limits, emissions boundaries and optimisation guidelines. Projects (Team Portal - Benelux): • Steam Botlek (lead PE): steam redistribution project across multiple customer sites - conceptual design through to HAZOP, equipment sizing and operations training. • Cooling water tower replacement (lead PE): 3-cell system replacement, process specifications and bid evaluations. • ARA to HAZOP conversion (lead PE): converting the entire SMR to the new Air Liquide international engineering template. • 50 MW e-boiler (lead PE): conceptual design, Process Control Philosophy, H&M balance, HAZOP. • Porthos/CryoCap (supporting PE): process engineering support for the addition of a world-scale cryogenic CO2 capture unit to the SMR, targeting ~50% reduction in site emissions by 2026. • Functional Safety: Yokogawa/TUV accredited; led ARA to HAZOP/LOPA transition at site level. • Delivered internal training on Python for engineering applications and Design for Process Engineers.
Air Preheater and Furnace Hydrogen firing enablement • UniSim process model to determine oxygen flow, flue gas composition, and air preheater duty • P&ID development, multi-disciplinary co-ordination within team and alignment with vendor • AFT Arrow simulation to reroute waste gas streams • Development of Statement of Requirements, Basis of Design, Economic Evaluation
• AFT Fathom/Arrow models and AspenONE simulations and approval of peers’ simulations and calculations • PSV sizing for distillation column and reactor • P&ID reviews, as-built drawings • Generation of Process Engineering procedures and calculation templates • Mentoring young engineers
𝘾𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝙁𝙪𝙚𝙡𝙨 𝟐 𝘽𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙄𝙢𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙨 - 𝙎𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙡 𝙎𝙚𝙘𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙖 𝙍𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙮 • AFT Fathom and AspenONE hydraulic simulations and approval of peers’ simulations and calculations • Review of peers’ simulations and calculations • Process Design Basis Development • HAZOP • MFD reviews
𝘿𝙚𝙗𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩-𝙪𝙥 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 - 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙣 𝙍𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙮, 𝘿𝙪𝙧𝙗𝙖𝙣 • Design of Aspen HYSYS simulation for unit baseline and heat exchanger duty verification • Start-up conditions simulation and sensitivity analyses • Rating of heat exchanger and Aspen EDR heat exchanger sizing • Steam desuperheater sizing • Alternatives investigation and selection • Cost estimate development and Request for Quotation generation
Lead engineer for troubleshooting, optimisation and projects for DHC, VRDS, SMR, Amine Gas Treatment, and SRU (Claus Unit)