William (Bill) Johnston

Senior Instrumentation & Controls Engineer / Project Manager at Saudi Aramco

Saudi Arabia

About

Many years ago I attended the retirement party for a well respected Senior Engineer. It was confided that he accomplished two main things in his lengthy career; he became well skilled in his Instrumentation Engineering discipline and second, no one under his supervision was injured or killed. I felt these to be worthy standards to emulate in my career. I set four targets to represent my success in engineering; Target #1. No one under my supervision could be injured or killed in the performance of their duties. With almost 3 decades in the hazardous oil & gas industry I have been able to maintain this target. Target #2 was to attain Professional Engineer registration in the Controls Systems Engineer, or CSE for short. I am a registered CSE in the States of Texas and North Carolina. Target #3 was to attain the position of Instrumentation and Controls Department Head with an engineering company. A Department Head position marks the pinnacle of most Engineers careers, and I managed to attain that target at Chemic Engineers, and EPC engineering firm in Houston, Texas. Target #4 was to be part of an engineering "mega project". Mega projects are built on multi-billion dollar budgets and large commercial scale. I was assigned the Saudi Aramco Project Management Team for the Manifa Heavy Oil Project. This $25 billion project, produces almost 1 million barrels of oil per day and took over 7 years to design and build. I have immediate and future objectives; My immediate objective would be to find another overseas position requiring the skills and experience of a Senior Level Instrumentation and Controls Engineer with a proven track record in design, construction and maintenance of oil & gas and refining facilities. A future objective is to become a vocational school instructor in Instrumentation. It would be very rewarding to disseminate my years of experience towards the education of the next generation of Instrumentation Engineers and Technicians.

Experience

  • Senior Instrumentation & Controls Engineer / Project Manager at Saudi Aramco
    Apr 2010 - Present · 16 yrs 3 mos

    Worked as a Senior Instrumentation and Controls Engineer / Project Manager on the construction phase of the Manifa Heavy Oils Production mega-project. The project was Saudi Aramco's first foray into commercial scale heavy oil production. The multi billion dollar project has a production capacity of 900,000 barrels per day.

  • ICE (Inst / Controls / Elect) Engineering Department Manager at Chemic Engineers & Constructors, Inc.
    Jan 2009 - Apr 2010 · 1 yr 4 mos

    Company provides multi-discipline engineering services to the refinery / oil & gas / petrochemical industries. I was the Department Head for the ICE (Instrumentation / Controls / Electrical) Engineering Department. In that capacity I was responsible for supervision of Department staff and served as Lead Engineer on many of the Instrumentation related projects.

  • Senior Instrumentation and Electrical Maintenance Engineer at Celanese
    Aug 2007 - Dec 2008 · 1 yr 5 mos

    This facility was the Fortron Division of Celanese and made a specialty plastic known as PPS. PPS is popular in the automotive industry as a lightweight plastic replacement for metal engine parts and housings. In the aviation industry, PPS is a key element of lightweight composites for aircraft.

  • Senior Instrumentation and Controls Engineer at Jacobs
    Apr 2004 - Jul 2007 · 3 yrs 4 mos

    Worked on Suncor Refinery project in Colorado and various regional engineering projects in the North Carolina area.