

Panel Operator Certification
Overview:
Introduction:
- Experienced field operators moving to panel operator positions in refining and petrochemical plants.
Course Objectives:
Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:
- communicate and work effectively with shift colleagues,
- explain in detail the processes using various documents (PFDs, P&IDs, control schemes, logic diagrams),
- identify risks related to equipment operation and process; to enforce adequate preventive actions,
- adjust the plant process parameters to optimize production rate, product quality and operating costs, minimize losses and releases,
- analyze the process key parameters to determine disturbance causes, and take appropriate corrective and preventive actions,
- prepare, start, and shut down a unit in safe conditions.
Target Audience:
- This course makes possible a rapid mastery of panelist skills. The facilities are optimized and operated in a pro-active way.
- Successful participants will be granted the “Panel Operator” Certification.
Course Outlines:
Unit 1:
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WELCOME (if in OLEUM facilities)
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- Welcome,/safety. PPE distribution. Presentation of the training.
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PANEL OPERATOR DUTIES & CONTROL ROOM ACTIVITIES
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- Panel operator role within the operation team; control room staff. Reporting and handover duties.
- Plant documentation: inventory, content, usage, role, and duties of the panel operator.
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Unit 2:
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BASIC PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
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- Notions of industrial chemistry. Fluid mechanics: pressure, flowrates, fluid flow, pressure drops.
- Heat exchange: exchange mechanisms, resistance to heat transfer.
- Liquid-vapor equilibrium of pure substances and mixtures.
- Simulators: impact of operating parameters on the chemical reaction performances, heat exchanges through various types of heat exchangers, separation in a flash drum.
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Unit 3:
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PROCESS CONTROL, AUTOMATION & DCS USAGE
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- Process control:
- Constitution of a control loop, symbols used. Sensors and transmitters. Control valves.
- Controllers operating principles, inputs/outputs, internal parameters, and tuning.
- Complex control loops (cascade, split range, multiple calculation blocks). Advanced control basics.
- Simulators: Valves characteristic curves. PID parameters tuning. Heat exchanger duty control. Split range configuration. Behavior analysis of complex control loops.
- Distributed Control System (DCS):
- Architecture and system components. Man-Machine Interface (MMI). Trends tools. Information flux between site and control room.
- Automation:
- Safety instrumented systems: PSS, ESD, HIPPS, EDP; architecture and relationship with DCS. Safety logic and cause & effect matrix.
- PLCs and automation: graft analysis, the study of specific sequences.
- Simulators: furnace safety logics.
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Unit 4:
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EQUIPMENT OPERATION
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- For each: working principles, technology, ancillary systems, process control scheme monitoring, operation, alarms, safety devices.
- Pumps, compressors, drivers:
- Simulators: filters switch, operation of pumps; changes in operating conditions, capacity control of compressors, troubleshooting of a compressor; start-up of a steam turbine driven centrifugal compressor.
- Thermal equipment: heat exchangers, air coolers, furnaces, boilers:
- Simulators: fouling of a heat exchanger; changing fuel supplied to burners, coil fouling, start-up and shutdown of a furnace.
- Specific equipment for a given assignment unit (gas turbines, solid handling, extruders…).
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PRODUCTS & PROCESSES
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- Composition and Physico-chemical properties of feeds and products.
- Commercial product quality requirements, specifications, and standard tests. Mixing rules.
- Process units: role, principles, main equipment, specific hazards. Influence of the main operating parameters on the operation, consequences on process, and products. Material balance.
- Distillation, absorption, stripping.
- Utilities: flare systems, air production, effluent treatment units, steam, water treatments…:
- Simulators: start-up and shutdown, operation and control of various process units (for instance: two-product distillation columns, multi draw-off distillation column, amine absorption, and regeneration, sulfur recovery unit, hydrotreatment unit).
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Unit 5:
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INTEGRATED PLANT SAFE OPERATION
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- Panel operator safe behavior:
- Radio communication, other communication equipment. Teamwork, responsibility sharing. Transmission of know-how.
- Alertness, forward-thinking plant operation. Alarm management.
- Application: role plays using the simulators (with panel operator views and FODs).
- HSE in operation:
- Product, equipment, and process-related risks; prevention, and protection.
- Risks related to the operation of equipment, to decommissioning-commissioning and start-up of equipment, specific prevention measures.
- Routine operations. Permit to work, work order, consignations, and isolations.
- Special operations: SIMOPS, black start. Emergency operation and crisis management.
- Impact of plant operation on gas release into the atmosphere and on the wastewater treatment unit; minimization of releases.
- Integrated plant operation:
- Steady state runs: routine checks, operating windows, integrated plant behavior (inertia, interferences).
- Global performances, margin optimization/impact of quality gaps.
- Identification, analysis and reaction to upsets and equipment failures; stabilization.
- Simulators: field round on a running process unit; commissioning, start-up and shutdown procedures, justifications of different steps; inhibition management; operations in downgraded situations; practice of emergency operations.
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ASSESSMENT
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- Continuous assessment (including practical exercises on simulators).
- Final test with real-life situation simulation exercises to validate objectives.
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