Manager, Operations

Plains Marketing•St James, LA

27d

About The Position

The St. James Terminal Operations Manager leads safe, compliant, reliable, and commercially responsive operations across the St. James terminal complex. The role is accountable for personnel, asset integrity, operating discipline, emergency readiness, maintenance coordination, operating and capital expense planning, customer relations, and execution of crude-oil movements across land, marine, trucking, and rail operations. St. James is a high-complexity blending and logistics terminal capable of multiple simultaneous movements. Its assets include the Main Terminal, Crude Mini, Crude West, Tri-Terminal, barge dock, ship docks, methanol dock, truck LACT, and rail system. The manager leads terminal operations and personnel, coordinates with internal and external stakeholders, and oversees safety, compliance, emergency response, maintenance, reliability, and capital projects. The position requires setting staffing and qualification plans for a 24/7 operating environment and the ability to respond outside normal business hours during operational upsets or emergencies.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, operations, business, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant terminal/pipeline experience.
10+ years of progressive operations experience in crude oil, refined products, terminal, pipeline, marine, rail, or industrial-process operations.
5+ years in a leadership role with direct accountability for frontline operations, safety, maintenance coordination, and budget or business performance.
Demonstrated experience managing complex, simultaneous product movements and high-consequence operating risks.
Working knowledge of tank storage, pumps, manifolds, custody transfer/measurement, marine transfers, rail receipt operations, truck loading/unloading, PLC/SCADA controls, and emergency response.
Ability to respond outside normal business hours and lead during operational upsets or emergency events.
Cleared criminal history and satisfactory reference checks.
Compliance with the Company’s drug and alcohol policy, including pre-employment drug and alcohol testing.
Must be authorized to work in the U.S. for the duration of employment; the position is not eligible for employment-based visa sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing a marine terminal, rail-unloading terminal, crude blending facility, or integrated pipeline-terminal operation.
Knowledge of DOT-regulated pipeline assets, marine-transfer practices, rail safety, environmental compliance, process safety, and mechanical-integrity programs.
Experience with capital-project delivery, root-cause analysis, reliability improvement, and operational-excellence systems.
Custody measurement knowledge for inventory balancing and customer explanations.
Project scoping and economic justification experience.
Opex and Capex tracking experience.

Responsibilities

Lead a safety-first culture and establish expectations for Stop Work Authority, hazard identification, incident prevention, and operating discipline.
Ensure terminal activities comply with company procedures, permits, applicable DOT requirements, environmental obligations, marine requirements, and rail safety standards.
Lead incident, near-miss, spill, and operating-event investigations; ensure corrective actions, lessons learned, and field verification of closeout.
Maintain emergency-response readiness, including drills, equipment, communications, mutual-aid coordination, and response plans.
Serve as the accountable field leader during significant disruptions, emergency events, or complex changeovers.
Direct day-to-day terminal operations, including receipts, deliveries, transfers, blending, storage, measurement, sampling, and product segregation.
Coordinate with the OCC, schedulers, commercial teams, maintenance, measurement, engineering, environmental, and marine stakeholders to execute operating plans safely.
Prepare local operators for field execution, equipment checks, communications, documentation, and handovers for scheduled movements.
Manage priorities during simultaneous movements, tank or manifold switches, startups, shutdowns, maintenance windows, and schedule changes.
Establish performance routines to review throughput, losses and gains, demurrage exposure, schedule performance, equipment availability, quality, and safety metrics.
Provide operating and maintenance leadership for the Main Terminal, Crude Mini, Crude West, and Tri-Terminal systems and associated equipment and controls.
Ensure integrity and operating safeguards for tanks, overfill prevention, level management, relief systems, shutdown devices, meters, provers, PLCs, and SCADA-related systems are maintained, tested, and managed through appropriate programs.
Coordinate pipeline interconnect operations and interfaces with inbound and outbound lines, including bi-directional movements where applicable.
Provide operational input to support preventive programs, including low-flow analysis, deadleg piping reviews, and NDT and ILI runs.
Direct safe marine operations for ship, ocean-going barge, inland-barge, crude, and methanol movements.
Ensure dock operations have a qualified local Person in Charge, transfer plan, communications, completed pre-transfer requirements, and alignment with Marine Scheduler dock orders.
Manage readiness for three berths, including product segregation, flush requirements, tank availability, line alignment, docking interfaces, transfer equipment, measurement, sampling, and documentation.
Coordinate berth scheduling and operating interfaces with marine schedulers, vessel representatives, inspectors, dock personnel, contractors, and the OCC.
Ensure dock inspections and dock systems—including hoses or loading arms, containment, firefighting systems, emergency shutdowns, access controls, lighting, communications, and spill-response equipment—remain fit for service.
Lead management of waterborne-transfer risks, including simultaneous operations, product changes, vessel interfaces, weather impacts, and abnormal operating conditions.
Lead safe receipt operations at the Heavy Rail Receipt Terminal, including train-arrival readiness, unloading plans, track access, operator qualifications, contractor coordination, inspections, and emergency response.
Ensure safe operation and maintenance of rail-terminal pumps, meters, prover access, heating-related equipment, connections, containment, and associated controls.
Manage interfaces with rail carriers, rail service providers, inspectors, and maintenance teams; ensure switching, spotting, securement, unloading, and release activities are safely planned and executed.
Maintain rail-specific procedures, training, inspection records, abnormal-condition response plans, and corrective-action tracking.
Improve rail asset reliability and throughput while protecting product quality, personnel safety, and environmental performance.
Partner with maintenance and reliability teams to develop and execute inspection, preventive-maintenance, corrective-maintenance, and outage plans.
Prioritize critical work on pumps, tanks, manifolds, valves, measurement systems, PLCs, control equipment, dock equipment, rail-unloading systems, and safety-critical devices.
Ensure effective work-control processes, including isolation, permitting, lockout/tagout, contractor management, pre-job planning, post-maintenance testing, and return-to-service verification.
Sponsor asset-improvement and capital projects that improve safety, integrity, capacity, operating flexibility, reliability, or commercial performance.
Manage operating and capital budgets, contractors, materials, and spares with discipline.
Lead, coach, develop, and hold accountable terminal supervisors, operators, and support personnel.
Set staffing, coverage, training, qualification, succession, and competency plans for a 24/7 operating environment.
Build productive relationships with internal groups, regulators, rail and marine partners, customers, and community stakeholders.
Communicate clearly during normal operations, schedule changes, equipment constraints, incidents, and emergency events.