Optimization Planning Engineer

Par Pacific•Tacoma, WA

6d•Onsite

About The Position

The Optimization Planning Engineer creates refinery-wide operating plans that are safe, feasible, and economically optimized. Reporting to the Planning and Economics Manager, the role serves as the primary interface among the commercial group, logistics, and refinery operations. The position works closely with refinery operations, rail and marine schedulers, and product marketers to manage daily issues involving tank and transportation movements, feedstock imports, and product sales. The engineer develops and optimizes refinery operating plans and forecasts, performs volumetric balances and yield reporting, manages gasoline blends and inventories, and uses linear programming and economic analysis to support refinery planning and unit optimization. The role coordinates updates to the refinery LP model, maintains analytical tools and summary files, and communicates plans, forecasts, constraints, and analysis to refinery and corporate leadership. The position includes shared on-call support for gasoline blending and other operational or logistical issues, which may occur at nights, weekends, or holidays. Other duties may be assigned based on business needs.

Requirements

Legal authorization to work permanently in the United States for any employer without visa transfer or visa sponsorship.
At least three years of oil refining or petrochemical experience in process engineering or operations.
Strong organization and communication skills, including the ability to handle multiple tasks while meeting deadlines and production requirements.
Computer skills, including proficiency with Windows and Microsoft Office programs, especially Excel.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in chemical or mechanical engineering.
At least five years of oil refining experience, especially in planning and economics, operations, laboratory, or process engineering.
Experience running an LP model such as Haverly GRTMPS or PIMS.
Experience building and maintaining an LP model such as Haverly GRTMPS or PIMS.
Experience using Haverly HCAMS to process crude assays.

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary interface among the commercial group, logistics, and refinery operations.
Work with refinery operations, rail and marine schedulers, and product marketers to manage daily issues involving tank movements, rail and marine movements, feedstock imports, and product sales.
Develop and optimize the 90-day run plan and forecast spreadsheet, updating it daily with crude rail schedulers and product marketers to incorporate receipts, sales plans and targets, and refinery operating constraints.
Share weekly inventory projections with headquarters and the risk group in Houston.
Communicate crude run plans, actuals, forecasts, and anticipated constraints to refinery leadership and the commercial team during weekly Refinery Production Planning meetings.
Perform daily refinery volumetric balances and generate production, consumption, and refinery yield reports.
Generate refinery gasoline blends and manage gasoline and gasoline blend-stock inventories.
Work with operations and the laboratory to manage gasoline quality and economically optimize blends.
Run the Linear Program to evaluate near-term refinery operations and help develop an economically optimized plan; communicate the plan to refinery and corporate teams.
Develop the three-month plan for the Tacoma refinery and headquarters leadership.
Coordinate refinery LP model changes and updates, with assistance from Haverly and/or outside consultants as needed.
Run the LP model as needed to evaluate changes in refinery economics.
Occasionally update crude assays in HCAMS and/or HCOMET as a shared responsibility.
Run and maintain the LP results summary file, an Excel tool using HCAMS/PIMS that generates the crude schedule and yields used as the basis for production, inventory, and financial forecasts for the Tacoma refinery.
Perform economic analysis of production opportunities and help monitor unit optimization.
Periodically perform LP backcast analysis for the refinery and report results to leadership.
Improve spreadsheet tools used for economic analysis and blending, and create new spreadsheet tools as needed.
Provide shared on-call support for gasoline blending and other operational or logistical issues, potentially including nights, weekends, and holidays.
Perform other duties as required and directed.