Progress Technical Report

Progress Report

Yousef Alhannoush, 200900150

AR-RAZI, SABIC Company

Mechanical Engineering Department, Engineering College

Prince Mohammed University (PMU)

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Progress Technical Report

Summary

I am a mechanical engineer student who is working as a coop student at one of SABIC

Companies that is named as AR-RAZI Company. This company is also called as the

Saudi Methanol Company. It produces chemical methanol since 1979. Since my working

at this company, I have learned many things that are very important and helpful for my

future career path. It is very interesting to work with experienced engineers from all

fields. I found that AR-RAZI Company is fulfilling my learning wish and supporting me

to be more involved in the working environment. Also, I am really pleased for the

welcoming and professional deals coming from AR-RAZI employees. My working

progress is really good as I feel I am gaining more work experience in mechanical

engineering field. I feel my work at this company will cover most of the things I need

within the scheduled time. This report will cover the background of SABIC and its

company AR-RAZI. In addition, it will cover what I learned, what I would like to learn,

the most things I learned, the plans of training according to the company, and the contact

information of my supervisor.

SABIC Background

In 1975, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia created the Master Gas System and sketched up

some plans to use these gases as feedstock for the petrochemical industry. Then, the

Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu carried up the task of structuring Jubail and

Yanbu cities as state of industrial centers to locate the planned petrochemical plants.

In 1976, a royal decree was issued to establish such companies to produce basic

industrials that derive from petroleum productions. At that time, the biggest company that

had been established was the Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation named as

(SABIC). The primary task of SABIC was to operate hydrocarbon and mineral-based

industries in the Kingdom and transferring them into value added industrial products

(Wikipedia, October).

“IN 2008, SABIC was ranked the No. 1 chemicals company in Asia and No. 4 in the

world by Fortune Global 500. The first three global positions in terms of revenue were

BASF, Dow Chemical and Bayer. SABIC also improved its position from being the

world’s 301st largest corporation in 2006 to 227th in 2007”(Harrison, 2009).

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SABIC is a domestic and an overseas company that has various branches in the world.

The total no of employees is Over 33,000 spread worldwide in Westren Europe, Asia

(South East Asia, Japan, China,) North America and the Middle East and these branches

are also as a key markets.

SABIC Products are:

1- Basic Chemicals: which include Ethylene, Methanol, Propylene, Benzene, Xylene

(Paraxylene), Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE), Styrene, Crude Industrial

Ethanol (CIE), Butadiene and Butene.

2- Intermediate Chemicals: which include Ethylene Glycol (MEG, DEG, TEG),

Ethylene Dichloride (EDC), Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM), Purified

Terephthalic Acid (PTA), 2-Ethyl Hexanol (2-EH), Caustic Soda (NaOH),

Dioctyl Phthalate (DOP), Industrial Gases (Oxygen, Nitrogen, Argon,

Krypton/Xenon); and Linear Alpha Olefins (LAO).

3- PVC and Polyester: which include Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Polystyrene (PS),

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Resin, Polyester Fibers, and Melamine.

4- Polyolefins: which include Polyethylenes, Polypropylene.

5- Fertilizers: which include Ammonia, Urea; Phosphate Compound and Liquid

fertilizers; and Sulphuric Acid.

6- Metals: which include Long Steel, Hot Rolled, Cold Rolled and Galvanized Flat

Steel Products, and Aluminum (Wikipedia, 2009).

The following paragraph will cover the background of AR-RAZI Company as well as the

starting day of my training and the training place, the name and contacts of the training

supervisor, and the company’s training schedule.

Background

All AR-RAZI plants are in Jubail industrial city, in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

It is not the only company who produces methanol; however, it is the biggest company to

produce methanol in the kingdom. The first plant was fully established in 1983. After

eight years, the second plant was constructed and followed by the third plant in 1997. The

fourth plant started to produce methanol in 1999. This plant is considered to be the

biggest plant in AR-RAZI Company. AR-RAZI is considered to be the largest single

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complex methanol production plant in the world. The company has other facilities but it

is not as big as these plants.

As it is mentioned earlier in the abstract, I am working at one of SABIC Company named

AR-RAZI, and also called Saudi Methanol Company. I am working in the production

building in the reliably department in the static section. The starting day of my coop

training was on Statuary, June 16, 2012. On the next day, I started with a safety-training

program that helps employees and trainers to protect themselves from the dangerous and

hazardous situations. The passing of the safety-training program is the only way to get

the employment ID card in order to be able to enter and access all the plants. The

department is responsible for inspection, designing, decision making, checking the new

products, ordering the replaced equipments in the factory. The department schedule is not

very clear much as they are very busy with the shutdown right now; however, the planned

for me to be in the static section in order to learn about all the equipment related to that

section such as pipes, heat exchangers, vessels, reactors, reformer, boilers etc. They

stated that soon they finish teaching me the all the static equipment that are in plant 3 in

AR-RAZI, then they will do a rotation and put me in the rotating section that deals with

the all rotating equipments such as compressors, turbines, pumps, etc. The name of my

supervisor who is the manager of the production building in the Reliability Department

is Mohammed S. Al-Dossary. The phone number of his office is +966 (3) 357 7992 and

the email is msdossary@arrazi.sabic.com. The company’s training schedule is to train us

every week in one subject. The manager chooses a specific equipment to teach us

according to the circumstances as the plant now in unplanned shutdown. The manager

covers at least a subject every week. He told us that he will try to cover the following

subjects:

In Static:

Safety orientation

Heat Exchanger

Vessel

Reactor

boiler

Reformer

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Pipes

In Rotating:

Compressor

Turbine

Pump

Progress

Since my staying at AR-RAZI I have been gaining many information and feel that I am

enhancing my knowledge. The important things I learned are will be clarified here. I

learned that SABIC first cares about safety more than any thing else. SABIC has the SHE

program stands for Safety health and environment that is really pleased me. In the first

day, I recognized that the employee health is a critical aspect of work. I have been taught

about the three emergency alert-tunes that are for evacuation, about the assembly points

that employees must gather at, whenever there is an emergency evacuation, and about the

safety equipments that must be used in the plant.

I learned about reliability in mechanical engineering filed that deals with inspection,

designing, etc. Reliability group inspect after the maintenance group finish the required

work, decision making, newly coming products, and providing recommendations and

suggestions. The main reason for this program is to maintain the plants in an efficient and

successful approach, which will prevent leaks and plant downtime.

Since I am at the static department, I started learning about the heat exchanger. I went to

the site at AR-RAZI 3 to see the heat exchanger. I saw the design of it and have been

taught about the working process. I learned that a heat exchanger is an equipment that

permits to transfer heat from a hot fluid to a cold one without any direct contact of fluids.

The types that are used in AR-RAZI 3 are the shell and tube heat exchanger (one pass

tube-side), the straight tube heat exchanger (two pass tube-side), floating head exchanger,

horizontal heat exchanger, vertical heat exchanger, U-Tube heat exchanger, fixed head,

and kettle type. The main purpose of using it is to facilitate chemical reactions. In

counter-flow heat exchangers, the fluids enter the exchanger from opposite ends.

However, in the parallel-flow, two fluids enter the exchanger at the same end. The tube

materials used are from stainless steel to avoid any corrosion, whereas the baffle is from

copper. I have learned how to use the General Process Description Manual and how to

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relate it to the flow chart. I observed that the procedure description is very helpful to

prepare a PHD thesis as it opens the eyes for many study cases.

There are six stages that a methanol plant goes through:

1- The feed gas comes from ARAMCO as a neutral gas (NG).

2- Hydro Desulfurization (HDS).

3- Reformer.

4- Compression.

5- Synthesis Methanol (reactor).

6- Distillation.

7- Producing Methanol.

The most things I learned are the basic safety instructions, the heat exchanger types, the

process of heat exchangers, and the places of heat exchangers in AR-RAZI 3. In addition,

I learned that the most tubes of the heat exchanger that may get affected are in the high

flow rate section, which is on top or bottom of the tube sheet. The maintenance way for

solving such a problem like that is by closing the damaged tube in welding by using

stainless steel materials. Moreover, I learned about the materials used to clean the heat

exchangers such as high-pressure water jet, acid, sandblasting, drill rods, or bullet

cleaning.

The main problem now they are facing is the reformer as it is not covering the required

work which leads to unplanned shutdown (turn around shutdown). They are planning to

operate the plant again after 45 days from the shutdown day. This is a very good

opportunity for me to see most of the plant equipments and to see what is inside them.

Also, it is a good thing to experience the problems they face while inspecting and doing

maintenance.

The scheduled tasks to be performed will be more explained in the below table in the

plans section.

Plans

I started with the company and they assigned to me some tasks to do, but they did not

provide me a plan for the eight weeks. From my staying at the company, I could put a

plan to follow and to be able to gain every possible experience that will help me in my

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future career. The planned tasks I performed and would like to perform are as follows and

might be changed due to the supervisor decision.

Number Week Task to be performed

Week 1 Safety orientation

Week 2 Heat Exchanger

Week 3 Vessel

Week 4 Reactor and boiler

Week 5 Reformer

Week 6 Pipes

Week 7 Compressor and Turbine

Week 8 Pump

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Appendices

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Reference

Harrison, Roger. (2009, October 5). SABIC climbing up the growth ladder. Arab News. From: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6&section=0&article=127085&d=5&m=10&y=2009&pix=business.jpg&category=Business

Mohammed S. Al-Dossary. The phone number of his office is +966 (3) 357 7992 and the email is msdossary@arrazi.sabic.com.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC). (2008). From

http://www.sabic.com/

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