A short Travelogue on the journey to Faridabad, Agra & Fatehpur Sikri

A training on “Petroleum Refining Technology” was held at IOC R&D Centre, Faridabad from 8th to 19th January 2007 for refinery engineers mainly in A and B grades. Nominations were sought from all the IOC refinery units including that of the subsidiaries.


From Guwahati Refinery, one of my colleagues and myself were nominated to attend the training program.


As per the schedule we reached Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on 7th January at about 4 pm. From there we took prepaid taxi for Faridabad. We finally reached at Mahalakshmi Palace Hotel at quarter to 6 pm. Our rooms were already booked there by IOC R&D Centre. The accommodation was good enough for an “A” grade officer and the food was too good. In fact it was so rich that quite a number of participants were having digestion problem.


Our program started on 8th January at 10 pm. The organizers were prudent enough to send conveyance for our smooth plying from the hotel to the training centre. The program started with a brief inauguration program. Senior officers including Mr. K. Rajaram, GM Finance at R&D and several chief managers were present in the inauguration program.


First we were asked to give our short introduction including educational qualifications. We found that we had participants coming from all the IOC refineries except Barauni Refinery and CPCL. While maximum number of participants (6) came from BRPL, each of the other refinery units were represented by 2/3 nominees. Also there were 6 in-house participants from R&D centre.


After getting a hearty welcome from the GM we were briefly apprised about the course content and training plan by Mr. Brijesh Kumar (CTSM) who was also the coordinator of the whole program. Mr. S. M. Sanduja (DMHR, R&D) who was the organizer of the program and Mr. Sanjay Bhagat (Supervisor) also welcomed us cordially to the R&D centre.


Our first lecture was taken by Mr. V. P. Deshmukh about the R&D activities. This was followed by Mr. Brijesh Kumar’s lecture on “Overview of Refinery Operations”. This briefly gave us an overview of the refinery operations and also helped us to have an idea about the training program that was set for us in the next two weeks. In the afternoon session we had a lecture on “Crude oil selection, procurement, transportation and constraints” taken by Mrs. Madhurima Gupta, CTSM at Ref-HQ. This was a highly interesting and informative lecture. We got to know about the procurement and purchase part of crude oil which is normally beyond the scope of the refinery operations and thus refinery people usually don’t have much idea about this.


There used to be four lectures in a day but sometimes Mr. Brijesh Kumar had to push one or two more lectures in between or after the scheduled time period which was okay for us considering that the duration of the training program was only two weeks and also probably we wouldn’t be getting a second chance to attend a similar program again. There used to be a short tea break in between two consecutive lectures and then a gala lunch. The food used to be very good and we used to get varied kind of snacks during tea time.


The lectures were mainly taken by the R&D in-house faculties, but sometimes for one or two specialized topics the faculty used to come from the Refinery HQ and the nearby Mathura and Panipat Refinery.


Despite the fact that the training period was very short Mr. Brijesh Kumar judiciously designed the course program in such a manner so as to give us maximum input within this short period of time. During these two weeks we had a thorough overview of all the major refinery processes and also some very useful and relevant parts like pumps and compressors, fire and safety and crude oil assay and analysis. We got to know about all the product specifications including lube and bitumen. Also there were a couple of very interesting and useful lectures on corrosion problems in refining industry and the selection procedure for the material of construction of the various equipments. Our training program also comprised of lectures on Simulation and Optimization, DCS and APC, catalysts, power and utilities, pipelines, bioremediation of oily sludge, alternate fuels such as hydrogen, biodiesel etc., gasification and liquefaction and analytical techniques in refining. Also there was a lecture on “Mass and heat transfer fundamentals” by a guest faculty from EIL.


There was also some off-the-track but very interesting topics like ‘IOC’s diversification plans’, ‘ITL’ (IndianOil Technologies Ltd.), ‘Project conceptualization, evaluation and implementation’, ‘IOC’s foray into the E&P and petrochemical sectors’ and so on.


The lectures on the two main secondary processing techniques namely Hydro-cracking and FCC were taken by two paragons in their respective fields namely Dr. Ujjal Manna and Dr. Debashis Bhattacharya. Both the lectures were very much informative and inspiring. In fact the FCC lecture was so intriguing that it had to be extended one more hour beyond its scheduled time span. He also talked about INDMAX (this is nothing but IOC's patented FCC process) which would be very useful to me in the coming future as I am posted in the INDMAX unit. There was also a lecture on FCC troubleshooting which is again going to help me a lot in my day-to-day operations as shift in-charge in the INDMAX unit.


The following are some of the main topics that were being discussed during this training period:

• Crude Oil Selection, procurement, Transportation, Opportunities and Constraints.


• Product Specifications


• Crude Oil Assay


• Product Planning, Optimization and Supply Chain


• Bitumen


• Atmospheric and Vacuum distillation and Desalting


• CRU/CCRU and Isomerization


• Hydro-cracking, Hydro-treating and Hydro-finishing Process


• Separation Processes


• Treating Processing – Sweetening ATU and Merox


• Lube Technology


• Corrosion Problems in petroleum refining


• Metallurgy selection for process units


• MFA/RLA and advanced NDT applications


• OM&S


• FCCU Fundamentals


• FCCU Troubleshooting


• Thermal Cracking – Visbreaking and Delayed Coking


• DCS


• APC


• Simulation Packages


• Heat and Mass Transfer fundamentals


• Pollution Control Measures and CDM


• ENCON


• Fire & Safety


• IOC’s diversification plans


• Project conceptualization, evaluation and implementation


• Pumps & Compressors


• Bio-remediation of Oily Sludge


• Catalysts


• Power and Utilities


• Pipelines


• Alternate Fuels: Biodiesel/Hydrogen-CNG, Fuel Cell


• Gasification and Liquefaction


• Analytical Techniques in refining

Prior to joining Guwahati Refinery I had been to IIP-Dehradun for 10 weeks training program on the same topic i.e. “Petroleum Refining Technology”, but after attending this program at R&D I can vouch that the quality of the lecture and faculty and the zeal and enthusiasm with which our own in-house faculties deliver lectures is far better than that at IIP Dehradun.

The best part about this training program is that I came in close contact with so many people from various refineries from different parts of India. Now I can say that I have friends across all the IOC refinery units including that of subsidiary companies. In fact we, the newcomers mostly gained from the vast experiences shared by some of the participants present there who are working in IOC for last 20-30 years. We also used to discuss different types of problems that one would face in a normal day-to-day operation of refinery and how they usually tackle them. Thus we got an idea about the common issues and problems in all the refinery units.

Though the training schedule were very much compact and there was hardly a day when we could reach the hotel before 7 pm, we sometimes managed to get some time and used to roam around at the nearby malls and sometimes go for a movie. We got a Sunday in between on which we went to visit Tajmahal and Fatehpur Sikri. This being my first visit to Agra I was mesmerized and riveted by the enchanting beauty of the Taj. For a moment I felt like I was on a time-machine and had traveled back to the time when this memorial was built. I was feeling as if I could visualize thousands of skilled artisans diligently toiling hard to erect Shahjehan’s dream obelisk called Tajmahal which was a perfect embodiment of love and passion for a dying Emperor for his beloved wife. We took lots of pictures there and then headed for Fatehpur Sikri.

It was all together different from Tajmahal. Standing in a remote and rural part of Uttar Pradesh it tries to make a bridge between the present and the past. I heard it was part time capital of Emperor Akbar. The bucolic serenity and pastoral beauty of Fatehpur Sikri touched all of us. We visited the holy dargah of Khwaja Mainuddin Chisti and paid homage to him. It was getting dark and we would have to travel through some dusty and broken roads passing through the villages. So even if none of us was feeling like leaving the place we finally had to bid adieu to it. We were late so we had to hurry otherwise we would be missing our dinner.

Next day exactly at 10 am we resumed our daily schedule of attending the lectures. The rest of the week also went well and as usual hurrying through the course material. We had several lectures from people coming from Ref-HQ and Mathura and Panipat Refinery.

Apart from the lectures we used to be taken to the different laboratories and pilot plants where we saw how our own R&D research officers are simulating the real-time plant situation and improvising and innovating new things. Also a quiz was organized on the penultimate day. Questions were set mostly from lessons taught to us in the class and there were prizes for the first two positions. While my friend from GR bagged the first prize I managed to get the second.

On 19th January the program ended with a feedback and a short valedictory session which was followed by tea and final leave-taking. Thus our sojourn to the R&D centre ended but all of us acquired enough treasure under our kitty which not only added value to our professional life but also will be acting as a beckon for my personal development.

NOTE: This travelogue was written in the last year when I went to Faridabad on a training program.

Cruel Intentions

It's 2:50 am now and I've just finished watching a movie in the PIX. The movie is titled as Cruel Intentions. The cast of the movie includes Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe among others. Though I could catch only the last part of the movie it wasn't too tough to understand the basic theme. A quick search in google did the rest to tie up the broken threads in the story.

The story revolves around the theme of the game of seduction. Kathryn makes a bet that her step-brother, Sebastian, won't be able to bed Annette (a virgin, who wants to wait until marriage) before the start of the school year. If he loses, Kathryn gets his Roadster, if he wins, he gets Kathryn. Though Sebastian wins the bet, in the process he gets smitten by the feeling of love and finally admits everything to Annette. The movie shows Sebastian dying in an accident while trying to save his love and ends with the revelation of the Kathryn's misdeeds.

The most intriguing part about the movie is that the whole story has been told in a lucid and fluent manner keeping the feeling of suspension and a piquant guilt that would never allow the audience to get a jolt and think what is happening.

The acting and direction will probably secure a A+, while the plot and the screenplay could have been a little better. But Sarah Michelle Gellar was simply awesome!

The Zahir

In the Arabic language The Zahir means 'the obvious' or 'unable to go unnoticed'. Though there are various other meanings to this particular word in different patois across the world, here in the story it indicates the author's obsession and obduracy to find his wife who left him suddenly without any explanation.

One day the well-known parisian author's long and tranquil married life got perturbed when Esther, his wife of ten years disappears without a word to him. Initially the authorities suspects the author himself for some kind of foul play and immures him. But then he got a clean chit as one of his wife's friends admits to have slept with him on day of Esther's disappearance. Though released the author is vexed by a long chain of unanswered questions. Was Esther kidnapped, killed, or did she simply abandon a marriage that left her unfulfilled? All these questions were gnawing his the author constantly.

Then one day Mikhail, the man with whom Esther was last seen, finds the narrator and tells him that his wife is alive and doing well. With the help of Mikhail the author tries to reach to his lost wife, who has become the Zahir of his life. The question why Esther left him when everything in their life seemed to be normal and well-shaped will keep on nagging him unless he gets an answer to it.

In the process the protagonist is forced to re-examine his own life, marriage and love. With the help of Mikhail the author travels from Paris to Almaty and then some unknown and unheard of village of Kazakhstan. This is not only a physical journey but this is also a journey where the author strives to explore various meanings of love and life. As the publisher of the book heralds, this is a haunting and redemptive story about the dark side of obsession, a thoughtful meditation on faith, celebrity and marriage -- and their relationships to freedom and creativity.

One last note:
I was grossly shocked when I came to the end of the book. When the narrator meets his wife after almost 3 years he finds that she is pregnant with somebody else's child. What an anticlimax to the search of the Zahir!

The 2nd PSU Pay Commission Report

So finally the 2nd pay commission report for PSU employees is out. Though much awaited for a long time, the report drew little fanfare and publicity. There was very small or no coverage by the leading dailies of the country. As far as I remember one small report was published in Business Standard and that's all.

Anyway after that some amount of research has been done and some interesting and informative articles and blogs have been published on this topic. But I am astounded to see that there's almost no article which clearly focuses on the main problem the public sector unit employees are facing.

While there is no doubt that an immediate pay hike is necessary to bring the PSU employees' salaries at par with their peers at private sector, one cannot deny the pressing demand to overhaul the whole pay-structure extant at these PSU units. At present annual increment for a particular employee has nothing to do with his performance or potential. That is, in the present structure one employee will continue to get annual increments (a fixed percentage of your basic, irrespective of your performance or position). Similarly for promotions, you need a minimum 3 years to get promoted to the next level even when your performance demands that you be given a promotion in every alternative year. Moreover, boot-licking and nepotism has been shamelessly showing its ugly face every now and then.

While working with one of the downstream oil PSU the one thing I got convinced of about the PSUs in general and this company in particular is that this place is never meant for a qualified graduate engineer. The whole structure of the organisation is such that the qualified engineer will continue to feel like and alien here while the operators/staffs and promotee officers will feel like they are in some paradise. In fact paradise is an understatement. The pay structure and facilities are designed in view of these people.

We hear that in the new pay revision report the M J Rao committee has evinced the need of segregating PSU companies according to their turn-over and overall financial condition, but clearly they have turned a blind eye to this ludicrous pay structure. If the PSUs want to compete with their peers in the private sector and want to retain their talent pool, something must be done immediately to reshuffle the pay-structure and change the HR policies so that the young and talented young employees don't feel unwanted.