Chemical Engineering Economic Evaluation Expert Witness

Expert No. 3048

Texas

Education

M.S., Chemical Engineering, Drexel Institute
B.S., Chemical Engineering, CCNY
Certificate, Business Administration, UCLA

Registered Professional Chemical Engineer, California
Member/Fellow, American Institute of Chemical Engineers
Emeritus Member, American Chemical Society

Fifty Years Total Experience in process engineering and technology development. Including More Than Twenty Years Process Engineering Experience on petroleum refinery, oil & gas production and petrochemical projects. Experience includes process simulation software Hysys/Pro II/Dynsim/Aspen (Distillation, Heat Transfer Trains, Hydraulics-conventional and advanced designs), Excel spreadsheet programs (Pinch, equipment, pump, compressor, line, valve, relief system, flare sizing and specification sheets), heat and material balances, PFDs and P&IDs.

Fields of Experience include petroleum refining, oil & gas production, petrochemical, gas processing, energy and water conservation, waste-to-energy and alternate fuel development projects.

2009 to Present:  Proprietor of A Company.  Solicitation and execution of various assignments in the following areas: process and cost engineering, process debottlenecking, pollution prevention, water and energy conservation, and  technical marketing, sales and legal matters.

2006-2009 Bechtel:  Major responsibilities have included:
My last Bechtel assignment was as a Process Engineer on an Exxon Mobil LNG Feed project doing resolution work relative to the differences between the client's and Bechtel's relief specifications, equipment datasheets, relief narratives/calcs/datasheets and PUD development.

My second Bechtel assignment was as the Process Engineering Lead for a section of a confidential new-technology project for Chevron. I managed up to four people and also was actively involved in producing work product myself. Issues were uncovered and numerous suggestions were made by my team. Many of our suggestions were accepted by the client. The work included IFA and IFD PFD development and H&MB, equipment datasheet and relief work (narratives, calcs and datasheets) relative to these PFDs. This work was done under strict client intellectual property protection rules.

My first Bechtel assignment was as a Process Engineer on the Motiva 350,000 BPD Port Arthur Refinery Crude Expansion Project (will be the largest U. S. refinery upon completion). Responsible for work on the new crude atmospheric and vacuum distillation units and crude preheat trains (performed rough Pinch analysis leading to symmetrical parallel crude preheat trains, heat exchanger data sheets, furnace margin analysis). Worked on process and control narratives for the new crude distillation units, saturated gas plan, delayed coker, naphtha hydrotreater, reformer and isomerization units. Worked on crude atmospheric and vacuum distillation units' relief PSFDs, narratives, calcs and data sheets.

Previous Work History

2005-2006 Contract Process Engineer for Nana-Colt assigned to various process studies.  Upstream oil & gas work included successful completion of two tight budget, tight schedule projects (recommended control and equipment changes to stop failures of existing progressive cavity pumps and provided conceptual process input to Cost Estimating for ultra low sulfur diesel storage and truck loading project), successful completion of a debottlenecking study for expansion of an oilfield (recommended piping and equipment additions vs extent of expansion), successful completion of dynamic simulation projects using Dynsim: (1) recommend valve and control changes to preventing production shut-downs when compressors fail, while not over pressuring the flare knockout drum have been implemented (to date, one plant shutdown has been avoided), (2) sized control valve to drive pig with gas to purge water line and not exceed 20 ft/sec, (3) determined control valve size and location for gas heating of a - 50 deg F water line to avoid appreciable JT cooling of the pipe, and keep pipe temperature gradients low enough to avoid damaging the pipe supports, work on a number of pipeline pigging designs (new offshore/onshore facility, decommissioning of a NGL pipeline and installation of a temporary pig launcher for environmental compliance), and developed/presented a Dynsim training course.
 
2001-2006 Proprietor of Sam Woinsky Consulting. Solicitation and execution of various assignments in the following areas: process and cost engineering, process debottlenecking, pollution prevention, water and energy conservation [developed  Excel programs (to estimate equipment efficiencies, utility and other operating costs, equipment and plant capital costs, and internal rates of return) for a book being written (about 90% complete) "Process Economic Analysis Made Easy"

1997-2004 Chemical & Petroleum Program Manager for EPRI Chemicals, Petroleum & Natural Gas Center (on a contract and consulting basis) responsible for oil & gas production, petroleum refinery and petrochemical conceptual projects (thermal, water and hydrogen Pinch studies, advanced distillation studies and cogeneration, environmental and debottlenecking assessments). Personally developed and presented training courses ('"Petroleum Refining Made Easy" and "Petrochemicals Production Made Easy") and, researched and wrote EPRI reports on Advanced Distillation and Water and Wastewater Management (includes expert process selection & water use minimization).

2001-2002 Contract Process Engineer for Foster Wheeler assigned to various process studies. Refinery work including analyzing an under performing crude/vacuum column crude preheat train (identified cause as off-spec operation due to OVHD corrosion problem, identified short-term improvements involving only minor repiping for upcoming winter operation, performed partial Pinch analysis and identified longer term preheat train solutions, performed dual condenser simulations to identify potential column modifications to increase OVHD temperature to solve the corrosion problem), simulation of a naphtha splitter to meet specs, a crude/vacuum column/coker heavier feed revamp conceptual study and a caustic carryover problem.

1993-1997 Director Strategic Product Development for ACS Industries' Separations Technology Division responsible for development of new products.  Ultra-high capacity mist eliminator designs and computer expert equipment design systems for mist eliminators and valve trays were successfully developed.

1995-1995 Proprietor of Sam Woinsky Consulting. Solicitation and execution of various assignments including continuation of work for ACS, development of a conceptual first-of-a-kind process flow diagram, heat and material balance and economic analysis for a coal cleaning process, and Pollution prevention assessments at plants in former USSR republics.

1989-1993 Technology Development Manager for the M. W. Kellogg Company responsible for environmental, remote gas utilization and cumene/phenol technology development projects. A low residence time cumene-hydroperoxide to phenol/acetone reaction was developed, commercialized and licensed.

1987-1989 Manager of Technology Development for Kinetics Technology International (KTI) responsible for various technology development projects. Wrote winning proposal to DOE and managed the resulting successful execution of a brewery Pinch analysis.

1985-1987 Technical Project Manager and Advanced Technical Projects Adviser for Santa Fe Braun responsible for various projects including studies and pilot-plant work on an advanced thermal enhanced oil recovery project, and work on getting into the waste-to-energy business.

1982-1985 President and owner of Research Services Incorporated responsible for Solicitation and execution of various assignments related to technical sales and new technology development.

1977-1985 Part-time Lecturer for California State College, Long Beach California lecturing on process plant design, kinetics, fluid flow, process control, production economics.

1974-1982 Various positions for Occidental Petroleum's Occidental Research Corporation including Assistant to the President, Manager of Laboratory Projects Planning and Technical Recruiting, Senior Commercial Development Engineer and Contract Research Engineer.

1965-1974 Senior Research Engineer and Process Engineer for C. F. Braun assigned to equipment development pilot and semi-works research and writing design methods, and process design work on refinery, ammonia, ethylene and other projects.

1957-1965 Plant Technical Service and Development Engineer for Atlantic Richfield assigned to refinery studies and startups, and refinery and petrochemical bench and pilot process research projects.