NEWSLETTER
Volume ChE 37 No 3– ISSN 1446-0831
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
IN AUSTRALIA
JUNE 2012
Produced by Engineers Media, Engineers Australia’s publishing company,
for the IChemE in Australia and the Chemical College of Engineers Australia. The
statements made or opinions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect
the views of Engineers Australia or the Institution of Chemical Engineers in Australia.
NEWS
NEWS
EDITOR: Tim Kannegieter – editorial@engineersmedia.com.au
A review of major projects around Australia
Pluto
Production of liquefied natural gas (LNG)
from Woodside’s Pluto project near Karratha in WA commenced in May.
Originally scheduled for completion in
late 2010 with a capital cost of $12 billion,
Pluto is over time and over budget with a
final estimated cost of almost $15 billion.
The project was developed by a joint
venture between Woodside Burrup (90%
and operator), Tokyo Gas Pluto (5%) and
Kansai Electric Power Australia (5%).
An offshore platform situated in 85m
of water is connected to five subsea wells
on the Pluto gas field. The offshore facility
removes water and transports the gas via
a 180km long, 36” carbon steel submarine
pipeline to a shore crossing at the Burrup
Peninsula and from there via an onshore
pipeline to the LNG processing plant near
the Woodside-operated North West Shelf
plant.
The onshore processing operations include primary separation at the slug-catcher, gas treatment, condensate stabilisation
and natural gas liquefaction. The onshore
facilities include an LNG processing train
with a 4.3Mt/a capacity, two LNG tanks
with a combined capacity of 240,000m³,
loading facilities, service jetties and condensate storage tanks.
A joint venture of KBR and WorleyParsons was contracted for detailed engineering, procurement management and
construction management for the offshore
production platform.
JP Kenny designed the subsea pipe work
constructed by Allseas Construction Contractors. A joint venture between Worley
Parsons and Foster Wheeler delivered
infrastructure and onshore facilities for
the project. Monadelphous has a three-year
maintenance services contract for onshore
and offshore facilities.
Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman said the project was affected by
increased construction costs, the global
financial crisis and a shale gas boom in the
US which reduced gas prices.
“While we did not bring Pluto on line
according to our original schedule, it remains a great achievement to have gone
from discovery in 2005 to first LNG just
seven years later.”
A more extensive article on the Pluto
project will appear in the July issue of Engineers Australia magazine.
Macedon
Monadelphous has secured a contract
with BHP Billiton’s petroleum business for
structural, mechanical and piping installation works for the onshore gas plant for
the Macedon Gas Project near Onslow. The
works are scheduled to be completed in the
first quarter of 2013.
BHP Billiton is operator of the Macedon
Project and holds a 71.43% interest, with
joint venture partner Apache Northwest
holding the remainder.
The US$1.5 billion project involves four
offshore production wells supplying a 20"
subsea wet gas pipeline to an onshore gas
treatment plant to be constructed at Ashburton North, 17km southwest of Onslow.
The domestic gas plant will have a design
capacity of 200 million standard cubic feet
per day. A sales gas pipeline will be connected to the Dampier to Bunbury Natural
Gas Pipeline for sale to the domestic gas
market in Western Australia. Production
is scheduled to commence in 2013.
Technip Oceania has been awarded the
onshore engineering, procurement and
construction management contract.
Australia Pacific
Australia Pacific LNG has secured US$8.5
billion project finance facility for the development of coal seam gas to LNG project
in Queensland in May. It is a joint venture
between Origin Energy (37.5% stake),
ConocoPhillips (37.5% stake) and Sinopec
(25% strake).
The project involves development of
coal seam gas in the Surat and Bowen
Basins, a 530km transmission pipeline
CONTENTS
News1
Calendar9
The first LNG shipment departs the Pluto LNG project near Karratha.
NEWSLETTER
Volume ChE 37 No 3 – ISSN 1446-0831
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
IN AUSTRALIA
JUNE 2012
2
NEWS
NEWS
and a multi-train LNG facility on
Curtis Island, near Gladstone.
This financing provides funding for the
downstream parts of the project, including
the liquefaction facilities on Curtis Island.
Australia Pacific LNG has also awarded
Leighton Contractors two major contracts
worth $800 million in total to build gas and
water infrastructure as part of the project’s
first phase. The contracts will involve the
construction of systems which collect the
water and gas produced from individual
wells for processing, and the construction
of water treatment facilities.
Detailed design for the water treatment
facilities was carried out by engineering
consultancy MWH.
Another contract announced by Australia Pacific LNG in May was awarded to
Nacap Australia. The company will deliver
110km of smaller gauge pipeline connecting Australia Pacific LNG’s gas plants to the
main transmission pipeline.
Wheatstone
Water treatment company Osmoflo has
been awarded a fourth contract for the
Wheatstone project in WA in June. The
project was profiled in Chemical Engineering in Australia in April.
Located at Ashburton North, 12km west
of Onslow, the project is a joint venture between the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron, Apache, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum
Exploration Company, Shell and Kyushu
Electric Power Company. The initial phase
of the project will consist of two LNG trains
with a combined capacity of 8.9Mt/a and a
domestic gas plant.
Through Bechtel, the project’s engineering, procurement and construction
contractor, Osmoflo is already building
two seawater desalination plants for
Wheatstone which will provide in excess
of 11ML/d. A third plant has been supplied
under a rental agreement.
The latest order calls for the provision of
two systems, one at the village housing construction crews and a second at the facility
itself, which will further treat a portion of
the desalinated water for potable purposes.
In April, a joint venture of Clough and
AMEC received a $30 million contract for
the operability, reliability and maintainability component of the offshore facilities.
Queensland Curtis
Sections of the long distance pipeline for
the Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG)
project have begun to be installed. Valued
at $15 billion, QCLNG is being developed
by QGC, part of BG Group.
BOARD
Moses Tadé (Chair)
Noel Williams
(Immediate past chair)
(Deputy chair to be
elected in Sept)
Paul Taranto
(Honorary treasurer)
Gordon Keen (Vic)
Merv Jones (NSW)
Allyson Black (Qld)
Peter Ashman (SA)
Kelvin Taylor (WA)
Lindsay Mallen (Chair
Professional Formation Forum)
Ainslie Just (Deputy
Professional Formation Forum)
Gareth Forde (Technical
policy director)
Director Australasia: Peter Slane
Level 7, 455 Bourke Street (new address)
Melbourne VIC 3000
phone 03 9642 4494 fax 03 9642 4495
email pslane@icheme.org
The 42’’ diameter steel pipeline will
take gas from coal seam gas fields around
Chinchilla to Gladstone. The pipeline was
designed by KBR. It is being constructed
by a joint venture of McConnell Dowell
and Consolidated Contracting Company
Australia.
QGC also awarded a construction contract to Brisbane-based Murphy Pipe and
Civil Constructions to install gas and water
gathering pipelines throughout QGC’s gas
fields in the Surat Basin. The initial phase
of the contract is valued at around $250
million.
Moranbah
Incitec Pivot has announced that its Moranbah ammonium nitrate plant will begin
operations in July.
The plant is being built by the Project
Aurora team, comprising UGL Resources,
Conneq Infrastructure Services and BGC
Contracting.
The $935 million facility is designed
use coal seam gas to produce 330,000t/a
of ammonium nitrate for explosives in the
mining industry. The facility comprises
three plants: ammonia, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate. The ammonia plant was
dismantled and shipped to Australia from
Yazoo City in Missouri, US.
COLLEGE OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS BOARD
Georgie Wright (Chair, Vic)
Robert Burford
(Deputy chair, Sydney)
Brian O’Neill (Immediate past
chair and Council nominee)
Prof Dong-ke Zhang (WA)
Dr Leon Prentice (Vic)
Vacant (SA)
James Fox (Tas)
Ian McGuffog (Qld)
Debashis Raha (Sydney)
Mark Biggs (Member)
Roger Kelson (NCO & G chair)
Prof Mike Dureau
(NCF & E chair)
Andre Jemison (YEA)
Brandon Wai Meng Lee
(Corresponding Member)
Niki Robinson
(Women in Engineering)
College contact: David McCarthy
11 National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 phone 02 6270 6530
email dmccarthy@engineersaustralia.org.au
NEWSLETTER
Volume ChE 37 No 3 – ISSN 1446-0831
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
JUNE 2012
IN AUSTRALIA
3
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NEWS
Composite polymers startup secures A$1.4 million
A materials science company started up out of University of Queensland (UQ) research, called TenasiTech Pty Ltd, has secured A$1.4
million in grants and equity capital from the Queensland Government and Uniseed. The managing director of UQ’s commercialisation
company UniQuest, David Henderson, said the additional funding
would help the start-up target high value applications for its novel
polymer technology.
TenasiTech’s managing director, Richard Marshall, said: “The
Queensland Government
grant supports our goal to
be the first choice for high
performance composite
polymers.
“Our technology is now
providing new materials
options for customers in
engineering, sporting and
water treatment applications. We are working with
elastomers, foams and multiple polymer families and
can customise our additive
technology to suit our partners’ specific requirements,”
Marshall said.
Unlike other nanotechnology companies, Tena- Prof Darren Martin with one of
siTech is able to produce the potential applications of the
technology he developed.
material at industrial scale
that is competitively priced
and fits within the existing polymer supply chain. TenasiTech’s
additive technology is a new way of incorporating its proprietary
nanotechnology additive into a pre-polymer ingredient.
TenasiTech is now working in multiple polymer families including
acrylics and silicones, and polyurethane elastomers and foams. Importantly, the company is building a pipeline of proprietary product
lines to suit the specific performance and processing requirements
of high value applications.
The nanotechnology originates from 10 years of research by
Professor Darren Martin (pictured) at the School of Chemical Engineering and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, both at The University of Queensland. UniQuest licensed
the technology licensed to TenasiTech in 2008. The company owns
and controls a number of patent applications which are in progress
in several of the major markets. TensasiTech was launched in 2008
with seed funding from Uniseed and has also received government
grant funding from COMET and Commercialisation Australia.
It’s not what you know- it’s what you don’t know
Practical Aspects of Compressor Control using the CCC System
Brisbane - 19th - 20th July
Perth – 5th -6th November
LNG - A Technical Overview
Brisbane -26th -27th July
Principles of Glycol Dehydration
Brisbane - 30th - 31st July
Perth - 6th - 7th August
Production Process and Emergency Systems on Oil and Gas
Installations
Brisbane - 1st - 3rd August
Design of FPSO's
Perth 15th - 17th October
Subsea Systems
Perth – 18th -19th October
Mechanical Aspects of Centrifugal Gas Compressors
Brisbane - 22nd - 23rd October
Perth – 25th -26th October
Control Operation & Design of Reciprocating Gas Compressors
Perth – 29th – 30th October
Melbourne – 12th – 13th November
Floating LNG - Production Storage Off-loading and Re-gasification
Perth -29th - 30th October
Control & Operation of Centrifugal Gas Compressors
Perth – 31st October- 2nd November
Melbourne – 14th -16th November
Control and Operation of Industrial Gas Turbines
Perth - 7th - 8th November
Daren Reid +08 9355 5599 daren.reid@esd-simulation.com
NEWSLETTER
Volume ChE 37 No 3 – ISSN 1446-0831
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
IN AUSTRALIA
JUNE 2012
4
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NEWS
Improve, benefit and inspire
IChemE must improve its value proposition
and its benefit offer to members and nonmembers alike if it is to inspire more people to
join the profession, according to new IChemE
president Russell Scott.
Speaking at the institution’s 90th annual
general meeting in London, Scott, who is CEO
of engineering contractor Uhde Oil and Gas,
told an audience of invited guests and IChemE
members that chemical engineering is the profession for the future and that IChemE should
work to substantially increase its membership
by 2018.
Drawing upon the upcoming Olympic
Games in London, Scott used the words of
Australian middle distance runner and 1960
gold medallist Herb Elliot for inspiration:
“Elliot said that it was the inspiration of the
Olympic Games that drives people not only
to compete, but also to improve, and to bring
lasting spiritual and moral benefits to the
athlete and inspiration to those lucky enough
to witness the athletic dedication.
“In order to improve and deliver new
benefits, we must inspire those that we work
with to challenge the status quo and drive
innovation and new thinking. This applies to
industry and business. It should apply to life
in general and it should certainly apply to the
professions,” Scott added.
Scott, who succeeds Sir William Wakeham in office, went on to analyse IChemE’s
strapline, “Advancing chemical engineering
worldwide”. He suggested that with more
than 1000 chemical engineering university
departments around the world, there would
likely be an additional one million chemical
engineering graduates by 2018.
“With an extra one million chemical engineers and IChemE, having 35,000 members,
claiming to be advancing chemical engineering worldwide, I’m thinking small-fish, bigpond. And that pond is getting bigger all the
time,” Scott warned. He went on to discuss the
importance of getting chemical engineering
students into IChemE membership during
their academic studies and developing stronger links with industry employers. Scott also
cited the need for a new social media and
digital communication strategy that would
position IChemE as “the conduit to chemical
engineers worldwide and their professional
network for life”.
“Networking has gone online and train-
ing, publications, events,
recruitment
and even
professional
peer review
will ultimately fol- Russell Scott
low ... Our
35,000 members represent an asset that can
be leveraged to do great things and if we go
about this in the right way, then I believe that
we can unlock the power of our membership,
our brand and our reputation to truly advance
the cause of chemical engineering worldwide
both on the ground and on the web,” said Scott.
The meeting also saw Judith Hackitt, chair
of the Great Britain Health and Safety Executive, confirmed as deputy president of IChemE;
Colin Webb, director of external affairs at the
University of Manchester, UK succeeded
David Shallcross, head of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of
Melbourne, Australia as vice president (qualifications); and Ross McCann, CEO of Qenos,
Australia assume the office of vice president
(international).
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11-12 Sept
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NEWSLETTER
Volume ChE 37 No 3 – ISSN 1446-0831
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
IN AUSTRALIA
JUNE 2012
5
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NEWS
Recognition dinner rewards service
ICHEME vice-president (qualifications)
David Shallcross was the guest of honour
at a dinner held in London recently to
recognise the efforts of some of IChemE’s
longest-serving volunteers.
Shallcross is stepping down as vicepresident after three years in the role, which
saw him conduct the Shallcross Review
into IChemE’s membership processes. In
a short presentation, Shallcross explained
how the review had changed the membership application process, including the new
online application forms, new membership grades (associate Fellow, technician
member, professional engineer (technical
safety) and engineering technician), and a
new system of application review through
an international virtual election panel, the
first of which met online yesterday.
The event was attended by around 40
IChemE members from around the UK
who have been heavily involved in volunteering on various committees, special
interest groups and member groups.
Shallcross paid tribute to them and praised
their commitment to the smooth running
of IChemE.
IChemE immediate past president Sir
William Wakeham led the thanks for Shallcross’ service at IChemE before presenting
him with a customised model train – an
LNER Class A4 Falcon – as a token of
appreciation. The model went down very
well with Shallcross, who is a model train
enthusiast.
Plans are in the pipeline for similar recognition dinners in other countries.
Acknowledgements: Article courtesy of
tce magazine.
Sir William Wakeham (right) presents David
Shallcross with a customised model train – an
LNER Class A4 Falcon.
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Volume ChE 37 No 3 – ISSN 1446-0831
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
IN AUSTRALIA
JUNE 2012
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NEWS
Unlocking the secrets of Indonesia’s
natural remedies
Supercritical fluid technologies developed by chemical engineers
at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) will play a vital
role in extracting medicinal compounds from a range of native
Indonesian herbs and enable new methods of drug delivery.
A memorandum of understanding was recently signed between
UNSW and PT SOHO Global Health of Indonesia, a leading
pharmaceutical company based in Jakarta, which plans to use
these technologies to uncover the evidence-based potential of
long-used herbal remedies.
Supercritical fluids are compressed gases that, when subjected to
certain conditions of pressure and temperature, exhibit properties
of both gas and liquid. By retaining the dissolving power of liquids
and the penetrating power of gases, supercritical fluid technology
can be used to extract and fractionate the bioactive elements of
2012 Training
Australia and NZ
Introduction to process safety
2–3 July, Melbourne VIC
Fundamentals of process safety
13–17 August, New Plymouth NZ
22–26 October, Brisbane QLD
Chemical engineering for non chemical engineers
23–25 July, Perth WA
Introductory HAZOP – applied hazard and operability
study 4–5 September, Melbourne VIC
Project engineering - fundamentals of a project lifestyle
12–14 November, Melbourne VIC
For further information
austcourses@icheme.org
icheme.org/shop/events
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herbs. This is similar to way to extraction of caffeine from coffee
beans using supercritical carbon dioxide. Fractionation allows
optimisation of the biological elements to increase the effectiveness for target ailments.
High pressure piston pumps are used to control pressure and
deliver cold carbon dioxide to coils in a tank with recirculating
water heaters. The temperature is then raised to bring it to a supercritical state. It is then transferred to an extraction vessel with a
fixed bed, where it is mixed with the plant material. The stream of
fluid exits through a micro-metering valve. The CO2 then becomes
a gas and the extracts are collected in a trap.
A key engineering challenge of the supercritical fluid technology
is the ability to adapt the system to work with different plant materials, to penetrate different types of cells and target compounds
in different parts of the cell. To acheive this the temperature and
pressure must be modulated. One key benefit of the technology
is the ability to produce compounds that are free from residual
solvents resulting in high quality extracts.
“This is an exciting new project with an important end-goal
given the large market and popularity of herbal remedies in
countries such as Indonesia,” said Professor Neil Foster from the
School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW.
“The technologies we have developed have the potential to
uncover the true medicinal value of many plants that have not yet
been explored,” he said. “And in the long term, it is planned to use
the technologies to re-engineer pharmaceuticals to improve bioavailability and develop less invasive
methods of delivery, such as by inhalation.”
The first plant
under inspection
in the new partnership is Curcuma Xanthorrhiza.
Known popularly
as “Temulawak”
and belonging to
the Ginger family,
the herb originated
in Indonesia and
has been used for
centuries in the
treatment of arthritis and gastrointesProf Neil Foster
tinal complaints.
NEWSLETTER
Volume ChE 37 No 3 – ISSN 1446-0831
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
IN AUSTRALIA
JUNE 2012
7
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NEWS
IChemE appoints new
Australasia director
Peter Slane, a chemical engineer formerly based at Qenos, has been
appointed as IChemE’s new Australasia director. Slane succeeds
Jan Althorp following ten years in the post.
Slane studied chemical engineering at Auckland University,
New Zealand, before heading to Australia where he worked with
government and public entities on a range of projects including
recycling initiatives and conversion of a waste stream into a valuable saleable product.
IChemE CEO David Brown said: “Peter brings a wealth of
industry experience as well as technical know-how, and I look
forward to working with him and our colleagues in Melbourne
and Wellington to take forward IChemE’s work for the profession
and for the industries we serve.
“We also wish Jan all the best and acknowledge the huge contribution she has made during her time with IChemE. This in-
cludes seeing almost 40% growth
in both global and Australian
membership and earning a high
degree of respect and confidence
among Australian members,” said
Brown.
Althorp said that since joining
IChemE in 2002, its international
ambitions and initiatives grew
her role and also the scope of
the Melbourne office to become
a hub office for IChemE in the Peter Slane
region: “This has been a great role
for me; I have thoroughly enjoyed the work and the variety of the
people. I have also enjoyed working with an international staff,
council and working with four international boards, with the range
of challenges that arose.
“The upcoming opportunities in this region are excellent for
IChemE and I wish Peter and the IChemE team every success going
forward in meeting the challenges,” said Althorp.
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NEWSLETTER
Volume ChE 37 No 3 – ISSN 1446-0831
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Chemical engineers honoured
The Queen’s birthday 2012 honours list
was announced on Monday 11 June by
the Governor-General and included two
people who were honoured for their contribution to chemical engineering.
Professor Tamarapu Sridhar, FIEAust,
was honoured as an officer of the general
division for “distinguished service to tertiary education, particularly the discipline
of chemical engineering, as an academic
and administrator, and to the forging of
international strategic educational relationships”.
Professor Tamarapu Sridhar, who is
Dean of Engineering at Monash University,
is an IChemE Fellow and past IChemE
Australia Chair (2004). He has also served
as Vice President on the IChemE Council.
Sridhar is one of Monash University’s
longest-serving academics starting in 1974
as a PhD fellow in in Chemical Engineering. He progressed through a senior teaching fellowship, was promoted to Reader and
in 1992 gained for a professorial position
within the Department of Chemical Engineering. He was head of the department
for the following eleven years. At the end of
2002, Professor Sridhar entered his current
role as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.
In the course of his career as an academic he has developed an international
reputation in the area of polymers. He
invented the Filament Stretching Rheometer as a tool for exploring the extensional
properties of polymers. He has also made
seminal contributions to the study of gasliquid reactions. He has over 140 publications and has been awarded individually, or
as co-investigator, around 44 competitive
research grants and has supervised more
than 22 PhD candidates. He was the main
driving force for establishing the IITB
Monash Research Academy in India and
also leads the establishment of the first Australian Joint Graduate school in China. He
was the founding co-editor of the KoreaAustralia Rheology Journal.
In addition to the recent Queens Birth-
Prof Tamarapu Sridhar
Gregory Lewin
day honours, Professor Sridhar was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for
service to Australian society and science
and the ESSO Energy Award for outstanding contribution in the field of chemical
engineering.
Greg Lewin was honoured as a member of the general division for “service to
the profession of chemical engineering
through senior roles in the petroleum
industry, to business and commerce, and
to professional organisations”.
Lewin studied chemical engineering at
Melbourne University and on graduating
began a long association with Shell, starting at Geelong refinery in Victoria and
encompassing a variety of roles throughout
Asia and Europe including executive vice
president (VP) of Shell Downstream; VP of
Strategy, Portfolio & Environment and VP
of Manufacturing, Supply & Distribution.
This culminated in 2002 when he became
President: Shell Global Solutions based in
The Hague with global responsibility for
all Royal Dutch Shells’ research, technology and projects in the downstream oil,
manufacturing, chemicals, renewables, gas,
LNG and power domains.
During this time he also served as
president of The Institution of Chemical
Engineers in 2006/2007. As president,
Lewin called on the profession to champion
its role as solution providers. He argued
that this would open up opportunities
for chemical engineers to engage with
society and increase public confidence in
a profession which was often regarded with
scepticism.
In 2009, Lewin left Shell to return to
Australia and now maintains a wide range
of business and professional interests. He
chairs the Industry Advisory Group at the
Faculty of Chemical and Biomolecular
Engineering, Melbourne University. He
is also focused on encouraging a “talent
pipeline” for the future by articulating to
early secondary school students the opportunities and contributions they could
make to society as engineers.
He founded consulting company, Sapphire Global Pty Ltd, and is currently
Non-Executive Director Alinta Holdings
and Chairman Molopo Energy Pty Ltd. In
2010/11, Lewin served as Non-Executive
Director Sasol Pty Ltd. Lewin is the current
President of the World Chemical Engineering Council (WCEC), an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
and a Fellow of The Institution of Chemical
Engineers.
In addition to his core engineering
interests, Lewin also puts considerable
energy into his positions as chairman of
the Australian Wildlife Arts Foundation,
chairman Leofwine Pty Ltd., sailing and
playing tournament bridge.
NEWSLETTER
Volume ChE 37 No 3 – ISSN 1446-0831
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
IN AUSTRALIA
JUNE 2012
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NEWS
University of Melbourne
students clinch design prize
A team of students from the University of
Melbourne, has been awarded the 2012
Pratt Prize in recognition of their design
project on the production of ethanol from
biomass.
The University of Melbourne team comprising of Francis Heil, Matt Keane, Grace
Lethlean, Rachel Savio and Sally Walters
took the top prize with teams from Monash
University and RMIT runners-up.
The Pratt Prize is a highly sought after
award amongst Victoria’s chemical engineering students and is awarded annually
to the best final year chemical engineering
design project submission. The prize is coordinated by the Joint Victorian Chemical
Engineering Committee (JVCEC) and the
winner of the award automatically qualifies
for entry into the Jacobs Prize that will be
presented at Chemeca 2012 in September.
IChemE Victorian Chair Gordon Keen said
that the judging was challenging due to the
high calibre of entries: “Teams put in a huge
amount of work and the evening’s audience
of students, academia, industry, family and
friends got to hear firsthand about their
challenges and issues, lessons learnt and
tips for students who are about to commence their fourth year design project.”
Keen also provided helpful tips towards
a successful entry, such
as the importance of
clear and concise descriptions, consistency,
sound methodology and
a simple executive sumThe University of Melbourne team (l-r) were Grace Lethlean, Matt
mary.
Keane, Rachel Savio, Francis Heil and Sally Walters.
The prize is
awarded in memory of the late Clive Pratt, a distin- Committee (1967-68) in Australia.
guished honorary professional fellow
Prizes were presented by IChemE Felat the University of Melbourne. Pratt low, Robert Pratt, son of Clive, and the
was instrumental in the set-up of the Vic- event was supported by Uhde Asia Pacific
torian IChemE member group and was and ExxonMobil.
the first chairman of the National IChemE
CALENDAR
The Joint Chemical Engineering Committee (JCEC) is holding a symposium
on coal seam gas in Sydney on 10 July
2012.
The Risk Engineering Conference
(RISK 2012), will be held on 20-22 Sep
in the Hunter Valley.
Chemeca 2012, organised by the Chemical College, IChemE in Australia and
New Zealand, and RACI will be held on
EA BOOKS
Guidelines for Engineering Design
for Process Safety, 2e
Center for Chemical Process Safety UK
$136.36 + GST = $150
2012 9780470767726 440pp Hardcover
This book provides plant design engineers, facility operators, and safety professionals with key
information on selected topics of interest. The book
focuses on process safety issues in the design of
chemical, petrochemical and hydrocarbon processing facilities. It discusses how to select designs that
can prevent or mitigate the release of flammable or
toxic materials, which could lead to a fire, explosion
or environmental damage.
23-26 Sep in Wellington, NZ. Inquiries:
www.chemeca2012.com.
The Australian Control Conference
AUCC2012, organised by Engineers
Australia’s National Committee for Automation, Control and Instrumentation
(NCACI) and technically sponsored by
the IEEE Control Systems Society, will be
held on 15-16 Nov in Sydney.
Visit www.eabooks.com.au
CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 92e
Ed: William M. Haynes
$180 + GST = $198
2011 9781439855119 2668pp Hardcover
Mirroring the growth and direction of science for
a century, the handbook, now in its 92nd edition,
continues to be the most accessed and respected
scientific reference in the world. An authoritative
resource consisting tables of data, its usefulness
spans every discipline. This edition includes seventeen new tables in the Analytical Chemistry section,
a major update of the CODATA Recommended
Values of the Fundamental Physical Constants and
updates to many other tables.
Human factors in
health and safety
A professional development programme for Australia’s
chemical and process industries
It is widely acknowledged that human, rather than technical failures, now represent
the greatest threat to complex and potentially hazardous systems. IChemE
responded to this challenge in 2009 by joining forces with the Keil Centre, a leading
practice of chartered psychologists and experts in ergonomics, to develop a human
factors training programme tailored specifically to meet the needs of the chemical and
process industries. To date, more than forty international companies have benefited from
the programme, which is recognised as one of the best of its type in Europe.
Offered in Australia for the first time in 2012
Human factors have been identified as a key contributing factor to many catastrophic
process safety incidents including Piper Alpha, Texas City and the Longford gas plant
blast in Victoria in 2001.
Increasingly, business leaders are recognising the implications of the human factors
challenge. However, many of the safety and operational professionals charged with
managing human factors have no formal qualifications or training in the behavioural
sciences. To address this gap, IChemE’s programme, delivered in four two-day modules
over a twelve month period, focuses on the needs identified in the process industries
worldwide:
■■
■■
■■
content covering human factors in process safety, health and safety generally,
with links to other aspect of business performance
a modular course design, with short residential events spread over time, also
providing networking opportunities with like-minded professionals
consultancy skills development to support the implementation of human factors
solutions
PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
The tuition is structured primarily to cater for the needs of delegates aiming to complete
the entire programme through participation in all four modules; however, each module is
self contained and registration for a single module is permitted:
Module 1 - an introduction to human factors
Module 2 - human reliability and failure
Module 3 - organisational issues
Module 4 - human factors and design
All sessions will be delivered by a recognised human factors professional with extensive
process and industry experience. The modules are highly interactive with the aim of
identifying the key success factors in implementation and associated consulting skills.
For further information:
www.icheme.org/courses
Tel: +61 (0)3 9642 4494
Fax: +61 (0)3 9642 4495
Email: austcourses@icheme.org
ADVANCING
CHEMICAL
ENGINEERING
WORLDWIDE