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Company:
INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA
Interested in joining a winning team? A team whose employees are empowered to make a difference?
Job Title: Technical Engineer, Olefins
Job Location: Chocolate Bayou Works (CBW) in Alvin, TX
Offer Range: $104,900 - $178,570(commensurate with experience)
Organizational Context and Job Purpose
The Olefins & Polymers USA division of INEOS is one of the largest producers of olefins and polyolefins in North America. From its manufacturing locations at Chocolate Bayou and the Battleground Manufacturing Complex, it is a merchant marketer of butadiene, ethylene, polypropylene and high-density polyethylene with annual revenue of over $4B.
The Chocolate Bayou Site is located in Southeastern Texas about 40 miles South of Houston and consists of two Olefins units that produce approximately 4bn pounds/year of ethylene, 2 Polypropylene units that produce approximately 1B pounds/ year of polypropylene, and the Light Ends storage & transfer facilities at Stratton Ridge.
How the Role Fits In
The Olefins Technical Engineer provides technical leadership for the Chocolate Bayou Olefins assets by connecting process technology expertise, optimization, capital project execution, and long-term business strategy. This role is responsible for developing technically sound solutions that improve asset capability, reduce risk, capture value, and support future business needs.
This position works closely with Operations, Business, Capital Projects, Process Safety, Reliability, Environmental, and Process Control teams to evaluate technology options, frame strategic initiatives, develop project scopes, advance optimization opportunities, preserve technical knowledge, and strengthen engineering capability across the organization.
Responsibilities and Accountabilities
Technology Stewardship
• Serve as a technical steward for olefins process technology.
• Evaluate new or modified process technologies for hazard potential, reliability implications, operability, maintainability, relief protection, environmental impact, and lifecycle value.
• Own, develop, and review process simulations, heat and material balances, equipment sizing bases, process control concepts, and safeguard requirements that support safe project design.
• Maintain awareness of industry standards, technology developments, lessons learned, and site operating constraints that influence project risk and technology choices.
• Provide technical recommendations that balance process safety, regulatory compliance, reliability, operability, energy efficiency, production capability, and economic justification.
Long-Term Strategic Business Initiatives
• Partner with Business Managers to translate long-term commercial priorities into technically sound asset strategies, project concepts, and technology roadmaps.
• Support evaluation of strategic growth, debottlenecking, feedstock flexibility, margin improvement, and market-driven initiatives by defining technical feasibility, process safety implications, and capital requirements.
• Develop early-stage technical options, risk profiles, value drivers, constraints, and trade-offs to inform business cases and long-range investment decisions.
Optimization
• Identify, develop, and support optimization opportunities that improve yield, throughput, energy efficiency, variable cost, and overall asset profitability.
• Use process data, operating limits, simulations, and technical troubleshooting to define practical improvement opportunities and quantify expected value.
• Partner with Operations, Business, Process Control, and Reliability teams to convert optimization ideas into executable actions, operating targets, control improvements, and project scopes.
• Establish sustainment measures, dashboards, or operating discipline routines to ensure realized value is maintained after implementation.
• Ensure optimization recommendations remain consistent with process safety requirements, operating envelopes, environmental constraints, and long-term asset strategy.
Capital Project Development and Execution
• Develop project objectives, technical scopes, risk-reduction cases, and business justifications that align with the plant strategic plan, long-range asset needs, business priorities, and site risk reduction objectives.
• Support development of a capital project pipeline that reflects plant SPA priorities, including process safety, environmental compliance, reliability, operability, capacity, margin improvement, and long-term asset sustainability.
• Partner with Operations, Business, Reliability, Process Safety, Environmental, and Capital Projects teams to frame project drivers, evaluate alternatives, and prioritize investments based on risk, value, timing, and execution readiness.
• Translate strategic asset priorities into clear project scope boundaries, decision criteria, technology options, implementation strategies, and measurable outcomes.
• Verify that implemented projects achieve intended risk reduction, operability, reliability, and business benefits after startup.
• Ensure Management of Change requirements are integrated into project execution plans, with clear ownership for hazard review actions, safeguard validation, procedure updates, training, and pre-startup safety review readiness.
Knowledge Management and Engineering Development
• Maintain and improve technical knowledge systems, engineering calculations, design bases, process safety documentation, and key learnings to preserve institutional knowledge.
• Coach and develop engineers and operations personnel by sharing technical reasoning, project experience, process safety expectations, and practical operating knowledge.
• Build engineering capability through structured mentoring, technical reviews, troubleshooting support, and development of repeatable tools, templates, and work processes.
• Capture learnings from projects, incidents, technology evaluations, and operating experience to improve future project quality and strengthen the technical organization.
Skills and Knowledge Required
Educational Background and Work Experience
Education
• Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering is required.
Experience
• Ten or more years of engineering experience in petrochemical, refining, chemical manufacturing, or related industries, preferred.
• Experience with continuous process operations.
• Experience in process troubleshooting and technical problem solving.
• Experience with AspenTech process simulation software.
• Experience applying process safety practices to capital projects, including PHAs, LOPAs, MOCs, PSSRs, design reviews, commissioning, and startup support.
• Experience evaluating process technology changes, design basis assumptions, safeguards, relief protection, operability, and lifecycle risk.
Preferred Experience
• Engineering experience in olefins production, including ethylene, propylene, butadiene, recovery, refrigeration, extractive distillation, reactors, and separation processes.
• Demonstrated experience supporting capital project development and execution.
This role is well suited for a technically strong engineer who can connect day-to-day asset performance, long-term strategy, capital project execution, and organizational learning into practical business impact.
Our culture is one of honesty and integrity with an emphasis on safety, health and environmental performance. On our team, people are acknowledged for embracing new practices that help create real value for customers.