Agenda

Ziad Jawad is the Director of FCC Technology at Phillips 66 in Houston TX where he supports Fluidized Catalytic Cracking operations to deliver a competitive advantage. He is responsible for setting technical strategy via catalyst selection, capital projects / improvement opportunities, and implementing best-practices across the organization. He supports plant operations, focuses on improving process-safety and assuring regulatory compliance. Prior to joining P66 Ziad was Director Catalytic Cracking Technology at Technip Stone & Webster Process Technology and Vice President / General Manager Houston at Emtrol LLC. Ziad holds a BSChE from the Virginia Tech University and has over 26 years of experience in the refining industry.

Richard Grove is an FCC Subject Matter Expert with the Chevron Global Manufacturing Process Technology Team. Richard received B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide). Prior to assuming his current position at Chevron in 2007 Richard worked as the West Coast Regional Manager for GRACE Davison. Richard worked as the FCC Process Engineer at Chevron Pascagoula refinery before his employment at GRACE Davison. Richard has given many presentations on the wonderful aspects of FCC Units and loves bringing new people into the FCC family.

Melike Yersiz joined the U.S. Chemical Safety Board as a Chemical Incident Investigator in March 2020. Prior to joining the CSB, she developed 12 years of industry experience at two refineries. Ms. Yersiz has a B.S. in Chemical-Biological Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

John was previously the team leader for TM&C’s market outlook publications and assignments and provided senior leadership to TM&C’s analyses of the worldwide refining industry and leads industry studies for the firm’s clients. He has specific expertise in the areas of refining economics and planning, LP modeling, downstream asset valuation, crude oil valuation and capital investment/strategic planning. John joined the firm in 1987 after a career with Exxon Corp., where he held various positions at its Baytown, Texas refinery. He holds a BS (1980) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nebraska and an MBA (1984) from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. He is a licensed professional engineer in Texas and Nebraska and is also a member of TSPE and AIChE.

Alan is VP Refining, Chemicals and Oil Markets. As Downstream Global SME, he is responsible for formulating Wood Mackenzie’s research outlook and integrated cross-sector perspectives on this global sector.
Alan Gelder joined Wood Mackenzie’s Downstream Consulting team in 2005 and became global head in 2009. He transitioned into research upon his return from Houston in 2011 and was Global Head of Refining and Chemicals.
Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, Alan had 10 years of industry consulting after working for ExxonMobil in a variety of project planning and technical process design roles.
Alan has a first class Master Degree in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, London, supplemented by an MBA from Henley Management College.

Debnil Chowdhury joined S&P Global (formerly known as IHS Markit) in 2012 and currently holds the position of Vice President where he leads the Americas refining research team. Prior to joining S&P, he was a Senior Market Analyst for Valero where he provided strategic planning and market analysis support for downstream, renewable, and retail assets globally. Debnil performed short and long-term planning for downstream and midstream assets, refinery economics evaluations, and supported new expansion and supply optimization efforts. Prior to joining Valero, Debnil worked in Technology Development for Halliburton-KBR as a Process Engineer where he worked with clients globally to develop new refining technologies.

Since joining S&P, Mr. Chowdhury has been involved in a number of refined product market, pricing, and new market entry strategy studies for clients in the U.S Gulf Coast, Eastern U.S., Atlantic Basin, Caribbean, Latin American, and Asian markets. Additionally, Debnil has worked closely with private equity and upstream clients to perform project feasibility studies for various oil and gas assets. Mr. Chowdhury has evaluated potential merger, acquisition, and divestiture opportunities. His work included screening of potential assets, specific facility evaluations, and due diligence activities.

Debnil is also the primary creator of S&P’s proprietary long-term ethane analytics price forecast model. The model can be utilized to quantitatively link and provide insight on ethane supply/demand to long-term pricing.

Debnil holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and Certificate in International Affairs from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a MS in Predictive Analytics and Data Science from Northwestern University, and an MBA from Rice University.

Jerry Price provides technical advisory for the downstream energy business, and has expertise across refining, petrochemicals, renewable fuels, hydrogen, and power industries. His client engagements range from financial analysis for new and revamped investments, market competitiveness analysis, transactional due diligence, asset configuration, and commercial selection of technology and licensors. His recent focus is on the energy transition, with multiple projects in green/blue hydrogen and derivatives; carbon management; and renewable fuels.

Background in E/I, Front Line Leader, Reliability, Planning & Scheduling,
Maintenance Manager (Excellence, Contract Manager, Mechanical)

Ann Benoit is a Senior Principal FCC Technologist in Grace’s Global Customer Technology (GCT) group. Ann provides technical consulting to Grace’s global FCC customer base. She holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University. She joined Grace in 2008. Before joining Grace she held several different positions such as FCCU process engineer, economic analyst, and logistic manager at a Gulf Coast refinery. She has over 20 years of refinery and catalyst experience.

Dr. Anderson received his Bachelor of Science in agriculture from Ohio State University in 1980. From 1980 until 1994 he held several management positions in the agriculture and retail industries. During this time, he obtained his master’s in business administration from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. In 1999 he obtained a Ph.D. in psychology at Ohio State University. Since 2000 he has run his company, Integrated Leadership Systems. ILS has offices in Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio and has provides leadership development services for hundreds of companies all over North America. ILS has done consulting for many nationally recognized companies including Sunoco, McGraw Hill, Honda, Nationwide, Ohio State University, Husky Energy, Irving Oil, OhioHealth, and Worthington Industries. Presently, Dr. Anderson is on the board of directors of The Nature Conservancy and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science. Dr. Anderson is the author of four books about leadership.

Fritz started his career with Marathon Petroleum Company (MPC) in 1998 just after the Marathon/Ashland Joint Venture.  Fritz has over 32 years of experience as a safety, security, and emergency preparedness professional.  In his current position, Fritz is the Director of Safety, Security, Process Safety Management, & Emergency Response for the MPC Refining organization.  Fritz has held a variety of positions across MPC including ES&S Manager at the Garyville, Louisiana refinery, Safety & Security Manager for the Refining organization, Corporate Manager of Emergency Preparedness, Safety Manager for the Terminal, Transport & Marine Division, and Corporate Emergency Preparedness Coordinator.

Prior to joining Marathon, Fritz spent over seven years in the Corporate Health & Safety department of a hazardous waste remediation & emergency response company where he responded to large scale, high hazard emergency response incidents across the country and provided safety & industrial hygiene support at large environmental remediation projects.

Fritz started his career in the hazardous materials/emergency response training division of a community college on the East Coast.

Fritz is a Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Certified Instructional Trainer (CIT), and a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager (CHMM).

Fritz is married to a University Professor and enjoys golf, woodworking, and blacksmithing.

Tom is currently the Vice President, Health, Safety and Environmental for Cheniere Energy. Cheniere Energy is a global provider of LNG with headquarters in Houston, Texas, LNG facilities in Southwest Louisiana and South Texas, and offices in London, Singapore, Washington, Beijing, and Tokyo. Tom has over thirty-five years of experience working in various operational and HSE roles in the energy and chemical industry. At Cheniere, Tom has corporate wide responsibility for health, safety, process safety and environmental operations. He has held previous positions as Director, Global Safety, Security and Operational Excellence for LyondellBasell, and as HSE Manager for Global Refining, Marketing and Transportation for ConocoPhillips. Tom has a B.S. in Chemical and Petroleum Refining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and is a registered Professional Engineer.

Mr. Vickery has worked in the refining industry for over 30 years in a variety of roles including Controls Systems Manager, Engineering Manager, Operations and Maintenance Manager, Ventures Manager, Manufacturing Manager, and his current role as Vice President and Manufacturing Manager of the Flint Hills Resources refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas. In his current role, he has overall responsibility for the refineries and marine terminal in the Coastal Bend area. The refineries and integrated Petrochemical processes have a combined capacity of over 340,000 BPD.

Mr. Vickery received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University, an MBA from the University of Iowa, and holds a Professional Engineering License in Control Systems.

Atique Malik PhD has over four decades of experience in applying APC and AI at refineries and petrochemical plants in Europe, Canada and the US. Atique has worked for GEC, Esso Chemical, Amoco Oil, Air Products and Phillips 66 in applications and supervision. Atique’s current interests lie in the complementary nature of applied model predictive control and applied Reinforcement Learning. He has BSc, MPhil and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Leeds, England.

Scott M. Sayles has 46 years of experience as a refinery manager, engineer, and consultant in the petroleum refining and petrochemical industries. His experience includes most areas in refinery and petrochemical processing. Recent activities are in renewable fuels and energy transformation.

Mr. Sayles holds a B.S. degree from Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI and an M.S. degree from Lamar University, Beaumont, TX; both degrees are in Chemical Engineering.

Vasilis is the Global Innovation and Evaluation manager for Refining catalysts at BASF. Prior to this role he was the technology manager, refining catalysts for Europe, Middle East and Africa at BASF. He holds BS and MS degrees in chemistry and a PhD in chemical engineering from Aristotle University, Greece. Prior to joining BASF, he worked as a Researcher at CPERI Institute of catalysis in Thessaloniki, Greece and as a research Professor at the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of South Carolina.

Tim Olsen is an AIChE Fellow with 31 years of experience in the refining industry, 23 of which have been with Emerson Automation Solutions. He is a process engineer with refining business knowledge within Emerson’s Control and Operator Performance group. Previously, Tim was with UOP for 8 years as a Technical Advisor on refinery startups around the world. He is the past chair of AIChE’s Fuels and Petrochemicals Division, and just finished his 3-year term on the AIChE Board of Directors. Tim also served on the Board of Directors for Emerson’s Global Users Exchange, and currently an active member of AFPM’s OPCAT Steering Committee. He has a BS in chemical engineering from Iowa State Univ. with an emphasis in industrial engineering and process control, and an MBA from the Univ. of Iowa.

Stephen Gill is Director, Process Safety and has 26 years' experience in refining and chemicals, having held various roles in process design, operations, technical management, and process safety with HF Sinclair, SABIC, Huntsman, DOW, and Union Carbide. Over the past few years, he has been involved with AFPM’s Advancing Process Safety program, participating in and providing leadership in the Process Safety Regional Networks and other subgroups. Stephen has received his Bachelor of Science and Master's degree in chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University.

Karen Kuhn is the Process Control Manager at Cenovus’s Lima Refinery. She has 42 years of industrial experience and 22 years’ experience in alarm management. Karen is responsible for the DCS controls at the refinery and the Industrial Controls Network.
Prior to working at Cenovus Lima Refinery she worked as a Process Controls engineer at Hess Port Reading Refinery, and at Ultramar Refinery, and as a Process Engineer at Elf Atochem Mercaptan plant and at Texaco’s Port Arthur Research Laboratories.

Patrick has 12 years of refining industry experience in the areas of automation, optimization, and leadership. Specific experience includes:
• Process Controls Engineer
• LP & Modeling Engineer, Planning & Economics
• Process Controls & Modeling Team Lead
• Digital Business Lead
• Operations Business Team Lead of Oil Movements
Patrick holds a Chemical Engineering degree by training with a focus on dynamic modeling and control (Lehigh University PhD, New Jersey Institute of Technology BS)

Benjamin Mossman has worked 20yrs in Refining with both Technical and Operations experience in Hydroprocessing, Crude Distillation, and Process Safety Management. A Chemical Engineer by training, he currently holds Operational and Process Engineering Responsibility over a Mild Hydrocracker, ULSD Unit, 3 Hydrogen Plants, and a Sulfur Recovery Unit at CHS Refinery in Laurel, Montana.

Bruce is a recently retired former senior management professional with Sinclair Oil Corporation. Bruce has more than five decades of experience developing and implementing leading edge information technologies. Beginning his career supporting the Apollo lunar mission and subsequent space based programs, Bruce transitioned to the commercial market where he has now spent more than forty years in the oil industry focused on enabling Operational Excellence through the effective application of technology. Bruce actively shared his knowledge and experience during his career as a dedicated contributing member of numerous industry committees and special interest groups.

Spent 31 years in the Fuels and Petrochemicals Manufacturing
industry, working in large, medium, and small refineries; as well
as, a short stint in the engineering sector with manufacturers as
customers. With each company I worked technical,
large and small projects, and lots of turnarounds.

Bill Clark is the Director, Reliability for Phillips 66, responsible for reliability excellence programs across the Refining organization. Bill has worked for Phillips 66 and its heritage companies for over 30 years, including time spent at multiple refineries and the company’s headquarters office. He has held leadership positions in maintenance, reliability, turnaround, operations, and process safety. Bill holds an Electrical Engineering degree from California State University, Fullerton and an MBA from California State University, Long Beach.

Bill Clark is the Director, Reliability for Phillips 66, responsible for reliability excellence programs across the Refining organization. Bill has worked for Phillips 66 and its heritage companies for over 30 years, including time spent at multiple refineries and the company’s headquarters office. He has held leadership positions in maintenance, reliability, turnaround, operations, and process safety. Bill holds an Electrical Engineering degree from California State University, Fullerton and an MBA from California State University, Long Beach.

Bill Clark is the Director, Reliability for Phillips 66, responsible for reliability excellence programs across the Refining organization. Bill has worked for Phillips 66 and its heritage companies for over 30 years, including time spent at multiple refineries and the company’s headquarters office. He has held leadership positions in maintenance, reliability, turnaround, operations, and process safety. Bill holds an Electrical Engineering degree from California State University, Fullerton and an MBA from California State University, Long Beach.