At EET Fuels, we’re leading the energy transition by performing today, transforming for tomorrow, and delivering the UK’s first low carbon refinery.
Our people are vital to achieving our ambition, and #redefined showcases the work that they are doing to deliver the fuels our community needs, now and in the future.
This month, we spoke to Daisy Rickett-Jones, operations turnaround lead & flawless focal point at EET Fuels.
How would you describe your day-to-day role?
In my role, I’m responsible for providing professional operational support to the Turnaround (TA) team at EET Fuels. A Turnaround is an extraordinary event that involves a large number of engineering activities being undertaken in a minimum duration. I ensure that the refinery production units are operationally prepared for TA events, which includes operational milestone tracking, development of hydrocarbon plans and application of the flawless process.
The main objectives of a TA are to optimise the work-scope within the TA premises set for the shutdown and deliver the required safety, cost, schedule, quality and reliability performance metrics.
The build up to a TA event is all about being ready and prepared, ensuring that previous lessons have been acted on and learning points identified, collated and distributed to ensure continuous improvement.
During a TA event my role is incredibly dynamic and very exciting, with the aim being to support the workforce to achieve maximum efficiency, ensuring that safety and the environment remain at the highest priority whilst also dealing with discovery work and uncontrollable external factors such as weather. And all of this is to a very tight schedule.
How has your role been redefined to support EET Fuels in reaching its target to reduce its carbon emissions by 95% by 2030?
The next major block TA event will take place in early 2025. The majority of my scope of work for completion of the TA is the statutory, required inspections on plant equipment and linework but there are a number of improvements within that scope which pave the way for future decarbonisation projects.
The Crude Distillation Unit (CD4) will see the installation of a new hydrogen ready furnace and the utilities unit will have tie in points installed to allow future construction of a Combined Heat & Power (CHP) plant.
What does success look like in your role for 2024?
Success in my role in 2024 is about ensuring that we are going into 2025 with everything we need to execute the Block 2025 TA event successfully. It is important that we are meeting the required milestones, that we have a clear plan and a fully optimised schedule that indicates the critical plan for the event. Contracts must be in place, and we need to be working towards developing permits, risk assessments and method statements by the end of the year that will allow us to execute the event without accident or incident.
As a team, how would you say you are contributing to the UK's energy transition?
The Block TA events only happen around every four years, and they are the only opportunities we have to strategically shut the production units down to complete any considerable changes or improvements.
Our team contributes to the UK’s energy transition by ensuring that we complete the required scope of work within the TA event such as the CHP tie ins. This allows us to progress with decarbonisation projects whilst the refinery remains online and fueling the UK.
In your role, what do you think will be the key areas of focus or challenges in the next three years, and how do you plan to address them?
In my role one of the key challenges that we face as part of the major Block TA events is in securing a skilled transient workforce that has the ability to complete the scope of work in the most effective way.
Since Brexit and the pandemic, one of the issues that the energy industry in the UK has faced is an imbalance in supply and demand in the labour market, many different studies have looked into the reasons for this, but ultimately our key area of focus has to be in securing the maximum number of skilled, productive and efficient workers to support us in successful execution of the this important event.
