Oil Refining Jobs
The price of oil has a tremendous influence on our global economy, and it has a direct link to the price of petroleum products that we use every day to fuel our lives. Oil production companies drill into the surface of the earth, sometimes quite deep, to bring petroleum products from their resting place to the surface, but that petroleum is of limited use until it is refined into gasoline, jet fuel, heating oil and other marketable products. Crude oil goes through a special series of processes to make it usable, and a special group of professionals spend their workday engineering and managing those processes. They're the folks who do oil refining jobs.
Identification
By night, an oil refinery looks like a web of twinkling lights; by day, it appears to be a jumble of pipes and towers. In reality, those pipes and towers are part of a sophisticated production system engineered to produce marketable petroleum products. During the process, impurities are removed from the crude and it is broken down into various components in a process called separation. These separated petrochemicals are then sent to a distilling tower. When heat is applied to the tower, the different compounds rise or fall, depending on their weight. Each compound is drawn off the distilling tower and further modified by the addition of other substances that will make the petroleum products we are familiar with. For example, heavier oil compounds are "cracked" to produce jet fuel and diesel, while lighter oils become gasoline.
Function
The refining process is quite complex, and the people who work in oil refineries complete a wide variety of jobs. Although the job titles sound somewhat generic, the tasks are highly specialized and specific to an oil refinery environment. Mechanics keep the tools and equipment in working order; chemical and petroleum technicians help chemists and petroleum engineers analyze the various products at the refinery; operators control and operate the refinery's pump systems and control panels; a range of engineers (chemical, petroleum, process and mechanical engineers) design efficient facilities and processes to produce finished products; a team of safety specialists schooled in petroleum processing and hazardous materials ensures that workers do not create hazardous conditions and are not exposed to them; and the business office purchases supplies and equipment and sees that they're paid for.
Geography
Oil refining jobs are available throughout the world. An individual who wants to work in this industry should be prepared to take a job in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa or North America.
Benefits
Oil refining work is highly specialized. Many jobs, especially the high-end engineering and management jobs, require several years' experience; in return, they promise an attractive salary (although few of them actually advertise an actual annual compensation amount).
Prevention/Solution
Safety is a primary concern in oil refining jobs. Many workers wear special clothing to protect them from accidental exposure to chemicals. The refinery personnel take part in writing and reviewing safety procedures to make their workplace as safe as possible. If an accident does occur, the safety department reviews, learns from it, and implements new and better safety guidelines.
Potential
The Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports that 42,000 individuals worked as system operators in oil refineries in the US in 2006, and it predicts that the number of petroleum refining jobs will decline in the future. For the most part, those workers developed their expertise through years of on-the-job training.
Tags: petroleum products, chemical petroleum, distilling tower, highly specialized, pipes towers, refining jobs
