Senior Instrument & Control Engineer

Job Requisition ID

11607

Closing Date

16 March 2026

OME

EOP: Secunda Ops

Location

Secunda, Mpumalanga

Purpose of Job

• Directed turbomachinery control system optimisation (CCC, Siemens, PLC, DCS) and PI AF Dashboard performance monitoring to minimise downtime and enhance efficiency and stability throughout compressor and turbo assets.
• Deliver a comprehensive, data-driven assessment of risk, health, and operating limits; establish operate-to-design narratives and guardrails in alignment with API 612/617/618/619/670 standards.
• Set and uphold C&I standards and governance for control and protection systems; drive continuous improvement at lowest life‑cycle cost.
• Choose and implement suitable control algorithms or features—such as anti‑surge protection, station or master control, valve characterisation, and load balancing—to meet plant requirements and achieve measurable results, ensuring compliance with API 617/670 standards.
• Perform structured fault‑finding and root cause analysis for issues like oscillations, surge‑hunting, nuisance trips, and sequence/permissives, then apply results to strengthen control logic and optimize operating windows.
• Oversees project scope and collaborates with Mechanical, Process, and Electrical teams during investigations and commissioning activities. All maintenance responsibilities are managed by the Maintenance team.
• Specify rotating equipment controls and interlocks, ensuring machines are ready for operation as designed (API 612/617/670), while auxiliary maintenance stays with Mechanical/Maintenance (API 614 interfaces).
• Develop and maintain PI AF Dashboard models and visualizations, ensuring that displays are optimally designed for performance assessment and offer precise, actionable insights to facilitate continuous evaluation and optimization of asset efficiency and stability.
• Develop and support enhancements in mechanical and process areas, providing justification for each upgrade. Measure and monitor benefits—such as power, steam, flare, and throughput—using OEM diagrams and operating point techniques (including API 617 envelopes).
• Demonstrate coding/automation proficiency (e.g., Python/R/MATLAB or equivalent) to develop repeatable analytical methods and support technical assessments.

Key Accountabilities

• Opportunity identification & ownership: continuously scan PI AF Dashboards, operating envelopes and RCA findings to surface improvement opportunities; own the business case, solution design, commissioning support and benefit tracking (power/steam/flare/throughput).
• This role excludes routine maintenance, crafts supervision, and spares management; it focuses solely on engineering needs, controls/analytics, commissioning standards, and governance.
• Build and enhance essential skills, while guiding and supporting engineers and technicians both within C&I and related fields.
• Test and implement suitable technologies to enhance availability, boost efficiency, and increase productivity.
• Lead obsolescence and risk‑based asset‑management planning in controls/automation.
• Maintain discipline systems, tools, policies and procedures; ensure adherence to the company safety system and culture.

Scope Boundaries & Expectations

• Responsible for engineering and analytics: establish and oversee control requirements, visibility/interlocks, and analytics for rotating equipment; lead the development of surge test guardrails and ensure operation in accordance with design narratives, aligning with API 612/617/618/619/670 standards.
• Does not perform maintenance; coordinates with Mechanical/Maintenance to ensure hardware is ready.
• Improvement ownership: expected to originate, justify and deliver improvement work—feature adoption (station/master), valve/characterisation changes, measurement placement, recycle/flare/power reduction—and verify benefits post‑implementation.

Controls Engineering (Algorithms, Features, Fault‑Finding)

• Apply and tune anti‑surge, performance/load, station/master and permissive/ESD control strategies; implement features that yield measurable plant benefits (API 617/670).
• Execute fault‑finding/RCA for oscillations, surge‑hunting, nuisance trips and sequence/permissive issues; implement logic and envelope improvements.
• Plan/support commissioning and surge tests with clear HMI/alarm strategies and relief/flare interfaces (controls guardrails; API 612/617/670).
• Rotating‑equipment control requirements (controls scope):
  • Ensure the anti‑surge valve and recycle path have appropriate flow coefficient (Cv) and characterisation, verify stroking speed and shutoff integrity, to achieve stable surge control as specified by API 617.
  • Ensure visibility of protection and permissive matrices, including overspeed, vibration, thrust/bearing temperature, and trip chains; optimise alarm rationalisation for actionable response in accordance with API 670.
  • Placement of measurement and flow elements: Specify stage-wise upstream and downstream locations to ensure precise map-based performance evaluation and commissioning, in accordance with API 617/670 standards.

Key Accountabilities Continued

PI AF Dashboard & Historian Analytics (Performance Monitoring)

• Create and update PI AF Dashboard models, including elements, attributes, and calculations, as well as visualisations for key control-related KPIs such as stability, surge proximity, recycle percentage, and performance indices.
• Oversee and enhance PI AF Dashboards; maintain a consistent and reliable calculation cadence.
• Address data gaps related to tag quality, sampling, and visibility; make sure every control action can be traced to its effect on overall impact and benefit tracking.
• Display rotating equipment KPIs such as vibration, bearing temperature, seal-oil pressure/flow, lube-oil header stats, overspeed events, and machine status, then correlate with control actions to ensure operations meet design standards (API 670/614).

Business Cases & Process Collaboration

• Collaborate with Process and Mechanical teams to identify improvement levers—such as recycle reduction, restoration of intercooler duty, valve or characterisation upgrades, station or master control implementation, and relocation of flow elements—and quantify anticipated benefits (including power, steam, flare, and throughput) using OEM performance maps and operating-point methodologies consistent with API 617 standards.
• Document assumptions and methods; obtain approval; compare actual benefits to baseline after implementation.

Mechanical & Electrical Collaboration

• Work together to ensure controls are ready—including alignment and vibration baselines, seal-oil cleanliness and ΔP/flow, lube-oil preparedness, and calibration documentation—before conducting surge tests or enabling control (API 617/670/614).
• Role boundary: This role covers control requirements, visibility, interlocks, and HMI/alarm narratives. Maintenance execution and hardware rectification remain the responsibility of Mechanical/Electrical teams.
• Collaborate on setting operate‑to‑design limits for pressure, temperature, flow, recycle minimums, and interstage constraints, while ensuring that PI AF Dashboard/HMI prompts stay consistent with any envelope changes (API 612/617).

People, Standards & Governance

• Ensure adherence to legal requirements, organisational policies, and established standards; proactively manage risks related to discipline and maintain quality assurance.
• Review policies, create deviation registers, and oversee modification governance.
• Participate in the forum to collaborate on policy and specification reviews. Being part of this community allows me to provide insights, assist peers with interpreting guidelines, and contribute to refining both policies and technical specifications for broader consensus and clarity.
• Support governance by reviewing policies, creating and maintaining deviation registers, and overseeing all change-control processes; actively participate in forums and collaborative reviews to interpret guidelines, provide technical insights, and drive consensus on policy and specification improvements for clarity and compliance.

Automation & Coding Proficiency (for solutioning and assessment)

• Develop tailored analytics or engineering code using Python, R, MATLAB, or similar languages to measure loss and savings in areas like recycling, power usage, and flaring; ensure model validation and compile reusable methods.
• Implement software engineering standards, including version control, peer review, and practices that ensure reproducibility.
• Take part in technical evaluations featuring coding challenges and algorithm-based problem-solving tasks.

Formal Education

University BSc or B Eng degree in Electrical/Electronic/Control

Working Experience

Certification and Professional Membership

ECSA Registered Professional Engineer (Wish)

Required Personal and Professional Skills