Apprentices 'in control' - donation of instrumentation equipment

Apprentices will be able to train using instrumentation equipment ahead of going out onto site thanks to a generous donation from ExxonMobil Fawley.

Instrumentation and Control Analysers are just some of the staff that are vital to the safe running of the Fawley Refinery and Petrochemical Complex based at Fawley, near Southampton.  The plant operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to produce fuels and chemical products essential to modern society.

They use the latest, automated instruments and control systems to keep their processes under control. This could be; the right temperature, the correct pressure or optimum flow rate. So ensuring that their apprentices learn how the critical complex pieces of equipment work, and how to maintain them to keep them accurate and reliable and achieve continuous operation starts during their practical workshop training at SETA is vital.

The apprentices will be doing a ‘round-robin’ of engineering operations encompassing a variety of tasks that they will use whilst out on site.  This includes electrical, mechanical, machining, program logic controls, as well as welding and fabrication to name a few.  The Instrumentation and Control Apprentices will specifically be taught how to use the equipment donated to get real life experience.

As part of the Analyser team they will make up a vital part of the maintenance team that are responsible for the quality control of not just the final product that is shipped all over the world but also the environmental regulations that allow the refinery to keep running. The Instrumentation and Control Analysers are responsible for quality analysis of the major component that goes into every car tyre, as well as approximately 15% of the Petrol used in the UK. The analysers measure a range from the Oxygen content in the furnaces to the amount of octane blended into the petrol used to fill up a car.

The skills the gain will of course be transferrable across an ever expanding industry.