Lead Process Control Engineer

Organizational Context and Job Purpose

The Olefins & Polymers USA division of INEOS is one of the largest producers of olefins and polyolefins in North America. From its manufacturing locations at Chocolate Bayou and the Battleground Manufacturing Complex, it is a merchant marketer of butadiene, ethylene, polypropylene and high-density polyethylene with annual revenue of over $4b.

The Chocolate Bayou Site is located in Southeastern Texas about 40 miles South of Houston and consists of two Olefins units that produce approximately 4bn pounds/year of ethylene, 2 Polypropylene units that produce approximately 1bn pounds/ year of polypropylene, and the Light Ends storage & transfer facilities at Stratton Ridge.

How the Role Fits In

This Lead Process Control Engineer role is part of the Process Control and Operational Technology team within the Central Applied Technology organization. Engineers in this group support daily unit operations, advanced applications, process control infrastructure systems, and projects across O&P USA. This role serves as the functional lead for unit process control engineering work, helping coordinate and prioritize activities, support advanced DCS applications, and perform hands-on projects for the Chocolate Bayou site and pipeline supply organization (PSO).

This role provides functional leadership and technical coordination for process control engineering activities while supporting the safe, reliable, and optimized operation of distributed control systems (DCS) and associated process control technologies across the site. The role has no direct supervisory or managerial responsibilities. The role serves as a key interface among operations, engineering, capital projects, and management to coordinate priorities and advance process control strategy, standardization, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Responsibilities and Accountabilities

The position is accountable for understanding and putting into practice the INEOS 20 Principles. Additionally, this position helps reinforce understanding of these principles across the work group through functional leadership and technical support.

Accountability: SHE Stewardship

Meet all SHE objectives and comply with all governmental laws and policies for a manufacturing site.

Supporting activities

• Ensure process hazards are systematically identified, risk assessed, reviewed and managed.
• Always place safe operation or shutdown of the asset ahead of production.
• When in doubt ensure the asset is always taken to its safest state.
• Ensure assets operating envelopes and protective systems are in place to deliver safe operation and maintain asset integrity.
• Support operating, maintenance, and CAPEX strategies to drive asset integrity and environmental compliance.
• Promote, ensure and sustain commitment to operating assets with no harm to people and to the environment by visibly demonstrating Safety Leadership.
• Ensure that a comprehensive SHE management process delivers and improves safety performance through incident reporting, behavioral awareness, compliance with policies, audits, and corrective action tracking/resolution and incident investigation.

Accountability: Functional Technical Leadership

• Serve as a functional technical lead, stay current on relevant technologies, and work with Team Leaders and the Technical Authority to develop roadmaps.
• Provide technical guidance, mentoring, and knowledge sharing for recent graduates and site process control engineers without direct supervisory responsibility.
• Help coordinate and prioritize activities for recent graduate and site process control engineers, clarify technical needs, and support successful outcomes.
• Facilitate technical collaboration, coaching, and knowledge development across process control engineering resources supporting OLE1, OLE2, PP3/4, and Utilities.
• Help establish clear technical priorities, deliverables, and work coordination needs for process control engineering activities.
• Coordinate workload priorities across units and help identify resource needs, constraints, and conflicts for resolution by the appropriate manager or Team Leader.
• Drive standardization of process control practices, philosophies, and documentation across the site.
• Provide functional technical direction and recommendations for DCS systems, including Honeywell TDC3000 and Experion platforms.
• Coordinate day-to-day process control support activities across units, including:
• Troubleshooting process, alarm, DCS, and process control network issues
• Supporting startups, shutdowns, and turnarounds
• Root Cause Failure Analysis
• Control loop performance and tuning
• Process and system performance monitoring
• Provide functional technical leadership and coordination for process control aspects of capital projects, including:
• Control strategy development and design
• I/O assignment and system architecture
• DCS configuration and implementation
• Provide functional technical leadership for site-wide process control strategy, alarm management, and advanced process control applications.
• Ensure compliance with PSM, MOC, and corporate engineering standards.
• Provide functional technical leadership and support for HAZOPs, LOPAs, and PSSRs as required.
• Drive alarm management improvements, including rationalization and implementation.
• Provide technical leadership for process control network design and cybersecurity alignment.
• Champion the use of advanced control, optimization technologies, and emerging digital solutions.
• Identify and prioritize opportunities to improve reliability, efficiency, and cost performance.
• Provide functional technical leadership and support for incident investigations related to process control systems.
• Ensure knowledge sharing and best practice transfer across all process units.
• Serve as a primary technical escalation point for complex process control issues and coordinate engagement with the appropriate technical authorities and leaders.
• Provide analysis of industry trends, vendor capabilities, and emerging technologies.
• Coordinate and support governance for configuration management, documentation, and change control for DCS and related systems.
• Coordinate and align process control priorities with Operations, Maintenance, and Capital Projects to ensure optimal use of resources and alignment with business objectives.
• Ensure alignment with cybersecurity policies and standards for process control and networked systems in coordination with OT and IT teams.
• Coordinate benchmarking activities and support implementation of best practices across units to improve operational consistency and performance.
• Support training, competency development, and knowledge transfer within the process control engineering group through technical mentoring and coordination.

Education and Experience

Education

• Bachelor's degree (Chemical/Electrical/ Control Systems) plus 10-15 years of experience in process control engineering in petrochemical industry (experience in polymers, olefins, or similar manufacturing processes preferred).
• Strong knowledge of Honeywell TDC3000 and Honeywell Experion PKS Systems

Key skills and competencies are

• Client Service Oriented, Skill in partnering with internal customers at all levels to define problems, identify solutions, and facilitate change
• Demonstrated functional or technical leadership experience, including coordinating priorities, mentoring engineers, and leading technical work without direct supervisory responsibility.
• Proven experience with DCS projects, including full project lifecycle (design, implementation, commissioning).
• Impact and influence, able to persuade others to a particular course of action
• Demonstrates teamwork by sharing accountability for team results and utilizing interpersonal skills to improve overall team performance
• Analytical and conceptual thinking, able to understand both the details and the underlying systemic issues in order to plan and implement creative and effective solutions to business challenges
• Innovative and information seeking, monitors internal and industry trends to identify new opportunities. Organizes work effectively and uses available resources
• Anticipate problems and adjusts accordingly
• Demonstrated ability to manage progress and deliver multiple and competing priorities.
• Ability to manage multiple projects, activities and tasks simultaneously
• Broad estimating skills and practical understanding of costs (capital, operating & lifecycle)
• Comprehensive understanding of control systems architecture, including data mapping and data flows between the DCS and enterprise-level information systems.
• A detailed understanding of Networking, Virtualization infrastructure, and fiber optic networks.
• Comprehensive understanding of technologies and communication protocols supporting integration between DCS systems, PLCs, and third-party devices.

Additional information

Our culture is one of honesty and integrity with an emphasis on safety, health and environmental performance. On our team, people are acknowledged for embracing new practices that help create real value for customers.