Applications for the 2009 Engineering Vacation Student program in Australia will open in July.

ExxonMobil offers a 12-week paid Summer Vacation Work Program to Australian engineering students in their penultimate year of study.

The program is designed to provide:

• A real engineering project that is current and important to the business

• An opportunity to apply your University skills to a practical real world engineering problem

• A competitive salary with additional scholarships on offer to support high performing vacation students through their final year of University.

• Useful skills for future employment

• First hand experience of an engineering work environment

• Opportunities to experience what it’s like to work for ExxonMobil, a dynamic, global organisation that maintains its leadership position through its highly talented workforce and superior technology.

As part of the Summer Vacation Work Program, each student is assigned a recent graduate engineer mentor and encouraged to participate in various induction, orientation and training activities. Students are given real work projects of current business importance and have the opportunity to report back on these projects to the management team. They work closely with our recent graduate engineers as well as our senior technical engineering experts. They are also given the chance to experience what it's like to work for ExxonMobil, a dynamic, global organisation that maintains its leadership position through its highly talented workforce and superior technology.

Interaction and visits to processing sites is an integral part of successfully completing vacation employment objectives. Projects support our various operations: Offshore Bass Strait, Longford Crude Oil Stabilisation and Gas Processing Plant, Long Island Point Fractionation Plant, Altona Refinery, marketing and distribution.

Vacation students will receive a competitive salary with additional scholarships on offer to support high performing students through their final year of University.

Students may be offered graduate employment positions at the end of their 12 week placement to take up on completion of their studies depending on their performance and available opportunities.

Read more about some of our young engineers .

Some examples of projects undertaken in a variety of work groups as part of the vacation program in 2006/2007 are listed below.

1. Amine Scrubbing Operation Review at Altona
   Refinery Process Engineering
   
   The amine scrubbing system is used to recover hydrogen sulphide produced by the diesel hydrotreating process. Following the enlargement of the hydrotreating unit, assess the capacity of the amine scrubbing system, determine whether it is functioning at maximum efficiency, and implement recommendations to improve.

2. Utilities Water Softener Study at Altona
   Refinery Process Engineering
   
   In order to reduce the hardness of Melbourne mains water to a sufficient level for use in steam generating boilers, pre-treating by filtration and water softening is undertaken at Altona refinery. These processes rely on the use of resins to absorb hardness ions from the water. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the current condition of the resins, and to make appropriate recommendations for future change-out or maintenance. Conduct a field study to identify water wastage during this process, and identify methods of reducing that water consumption.

3. North Block Oil Management System
   Offshore Facilities Surveillance Group
   
   Changing compositions within the North Block platforms for Bass Strait are providing a potential pipeline management exposure. Over time produced oil from the North block platforms has been increasing in the gas to oil ratio. The increasing GOR coupled with free water in the oil export pipelines and low seabed temperatures has potential to develop pipeline blockages due to hydrates, creating a significant financial exposure. Develop a model that predicts pipeline operating conditions over the next ten years and explore alternative methods for hydrate formation mitigation.

4. Post Drill Well Optimisation
   Reservoir Surveillance Group
   
   An offshore platform had strong and weak water drive reservoirs feeding into a single platform production system. In addition, a drilling program has recently been completed on the platform, resulting in an increase in the system operating pressure and causing some wells to be backed out. The project sought to answer two questions about the optimum production & well cycling plan for the given existing facilities and what additional rates and reserves could be gained by lowering surface pressure.

5. Offshore Oil Pump Monitoring
   Maintenance & Reliability Group
   
   A performance monitoring program for offshore gas compressors is in existence. A similar program is required in order to improve surveillance of offshore oil pumping facilities. Develop a new program that takes input from operating data and machinery design data. The program will apply fluid dynamics and thermodynamic principles to evaluate machinery performance relative to the design point i.e. measure the performance loss of the machinery. Pump operating points will be plotted on digitised pump performance curves. The program will focus on offshore booster pumps and main oil line (MOL) pumps, approximately 50 offshore pumps.

6. Offshore Sand Erosion Modelling
   Inspection Engineering Group
   
   Complete erosion studies of piping/pipelines based on present and predicted sand production in Bass Strait Operations. The project involves collecting sand from various parts of the Operation (pig receivers, separators, Longford) and organising sieve analysis at Longford laboratory, running Tulsa models and determining critical velocity and maximum velocity for unacceptable erosion rates for each pipeline/piping configuration.