Welcome to

SOS Engineering

Welcome to SOS Engineering, an engineering firm with several decennia of collective experience in the oil and gas and renewable energy industries. Our team of expert engineers and specialists brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to every project we take on. 

 

Our Mission is to provide integrated discipline engineering, process safety, and project management solutions to operating facilities in Western Canada.

Operating Facilities and associated companies include:

  • Energy production (conventional and renewable).

  • Petrochemical and other chemical manufacturing.

  • Refining and distribution.

  • Surface mining and mineral processing.

  • Municipalities and educational institutions.

  • Engineering design houses supporting operating facilities.

  • Construction and maintenance service providers.

 

We are specialized in the following areas:

  • Project Management

  • Mechanical Engineering 

  • Fired and non-fired heaters and heat exchangers

  • Reliability studies

  • Materials, Corrosion and welding

  • Rotating equipment

  • Instrumentation and process control

  • Process safety and control

  • Process Engineering 

 

Below we will share some of our skills in the different areas with some more specific examples.

Project Management

SOS Engineering employees have been leading and involved with major projects in the Oil and Gas industry.

 

Our experience in projects is acting as “owner’s engineer” for projects ranging in size from minor projects to multi-billlion dollar projects.  

The project life cycle consists of;

1.    Scouting studies

2.    Preliminary economics

3.    Technologgy selection

4.    FEED (Front End Engineering and Design)

5.    Project justification

6.    Detailed design

7.    Procurement and Construction

8.    Commissioning and Start-up

9.    Debottlenecking

10. Operation

11. Decommissioning

 

Unlike EPC firms that specialize in items 1-7 above, we represent the interests of the owner in all project phases. 

That ability to represent the interests of the owner in all project phases is what sets SOS apart from EPC firms.

 

A selection of projects supported by SOS Engineers during their careers:

  • Construction and operation of Refineries, Chemical Plants, Upgraders and Oil Sands Mining facilities

  • Post start up debugging and debottlenecking activities.

  • Several refinery incidents resulting into debottlenecking and improving reliability projects.

  • Commissioning and start-up support, readiness for operation reviews.

 

What is our strength compared to some of our competitors:

We know what drives value for owner’s in all phases of a project, because we were all “Owner’s Engineers” for our careers.

 

Mechanical, Maintenance and Reliability Engineering

  • Stress and vibration analysis of complex piping systems

  • Review of equipment design (in cooperation with Process specialists).

  • Fit for service assessments.

  • Finite Element Analysis of equipment, support stress analysis, flow analysis etc.

  • Bolt tightness programs

  • Lead / support failure finding and root cause analyses, develop improvement strategies and plans for asset management, PEIM, and PSM systems.

  • Provide solutions to facility performance and reliability issues.

  • Develop / audit strategies, execution plans, and content for life-cycle asset management,

  • PEIM, QA-IMS, PSM and Operational Excellence Management programs.

  • Conduct project gate audits, engineering deliverable and project execution plan reviews; and provide engineering and engineering leadership support throughout the project concept selection, FEED, construction, pre-comm, C&SU, and operational phases.

  • Provide interim and load-leveling Engineering Management support.

  • Develop engineering team performance / engagement / retention improvement plans with their associated stewardship programs tied to the organization’s business objectives.

  • Provide performance evaluation and troubleshooting of robotic systems including dynamic analysis, material selection, control system design, and instrumentation / sensor selection.

  • AI / Machine Learning – Develop implementation plans including objectives, data requirements, roles and responsibilities, change management, validation and business value assessments.

  • Develop and present training packages (life-cycle asset management, PEIM, QA-IMS, PSM and OEMS systems).

 

Fired and Non Fired Heaters and Heat Exchangers

  • We have experience reviewing non fired and fired heater designs and have supported commissioning and start up of heaters, including review of start up procedures.

  • We can provide support with refractory design, burner design (including low NOx) and are also able to provide support during construction.

  • We have also been involved with heater optimization projects.

 

Reliability Studies and Reliability Engineering

  • We have been involved with several reliability studies and have significant experience in Refineries, Upgraders and Bitumen mining facilities.

  • For more info see our Reliability Redux Presentation with an opportunity for a free reliability assessment by SOS Engineering.

Asset Management

  • We can provide tools required for asset management including software development and database optimisation.

  • We have experience with several asset management systems and we are working with specialists in this area to develop state of the art tools.

 

Materials, Corrosion, Welding and Inspection

  • We can Lead/ Support development of Risk Based Inspection systems and tools.

  • We can  Lead/ Support Turnaround scope development and Turnaround scope challenges.

  • We can also support more detailed studies like Deadleg assessment and inspection programs for Small Bore Nozzles

  • After incidents or unexpected inspection findings we can lead/support developing repair scope and FFS

  • Support of Process Safety Audits

  • Materials selection for new facilities and brown field projects including review of operational cases (normal / emergency operation, S/U, S/D, and reduced rates).

  • Audit Pressure Equipment Integrity (PEI) Management systems – corrosion manuals, reliability programs, and inspection programs.

  • Review of Integrity Operating Windows (IOWs) and support the development of IOWs.

  • Materials and welding input to debottlenecking studies and technical Management of Change activities.

  • Lead / support Fitness-for-Service assessments.

  • Lead / support Failure Analysis.

  • Develop and present training packages (materials, welding, RBI systems, and corrosion mechanisms and mitigation).

  • Projects worked on:

  • Fitness for service examples:

o   Fit for service for hydrogen pipelines and hydrogen storage facilities. These skills can be applied to fit for service for existing low and also high strength natural gas pipelines in the process to being modified to hydrogen transport lines.

o   High temperature hydrogen fit for service for Chrome Moly steels and 0.5% Mo Steels, applicable to both piping systems and reactors.

o   Fit for service of natural gas lines which were initially designed for sweet service but later in life modified to sour service (where for example HIC and SSC suscptibility are taken into account).

o   Fitness for service for sour gas vessels, monitoring of HIC and monitoring of hydrogen fluxes during operation.

o   Fitness for service for underground Pipelines with deteriorating external coating and potential for carbonate/ bicarbonate stress corrosion cracking due to insufficient CP coverage.

  • Some examples of damage assessments we have been involved with

o   Fire damage assessments including determining fit for service assessments for equipment impacted by fire (high temps can change the microstructure and mechanical properties of the metal) and/or deformation due to pressure surges.

o   Liquid metal embrittlement (LME) assessments of stainless steels. Galvanized structural steels have caused LME of stainless steels. There are several lessons learned worth reviewing in this area.

o   HIC (Hydrogen Induced Cracking) damage assessments (mainly for pipelines, but in some cases also for pressure vessels).

o   SSC (Sulfide stress cracking) damage assessment

o   Stress Corrosion cracking assessments in several environments

o   Thermal fatigue analysis.

o   Fatigue analysis

  • Test methods used and developed/ co developed:

o   Stress corrosion cracking testing, Slow Strain Rate test and equipment, Cyclic stress corrosion cracking test methods, SC test (test for determining susceptibility for sulphide stress cracking)

o   KIscc test methods, determining fracture toughness reduction in corrosive environment.

  • Corrosion manuals developed/ reviewed/ approved for:

o   Most common refinery and upgrading units (CD, Cat Cracker, Hydrocracking and Hydroprocessing units, Reforming, Sulphur Recovery Units, Sour Water Strippers, Amine units, Hydrogen reformers (SMR), Gasification units, LC Fining and others.

o   Chemical Plant Corrosion Manuals, examples are: Solvent units, Rubber manufacturing facilities, Sulphuric Acid Alkylation, Phosphoric Acid Alkylation.

o   Carbon Capture and Storage facility materials selection and corrosion manual development 

 

Rotating Equipment

  • Rotating equipment incidents - lead / support failure finding, root cause analyses, develop system improvements, support facility operation stabilization and start up post incident.

  • Support resident technical staff in developing in-house expertise to implement best practices in condition monitoring (vibration monitoring, oil analysis, digital twin models, etc.), integrity, bad actor, and reliability programs.

  • Provide green field and brown field project support in rotating equipment and auxiliary system selection.

  • Audit rotating equipment system function and efficiency; provide recommendations and plans to optimize performance.

  • Provide Pre-Comm and Commissioning and Start Up support (cleanliness validation, procedure development, system sequencing, start up fluid management, etc.)

  • Perform / audit debottlenecking studies and technical Management of Change activities.

  • Design and performance optimization of liquid / gas separation systems.

  • Develop and present training packages (rotating equipment selection, operation and troubleshooting).

 

Instrumentation and Process Control

  • Start Up and Commissioning – loop function testing (LFT) and complex loop testing including work instructions, Cause and Effects (C&E) testing, integration of process automation systems (PAS), troubleshooting instrumentation and applications, documentations of test results and changes, vendor support and manpower loading

  • Instrumentation selection, programming, troubleshooting.

  • Minor changes through Management of Change (MOC) process.

  • Auditing existing equipment & recommendation to improve performance

  • Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)

  • Instrument Protective Function (IPF) – testing procedures, design, bypass procedures

  • Turn Around review of scheduled work, and recommendations.

 

Process Safety and Control

  • HAZOPs review and development

  • MOC process expertise. A proper MOC process is important for reliability and process safety of the units. We have been involved with developing solid MOC processes for sites.

  • Experience in implementing Process Safety Management Systems

  • Process safety audits for new and existing facilities

Process Engineering 

  • Process and distillation expertise: process design, optimizing, separators.

  • Redesign of Styrene reactor with 5 major modifications that changed flow patterns in inlet to ensure equally distributed flow. This allowed runtime between cat changes from 10 months to 5 years.

  • Developed internal devices that significantly improved gas liquid separation in separators. These allowed up to double the amount of flow to be put through an existing separator or if dome at the design stage, allowed for a significantly smaller, CHEAPER separator to be used

  • Process and distillation expertise: process design support and troubleshooting.

  • Review of process engineering design packages and debottlenecking studies.

  • Process support during start up, optimization and troubleshooting.

  • Support of Energy reduction and optimisation studies.

  • Support of benchmarking studies.

  • Support of RCA studies.

  • Support of any other process related issues

 

We have experience with the following process units: Crude distillers, Amine units, Sour water strippers, Hydrogen Manufacturing Units, Cat Crackers, Hydrocrackers, Hydrotreaters, Water treating facilities, steam generators, Cogens, alkylation processes, chemical plants, bitumen mining facilities, Gas Plants, LNG facilities.

Recent Customers of SOS Engineering:

List is available on request.

Additional support we can provide to customers.

As mentioned in some of the disciplines above we can provide training at request and can help developing and or reviewing procedures and engineering documents as we have all been involved in developing and reviewing engineering standards and engineering documents.

 

We specialize in and have a proven track record of delivering high-quality results on time and on budget. We can help you find the right people for the job as we have collectively the skills to not only find highly technically skilled people that are high in demand in the industry, but we also have the HR skills to find excellent team players as we all have gone through the trial and error cycles in our careers. 

At SOS Engineering we understand the importance of experience in our industry. Each member of our team has been actively involved in the oil and gas business, giving us a deep understanding of the technical requirements, safety regulations, and industry standards of the projects we work on.

Our team has worked on a wide range of projects, including reliability studies, commissioning and start up, troubleshooting and support for major projects. We have a deep understanding of the technical requirements of these industries, and we are dedicated to ensuring that our clients' projects are designed and developed to meet all necessary standards and specifications.

Thank you for considering SOS Engineering as your engineering partner. With our extensive experience and commitment to excellence, we are confident that we can help you achieve your goals.

If you would like to connect with us, the easiest way would be to fill out our form (see the link) or just give us a call.

 

 

Wind Park Friesland