Honeywell to provide technical training at Vietnam's largest refinery

Honeywell Process Solutions has announced it will be responsible for training technicians at a new 200,000 barrel/day refinery being constructed in Thanh Hoa Province, Vietnam.

Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical Company’s (NSRP) new refinery will be the country’s second, and largest, refinery and will meet about 30% of Vietnam’s growing demand for refined petroleum products, such as motor fuel and petrochemicals. Vietnam is a net exporter of crude oil, producing more than 350,000 barrels/day of crude oil. But with limited refining capacity, the country currently imports more than half of its refined products to meet demand.

Honeywell will be responsible for helping to prepare the workforce for the refinery’s 2017 start-up as well as the ongoing operational and business readiness of the facility.

“This refinery will be an important part of Vietnam’s energy picture, enabling us to turn our own vast oil reserves into finished products,” said Kazutoshi Shimmura, general director of NSRP.

 “The training partnership between Honeywell and NSRP will help to enable the refinery workforce to become more productive faster, increasing value and safety to NSRP’s operations,” said John Rudolph, vice president of Honeywell Process Solutions.

Honeywell’s training blends classroom instruction, including e-learning, with simulation, hands-on experience and on-the-job components. The program also measures each employee’s progress and provides remedial intervention for those needing additional help.

In its role as training management consultant for the new facility, Honeywell will work with the NSRP human resources department to help train all operations, maintenance and quality assurance personnel before and after the facility’s start-up. This ranges from helping with recruitment and screening to supporting the functions necessary to achieve a competent workforce.

In 2012, Honeywell partnered with PetroVietnam University to establish a regional Automation College in Hanoi. The goal of this partnership is to enhance the technical skills of the local engineering community in the application of plant automation and process control technologies, as well as build and sustain a strong future talent pool to support the projected process industry growth in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.