16 October 2014
IChemE Singapore Awards 2014 winners announced
Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte) Ltd was the major winner at the Institution of Chemical Engineers’ (IChemE) Singapore Awards and Annual Dinner 2014, collecting two of the top prizes.
The IChemE Singapore Awards form part of an exclusive series of events across the world – including ceremonies in Malaysia and the UK – to celebrate excellence, innovation and achievement in industries such as oil, gas, water, food and pharmaceutical sectors.
Shell collected their first prize in the Process Safety category, sponsored by ABB Consulting, for their initiatives to improve process safety culture1 at their impressive integrated oil and petrochemicals Pulau Bukom facility which manufactures fuels, lubricant base oils and specialty chemicals.
The Education and Training Award was also presented to Shell Eastern Petroleum for their talent management programme – the Shell Graduate Programme (SGP) – designed to ‘develop the best industry performers’.2
In August, IChemE awarded Shell Gold Corporate Partner status in recognition of its outstanding worldwide skills and professional development programmes.
Shell currently supports professional membership for nearly 500 of its chemical and process engineers and has worked closely with IChemE in recent years to accredit two of its most important global development programmes – Shell Graduate Programme (SGP) and Shell Advanced Technical Programmes (SATP).
Other winners on the evening included the National University of Singapore (NUS) who were judged top entry for the Sustainable Technology Award, sponsored by GSK. NUS has developed an innovative membrane that extracts specific heavy and precious metals with extremely high efficiencies and low cost.3
The Young Chemical Engineer of the Year Award, sponsored by Shell, was presented to Anne Marie Ang – a process engineer at Changi Water Reclamation Plant.4
Narrowly beaten runners-up from the evening included the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences (Process Safety Award); Singapore Polytechnic – School of Chemical and Life Sciences (Education and Training Award); National University of Singapore (Sustainable Technology Award); and Han Gang – a research fellow at National University of Singapore (Young Chemical Engineer of the Year Award).
IChemE president, Professor Geoff Maitland, who attended the Awards, said: “Singapore is one of the most important centres for chemical and process engineering in the world and houses many of the world’s largest businesses.
“Singapore is also home to some world-class chemical and process engineers and it is IChemE’s privilege to honour their achievements at our annual awards ceremony on the island.
“We congratulate all the winners and runners-up for their achievements, and our event sponsors NES Global Talent and the Institution of Engineers Singapore for their support and commitment to the chemical engineering profession.”
The IChemE Singapore Awards 2014 were held at the Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore on 16 October 2014.
Official winners of the IChemE Singapore Awards 2014
Process Safety Award (Singapore) sponsored by ABB Consulting
1 Winner: ‘Championing Process Safety Culture through PSFO’ – Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte) Ltd.
Summary of winning entry: Process Safety Field Observation (PSFO) is a dedicated Process Safety (PS) assurance program that executes barrier validity checks to proactively discover weaknesses in barriers for prompt rectification.
Apart from managing PS risk to ALARP through strengthening barriers integrity, this fit for purpose, solely PS focused program, champions PS culture through involvement and empowerment of all organisational levels (from frontline to the senior leadership team) with clear contributing roles to drive PS performance excellence.
PSFO, including regular output review for continual improvement, is sustained by mandating it as a routine operational standard activity involving visible leadership and frontline engagements.
Runner-up: ‘Novel Risk Assessment for Lab-Scale Processes’ – Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences.
Education and Training Award (Singapore)
2 Winner: ‘Developing the Industry's Best Performers’ – Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte) Ltd.
Summary of winning entry: Shell’s current performance and future success relies heavily on their technical professionals.
Shell's Graduate Programme (SGP) programme is designed to provide their professionals with the right mix of on-the-job learning, combined with formal, structured learning with the aim of creating competent, professional and best-in-class employees.
The programme reduces the time it takes for new staff to do a work on their own and provides the assurance that the professional is truly competent to do what they are required to do.
SGP also prepares and enables Shell’s employees to take on roles of increasing responsibilities and complexities on exit of programme to enhance their talent pipeline.
Runner-up: ‘Intrinsic learning motivation, mobile-enabled, out-of-classroom’ – Singapore Polytechnic, School of Chemical and life Sciences.
Sustainable Technology Award (Singapore) sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline
3 Winner: ‘Membrane for selective metal sequestration’ – National University of Singapore.
Summary of winning entry: Heavy and precious metals are an important industrial resource but can also present a high risk to human health. Current separation techniques are indiscriminate, typically removing both heavy metals and unwanted lighter metals, which adds unnecessary costs.
A team led by J. Paul Chen from the National University of Singapore has developed an innovative membrane that selectively sequesters target heavy/precious metals with extremely high efficiencies and low cost.
The membrane can be used for numerous cycles and is suitable for industrial applications. Successful application will lead to cost-savings in resources and greener industrial production.
Runner-up: ‘Membrane technologies for energy and water’ – National University of Singapore.
Young Chemical Engineer of the Year Award (Singapore) sponsored by Shell
4 Winner: Anne Marie Ang, process engineer – Changi Water Reclamation Plant.
Summary of winning entry: Anne graduated from the Imperial College of London in 2012 with a MEng degree (1st class honours) in chemical engineering. She currently works for Changi Water Reclamation Plant (CWRP) as a process engineer.
Since joining CWRP, Anne's roles quickly expanded from process operation to review and optimisation and then to design and implementation. She is also working with PUB – Singapore’s National Water Agency, to help test new technologies.
Anne’s achievements include implementing an ammonia control regime in bioreactors to improve treated water qualities and reduce energy consumption; developing an integration methodology to determine used water flows in the deep tunnel that brings used water into CWRP; and helping to detect harmful substances using an online toxicity meter.
Runner-up: Han Gang, research fellow – National University of Singapore.
Related links
IChemE Singapore Awards 2014
Notes to media
For further information, please contact:
Tony Osborne, communications officer, IChemE
tel: +44 (0)1788 534454
email: tosborne@icheme.org
About chemical engineers
Chemical, biochemical and process engineering is the application of science, maths and economics to the process of turning raw materials into everyday products. Professional chemical engineers design, construct and manage process operations all over the world. Pharmaceuticals, food and drink, synthetic fibres and clean drinking water are just some of the products where chemical engineering plays a central role.
About IChemE
The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) is the hub for chemical, biochemical and process engineering professionals worldwide. With a growing global membership approaching 40,000, the Institution is at the heart of the process community, promoting competence and a commitment to best practice, advancing the discipline for the benefit of society, encouraging young people in science and engineering and supporting the professional development of its members. IChemE in Singapore has been operating for over a decade and has an active and growing membership.