Meet my team. Gayathri Gangadhar and her road to optimising engineering processes

Recently I shared with you my discussions with Neal and Teppicha , two members of my Technology Team working as a Bitumen Manufacturing Consultants. I am continuing our journey and introducing you today to Gayathri, Bitumen Manufacturing Engineer for Asia. She is based in Bangalore, India and has a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the Birla Institute of Engineering and Science in Pilani.

Read our discussion below to learn more about her work, understand the importance of process engineering for bitumen performance, and get some advice if you are a young engineer stating your career.

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Gayathri, you joined Shell after your graduation. Can you share with us your career journey so far?

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I joined Shell in 2013 as a process engineering graduate, and since then I have been working in and with bitumen in different roles, supporting different assets and geographies. I started as a process researcher working with the refineries in Western Europe, analysing crudes, developing the scheduling tools for these refineries, as well as prediction models for trading and supply to select the right feedstocks. A few years later I got an opportunity to work in St. Rose Refinery in the US, where together with the refinery operations team I worked across a range of projects which gave me huge insights as to how refineries work, how safety processes are managed, and hands-on experience in process engineering activities.

In 2018 I moved to a new role as a bitumen blending hub Lead for Asia where I focused on enabling the Shell refinery in Philippines to produce bitumen and was accountable for bitumen approvals for Asia, which is an inevitable component in bitumen Sales and Operation Planning (S&OP) to balance supply and demand.

More recently my focus moved to Shell Bukom Refinery in Singapore, working to optimise their bitumen supply chain, and ensure sales grade bitumen meets the relevant specifications and is fit for purpose for the customer.

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Additionally, I lead the implementation of R&D technology solutions in the refinery, technical feasibility evaluation of investment projects and develop opportunities to reduce the carbon intensity of the various supply chains.

Your experience is already very broad, but if you were to describe your current role in one word, what would it be? ?

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My role is very much about optimisation. Working with refineries means being part of a very complex system. Someone in my role, working in the Technology team but also being close to the refineries has a holistic view of everything that's going on. Most of the people I work with from the industrial side are focused on their unit performance. I am here to connect with them, leverage my expertise from having worked in other refineries, and enable the whole system to be optimised. I give guidance on crude properties and choices, processing plans and risk assessments.

Can you share with me one project that represented an important challenge for you, and you feel proud to have overcome?

Sure. Most recently I have been working with Bukom refinery to help them to resolve a challenge related to the processing of light crude oils which unexpectedly impacted the short residue quality. We quickly developed a laboratory testing plan coupled with process simulations t and based on the results we were able to implement new controls to solve the problem. This enabled the refinery to schedule the crudes more efficiently and process them without negatively impacting short residue quality.

How would you describe working in Shell?

I didn’t work in other companies before joining Shell, but I have interned with companies during my university time. One of the differences I immediately noticed when joining Shell was the respect for diversity and inclusion (D&I), which is important for a female chemical engineer.? I also value the trust, authenticity, and honesty, all of which are core values not only in my team but also across Shell. Another element I would highlight is the work-life balance. In Shell I feel I can do my best at work while having time for my family too.

What excites you most in your current role?

I am not working only on optimising “the now”, I am also part of R&D technology development projects that focus on the future and more specifically, on how to lower the CO2 emissions coming from a refinery. These projects are done in collaboration with Shell Chemicals on innovating upgrading technologies for recycling the residues that are currently burned in the refinery into circular fuels and chemicals. However, in the upgradation process, there is some residue formed, and this is when me and my colleagues are pulled into the project, to evaluate the compatibility of that residue for the bitumen. As it’s not burnt, bitumen is one of the low-carbon options for a refinery reducing scope 1 and 2 emissions.? I have been working on this project since 2022 and it’s become a strong focus of my role.

If you were to give a piece of advice to a young chemical engineer starting his or her career, what would that be?

I would tell them to identify and understand what they are good at and what they want to work on. Not all engineers would love to work in the manufacturing space, right? Some might prefer process designing, others may like process controls or research, or would like to go into management areas. My advice would be to identify their core strengths as this will help them achieve their goals and fulfil their potential.

Let me illustrate this with a personal example. After I had finished my undergraduate studies, I was in a dilemma: should I go for a management program like an MBA, or should I go for a masters in chemical engineering?? One day, I happened to participate in a university quiz, which I won! It’s at that moment I realised that my competences in chemical engineering were one of my core strengths and so I chose to do a master’s degree in chemical engineering, exploring different areas, working with different professors on various engineering research projects, publishing articles.

After finishing my master’s degree, I was faced with a new dilemma: I could go for a PhD, I could work for an oil and gas company, an older dream of mine, or start a technology related start-up with some friends. I had an aspiration to work in oil and gas, after some senior executives from a prominent Indian refinery came to the university to share their work and give career guidance to students. My CV caught the attention during the placement fair, leading in the end to my selection and realising my long-cherished dream.

Gayathri, I always end these discussions by asking my colleagues about their purpose. I am convinced knowing one’s purpose makes one’s life choices easier. So, have you found your professional purpose yet?

You know, I have thought a lot about what area I should work on in the future, what are my core strengths, what would give me satisfaction, purpose and not regrets later. I am now clear I want to continue to work in technology and contribute through my work as an engineer to the development of cleaner energy. Our society’s challenges require innovative technologies, and I feel I can enable the development of such technologies by bringing in my ideas and my expertise as a process engineer.

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