According to Mike Coyle, president of manufacturing for Chevron, Chevron's refining and manufacturing business has been on a journey for the past several years.
"With regard to personal process safety performance, we are continuing to tackle challenges head-on with initiatives ranging from streamlined, user-friendly procedures and checklists to much more comprehensive asset integrity programs," he said.
One of the areas Coyle said he is particularly proud of is the company's progress toward becoming "a learning organization."
"We're raising the principles of human performance, which encourages thinking about and improving how people, work systems, culture, equipment and processes all interact," Coyle said in an address titled "Learning from the Past and Looking to the Future of Downstream at Chevron" at the Downstream Exhibition & Conference held recently in Houston.
Chevron's emphasis on human performance involves an organizational shift in the way the company thinks about safety, ensuring the presence of safeguards that prevent incidents, Coyle said.
"Fundamentally, human performance recognizes that mistakes happen. Humans make mistakes," he said. "We all make them."
At times, Coyle added, "error traps" are designed into a system or become inherent to a process over time. "And as humans, we don't always see these error traps before an incident occurs," Coyle said. "How we react as an organization and as leaders to mistakes is extremely important if we want to engage the organization to continuously improve."
Learning teams
"Learning teams," Coyle said, have been set up throughout Chevron, with the manufacturing organization leading the way.
"The intent of the learning team is to understand and learn to improve our collective operational knowledge," he explained, adding that learning teams can be used both when things go well and when things go bad, not only in safety applications but in business and reliability processes as well.
"The key factor to our learning teams is to get the right people involved -- people who know the work and perform the work," Coyle said.
Coyle cited an example of a recent successful learning team outcome that occurred in 2018 at Chevron's Richmond, California, refinery, where a large compressor and one of the hydro-processor units shut down.
"Our operators were trying to start the plant back up," Coyle said. "They started to start the sea-level pump, but the discharge valve was left closed and, therefore, we couldn't restart the compressor. As a result, there was some heavy flaring, and in the state of California, that gets lots of attention."
This wasn't the first time this had happened, Coyle said.
"We modified procedures, and we tested them over the years to prevent this from happening again, but it happened again," he said.
This time, a learning team was called in to address the situation.
"As I said, when you get the right people involved, they know what the right answer is," Coyle said.
The learning team discovered that the outside operator needed to be in several different locations in a very short period of time to properly open all of the valves in the right sequence. Their action item, which has since been implemented, was to automate the procedure.
"Now they just touch a button, the valves go where they need to, and we don't have to have an operator running around trying to get everything done in exactly the right sequence," Coyle said. "We have now eliminated that error trap."
Learning teams are changing the culture not by looking to assign blame, Coyle said, but by searching for ways to make it easier to do the right thing and harder to make a mistake.
"I'm really proud of our people, particularly the frontline workers, who have raised learning teams and the principles of human performance," he said.
Diving into a technological 'Shark Tank'
Another area where Coyle has seen considerable change in manufacturing is Chevron's accelerated implementation of technology.
"It used to be that when a process improvement idea would formulate, we'd put together a cross-section of subject matter experts and develop a plan," Coyle recalled. "From there, the wheels of progress would oftentimes turn at a glacial pace, and sometimes would halt, depending on different reasons."
That process is no longer acceptable, Coyle said. "We need to be more agile and nimble," he said. "Let's face it: Our industry hasn't historically been associated with being agile and nimble. But things are changing."
Coyle noted Chevron employees submit ideas about digital improvements "like new apps and the like" and then submit those ideas to a panel of judges, similar to the popular reality television show "Shark Tank."
"Submittals are voted on, and the top vote-getters are funded immediately," he said. "This all takes place in a matter of days or weeks.
"In manufacturing, we're using global technology more in all aspects of our business, from operations to maintenance to technical."
Coyle pointed to the adaptability of the workforce as another important factor.
"As we move toward increased digitalization of our facilities and work processes, we need to have the organizational ability to adopt new technologies quickly and more efficiently than ever," he said. "This includes the training of our future workforce."
Coyle lauded Chevron's community outreach partners that offer courses in refining, operations and maintenance.
"We work closely with those institutions to make sure their curriculums are up-to-date and relevant to prepare operators and maintenance personnel for working in today's smarter refineries," he said.
Refining in Pasadena
On May 1, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. completed the acquisition of all the outstanding shares and equity interests of Pasadena Refining System Inc. (PRSI) and PRSI Trading LLC for $350 million, excluding working capital, from Petrobras America Inc.
PRSI's 466-acre complex in Pasadena, Texas, adds a second refinery to Chevron's Gulf Coast downstream business, which also includes a refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The Pasadena refinery has the capacity to process approximately 110,000 barrels per day of light crude, direct pipeline connections to increasing industry and equity crude oil production, connections to major product pipelines, and dock access to receive and ship crude oil and refined products. It comprises a 323-acre refinery, including a tank farm with a storage capacity of 5.1 million barrels of crude oil and refined products, as well as 143 acres of additional land.
"I want to say how happy we are to have the Pasadena refinery in our refining network," Coyle said. "It's not like we've been away entirely, though. Chevron has maintained a strong presence in [Texas] for many years, with more than 8,000 current employees, 11,000 retirees in the area, more than 1,400 Chevron and Texaco branded service stations, and over 2 million surface acres in holdings in the Permian Basin."
As a "refining guy, through and through," Coyle expressed his enthusiasm about refining in Texas.
"We're looking forward to a bright future here -- and a bright future with the Pasadena refinery," he said.
Diversity and inclusion
But what makes Coyle most proud to be part of Chevron, he said, is the company's culture.
"We have a set of guiding principles known as 'The Chevron Way,'" Coyle said. "It describes who we are and what we believe. It's a common understanding for all of our employees and all who interact with us."
Coyle explained the vision articulated in The Chevron Way is to become the global energy company most admired for its people, partnerships and performance.
Specifically, The Chevron Way's values accentuate high performance while also protecting people and the environment, partnership, integrity and trust, and diversity and inclusion.
"Promoting a culture that celebrates diversity and inclusion enables us to learn from and respect each other," Coyle said. "We value uniqueness and the diversity of individual talents and work experiences."
Coyle is also "a proud member" of MARC (Men Advocating for Real Change), an initiative that was developed by Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that aims to expand opportunities for women in business.
Research conducted by Catalyst shows that when men are actively involved in gender diversity, 96 percent of companies report progress.
"When they're not, only 30 percent show progress. MARC programming helps both men and women break down unconscious biases and other barriers through inclusion," Coyle said.
In its third year, MARC has over 3,100 participants, 60 percent of which are men, in 19 locations throughout the world.
"MARC is committed, as I am, to achieving workplace gender equality. It encourages men to be more active and visible champions for gender inclusion," Coyle said. "An inclusive environment that celebrates differences, backgrounds, education, life experiences and all the things that make us unique will ultimately result in a more engaged workforce, an innovative culture and stronger business performance."
