This year, the student Chemical & Process Engineering Club of UWA(CPEC), the Chemical Engineering Department and the University Safety Team successfully planned and executed an epic five-day site visit to the Pilbara region.
This was the first time since the Chemical Engineering program was launched at UWA in 2006 that a project of this scale was undertaken.
Credit goes to the CPEC student leadership team for their planning of the itinerary, liaising with the Department, the University safety team, industrial hosts and for securing FIFO-style accommodations to provide an authentic and immersive experience for all the student participants.
Ten students ranging from second year through to their penultimate year of study were selected on a merit basis by the student leadership team in consultation with the Department through an expression-of-interest process. The selection process took into account gender diversity and international-local student mix with a skew toward higher years of study so that students who were closer to graduation could have a taste of what was on offer in the chemical engineering industry.
The site trip was scheduled from July 20 to 24, with students returning to Perth just a day before the second semester started.
The students and academics visited Yara Pilbara, the Woodside Karratha Gas Plant, marvelled at the rock art located in the Ngajarli (Deep Gorge) on the Burrup Peninsula and went to Roy Hill near Newman.
The delegation was warmly received by the industrial hosts, who were keen to interact with the students and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Image: Students at Yara Pilbara. From left: Albert Lam BSc '22, Pieter Esterhuysen BSc '20, Vasel Cervoj, Raymond Gileno, Reshma Muricken BSc '21, Janna Delos Reyes, Tran Thuy Vy Huynh, Vignesh Alagesan, Rhys McPhail, Matthew Lim BSc '21.
Industry in the Pilbara remarked that they had not seen and met a university student delegation visiting from Perth. The delegation was especially appreciative of the hospitality of Yara Pilbara. Despite a positive COVID breach on their site, Yara gave a brief reception and explained the perimeter pipe work operations and the ammonia market to the students.
At the Woodside Karratha Gas Plant, HR personnel and engineers briefed the delegates about Woodside careers, process safety, digitalisation on site, decarbonisation as well as a brief overview on LNG production. Safety is the greatest concern for workers on site and Anthony McKinley BE '14, MPE '17, UWA alumnus and process safety engineer at the Karratha Gas Plant, presented some incidents that had happened in oil and gas companies and the learnings from those incidents.
The days at Roy Hill mine site were the highlight of the tour, students were able to see each stage in the processes of iron ore mining, refining and analysis while they were explained by subject matter experts. The students were accommodated alongside FIFO workers at the mine and shared the same facilities. This allowed students to have an authentic and immersive experience of the live of a FIFO worker.
The overall feedback from all attendees was that the site visit was informative and enjoyable. It provided comprehensive insight into the many chemical engineering sectors from oil and gas to mining in the Pilbara region and provided an opportunity to network with chemical engineering students at UWA. The site visit increased the students’ passions for chemical engineering and piqued their interests in a wider array of industries. One of the key learnings mentioned by students was the importance of process safety in chemical engineering design and practice.
Students also rated the invaluable opportunity of experiencing the FIFO lifestyle and seeing the precious rock art in the Pilbara region. A further compliment of the program was its ability to showcase relevant process units and systems to assist students in their Chemical engineering design projects.