Aditya Galgotia

Lead a 7-person engineering team responsible for monitoring 6 Cold Lake SAGD plants (155 KBPD bitumen, 700 KBPD produced water, 50 MMSCFD gas) and optimizing unit operation of inlet separation, oil treating, water de-oiling, lime softening & filtration, steam generation, gas compression, fuel gas handling, sulphur recovery, and diluent recovery.

• Implemented site energy management system, which led to a 10-12% reduction in fuel gas usage and greenhouse gas intensity over 2 years through targeted initiatives such as heat exchanger performance improvement, boiler economizer upgrades, decommissioning of energy-intensive equipment, and reduction in power usage.
• Supported start-up & commissioning of Cold Lake's first SA-SAGD facility, troubleshooting key issues such as poor oil-water separation and heat exchanger fouling to facilitate 10 KOEBD of additional production.
• Spearheaded initiative to upgrade measurement and automate control of key water quality parameters leading to improved water disposal rates and lowering chemical costs by 7M$ / year.
• Collaborated with Reservoir, Subsurface, Operations and Maintenance team as part of the site Production Optimization team, identifying and alleviating surface facility bottlenecks that facilitated 5 KBPD of oil production.
• Established reliability programs to improve maintenance intervention on key equipment such as oil treaters, hot lime softeners, high pressure boilers, and pipelines to reduce site unplanned downtime by 3 KBPD.
• Provided key technical input to future SA-SAGD projects in pre-FEED and FEED phases to optimize design based on current operating experience.

Managed 15M$ of engineering work for Imperial Oil across ~175 FTE and 30+ workstreams at the Bengaluru Technical Centre (BTC) in India, with estimated annual cost savings of 22-25M$.

• Drove successful utilization of a large, talented engineering workforce in India to improve profitability at Imperial's heavy oil assets.
• Identified work across Imperial's Upstream business suitable for remote collaboration with engineering teams in India and established framework to ensure it was done effectively. Pioneered the use of the BTC for work that had not previously been considered suitable for a remote technical centre.
• Mentored the engineering workforce in India, and contributed to their skill development and career growth.

Led a multi-functional business team accountable for the safety, reliability, and cost performance of the Kearl plant's Extraction units, which have an outsize impact on asset volumes & profitability.

• Acted as the key interface between field Operations teams and Calgary-based technical and project teams, providing context on big picture opportunities as well as solving day-to-day operational challenges.
• Implemented a production surveillance & troubleshooting process that relied on strong collaboration between Mine & Plant Operations and Technical teams, which improved bitumen recovery by 6-8 KBPD at virtually no incremental cost.
• Facilitated the investigation of unplanned failures and ensured swift implementation of corrective actions, resulting in record unit availability of 98.5% in 2019.
• Executed a chemical optimization program that reduced operating expenses by 8M$ / year.
• Collaborated with Research teams to developed a long-term vision for the Extraction area and laid the groundwork for future capacity enhancement and recovery improvement beyond original plant design.
• Adopted new technologies & novel operating strategies with focus on quick evaluation and learning e.g. chemicals previously untested in oil sands, ore & bitumen analyzers with real-time feedback and control, data-driven machine-learning predictive models for bitumen recovery.

Supervised site-based engineering team that provided facility design, surveillance, and maintenance support to the Kearl oil sands asset (250 KBPD bitumen, 2 processing trains, 2 utilities plants, 1 co-generation unit, 1 deoxygenation plant).

• Led a team of engineers that were the first point-of-contact for the field Operations teams, responding to several major unplanned downtime events and process upsets, working through facility modifications, and supporting the start-up and commissioning of three major capital projects (Kearl Expansion Plant, Tailings Thickeners, and Cogeneration unit).
• Recruited 12 engineers-in-training to the team, established an on-boarding process and provided mentorship and Professional Engineering (P.Eng) approval of their work.
• Promoted awareness of process safety at the Kearl site, helping workers see their role in maintaining the health of protective systems & prevention of incidents.

Provided mechanical and process engineering support to Imperial's conventional oil and gas assets, primarily focused on Harmattan (5 KBPD) and Norman Wells (15 KBPD).

• Secured funding for 20M$ worth of pipeline projects at Norman Wells over 2 years.
• Conducted 5 facility risk assessments, and implemented innovative, fit-for-purpose mitigations at low cost.
• Worked directly with field Operations and Maintenance teams to execute 50+ small facility projects to improve safety, reliability, and throughput.