Gas Plant Operators
Distribute or process gas for utility companies and others by controlling compressors to maintain specified pressures on main pipelines.
What you’d do
- Monitor equipment functioning, observe temperature, level, and flow gauges, and perform regular unit checks to ensure that all equipment is operating as it should.
- Distribute or process gas for utility companies or industrial plants, using panel boards, control boards, and semi-automatic equipment.
- Control operation of compressors, scrubbers, evaporators, and refrigeration equipment to liquefy, compress, or regasify natural gas.
- Control equipment to regulate flow and pressure of gas to feedlines of boilers, furnaces, and related steam-generating or heating equipment.
- Record, review, and compile operations records, test results, and gauge readings such as temperatures, pressures, concentrations, and flows.
- Determine causes of abnormal pressure variances, and make corrective recommendations, such as installation of pipes to relieve overloading.
- Adjust temperature, pressure, vacuum, level, flow rate, or transfer of gas to maintain processes at required levels or to correct problems.
- Collaborate with other operators to solve unit problems.
Skills that matter
- Operations Monitoring
- Operation and Control
- Monitoring
- Critical Thinking
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Quality Control Analysis
How to get there
Little to some preparation: usually a high school diploma or GED, though some jobs do not need one
Also called
- Gas Controller
- Gas Dispatcher
- Gas Plant Operator
- Plant Operator
- Compressor Technician (Compressor Tech)
- Engine Room Operator
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