PRINCIPAL, PROCESS ENGINEER
Vilas Koleshwar is a Professional Engineer with extensive hands-on process engineering experience in oil & gas (conventional and unconventional, upstream & downstream), ethanol based chemicals, bio-methanation of ethanol distillery effluent and produced water treatment for sub-surface disposal and reuse, covering Engineering Design, Operations Support, Research & Development, Technology Deployment, Mentoring and Training plant engineers.
Vilas graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1982. In an illustrious career since spanning 37 years, various industries, multiple countries and reputed organizations (Saudi Aramco, Suncor Energy, Petro-Canada, Jacobs Canada, SNC-Lavalin, Kuwait Oil Company, Lupin Laboratories Ltd., Pravara S.S.K. Ltd., Engineers India Ltd., Hindustan Levers Research Center). Vilas has immensely contributed to the growth of Oil & Gas and Agro based-chemical Industries. By moving from R&D to engineering to operator company environment, and by handling number of green and brown field projects from concept to commissioning, he has acquired in-depth process engineering expertise, imbibed a wide, multi-faceted and multi-national industrial work culture and HSE compliance attitude as well as Operational Excellence Best practices.
Vilas is a go-getter and a taskmaster. He has a deep passion for innovation, engineering enhancements, responsible industrialization, and conservation. His drive for conservation and responsible industrialization is rooted in his rural upbringing in India where he has witnessed destruction of environment for past four decades in the name of development. Vilas’s work in freshwater conservation in crude oil desalinization process was recently awarded with a US Patent # 10,703,989 B2. He has another patent under review with the US PTO in the field of efficient oil & water separation in cylindrical tanks. He has published several technical papers in reputed international journals.
AREAS OF EXPERIENCE
- Upstream Crude Oil Processing (Conventional & Unconventional, production wells to product pipeline)
- Produced water, Flowback Water and Tailings Water (Treatment for disposal, injection and reuse)
- Surface Jet Pump technology applications for oil & gas production boosting, gas compressor bypass, flare gas recovery.
- Biogas generation from Ethanol distillery effluent water
- Ethanol based chemical manufacturing
- New Technology Identification, Evaluation, Pilot Testing and Deployment (Oil/Gas/Water)
- Conceptual study, Techno-economic feasibility study and scoping study, DBM, Basic/FEED/Detail engineering support
- Plant commissioning & startup support
- Computational Fluid Dynamic studies, Transient Studies, HAZOP reviews
- Plant operations support (process troubleshooting, process optimization, process equipment debottlenecking & upgrade, performance enhancement)
- Data Analytics and Digitalization Support
- Training Courses for Plant Engineers (Oil Processing, Water Treatment)
QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor of Technology, Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, 1982
AFFILIATIONS
- Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA)
CONTACT
