Françoise Sabatier may be only 37, but she has already ticked off four continents at this stage of her career, with postings in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. The Belgian’s work brings her to natural gas plants dotted around the globe. She and her fellow commissioning engineers are responsible for performing on-site inspections at Linde Engineering’s new construction projects before the plants are commissioned, started-up and handed over to customers. 

It may seem straightforward, but starting up an industrial plant that took years to plan and build is anything but simple. There is no ‘on’ button for these towering giants – the process of getting everything ready for live operations actually takes several months to complete. “The plant has to be clean, tight and dry,” summarises Sabatier. Even the tiniest of objects or millimetre-sized leaks in the kilometre-long pipe and duct systems have the potential to cause serious damage to the plants, which usually cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. That is why the work of the commissioning engineers is so important: they are there to sign off on the construction phase and get the plant ready for handover to the customer.

Another responsibility of the commissioning engineer is to familiarise the future operator with the  deep details of their new plant. “That is when we take on the role of trainer,” explains Sabatier. The commissioning engineers effectively run a “driving school” for customers, with classroom-based theoretical instruction blended with practical training throughout the plant during commissioning. If the customer has questions or if a problem arises after the live date, the commissioning engineers continue to provide support and expert advice. Customers typically want to know how they can improve the performance of their plant to make it more productive and generally get more out of it.  

The two sides usually have to communicate remotely via phone, e-mail or video conference call at that stage, because the commissioning engineer is likely to be in another corner of the globe. The “construction site”, as Sabatier modestly describes her workplace, can be anywhere from Australia to Canada, Norway or even Malaysia. In a 2015 project in the Malaysian town of Bintulu, over 10,000 kilometres away from her office in Munich, Sabatier was the engineering manager on site, coordinating the interface with the engineering disciplines in the office  of what is still the world’s largest facility for the reliquefaction of vaporised natural gas.

Linde Engineering built the plant on the northern coast of the island of Borneo in the middle of one of the world’s largest complexes for the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG). At Bintulu, the operator company Malaysia LNG (MLNG), a subsidiary of state-owned Petronas, produces 30 million tonnes of LNG every year. With such a large-scale operation, it is technically very difficult to avoid losing considerable volumes of gas due to vaporisation. Previously, this boil-off gas (BOG) was simply burned off as flare gas. But with the new BOG plant, the operators can now reliquefy approximately 0.8 million tonnes of natural gas. In 2016, this corresponded to 7.5 shiploads of gas capable of being re-used as a fuel. “Not only does this save money, it also reduces emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2, which would otherwise have entered the atmosphere in the burn-off process,” explains Sabatier.

On a personal level, the qualified chemical engineer left the South-East Asian country with a good deal more than “a few words of Malay”. A diving certificate for one thing – as well as many memorable experiences, as she herself relates: “For me, Malaysia is an impressive country, a true melting-pot where several different cultures and religions live side-by-side. This is a country where you can find Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, Chinese and Hindus co-existing peacefully.” A certain degree of openness and curiosity is a prerequisite for the job, reckons Sabatier. “Anyone who embraces new cultural experiences will find this job exceptionally rewarding.”  

Sabatier has been with Linde Engineering since 2005. “I have clocked up plenty of air miles in that time,” she affirms. With a smile, she goes through her list of locations: “Australia, Norway, Canada, China, Poland, the Netherlands, Russia, Monaco, and of course Malaysia.”