Professional Experience in Uruguay: Technical Consulting at ANCAP

We spent the week of October 14-19 in Uruguay!

Yes. We were in Montevideo and Punta del Este!

Even though we didn’t go on vacation, we had a good time anyway. Because our work is fun and every activity we undertake provides us with pleasant encounters, new experiences and many lessons.

All this within the framework of the last stage of the technical advice we have been carrying out at ANCAP, the Uruguayan public company that imports and refines crude oil and then distributes refined fuels. The imported crude oil is received at the Terminal del Este, located just 30 km from the city of Punta del Este.

We started the week with meetings at the La Teja Refinery in Montevideo. There we met with representatives from the Logistics Management, Foreign Trade Management and the Terminal del Este, to formally present the conclusions, recommendations and actions implemented to achieve improvements in the process of receiving, measuring and calculating crude oil discharges at the Terminal.

We also met with representatives of the companies that carry out Independent Inspection of crude oil discharges, in order to explain the proposed changes, both in some aspects of the Inspection process and also in the process of calculating quantities, considering the characteristics and particularities of the unloading operations at the Terminal del Este. We consider it important that the inspection companies be part of the design of these processes and together we collaborate to provide solutions to the needs of our common client.

Then came four intense days at the Terminal del Este, during which technical training of the Terminal staff (Operators, Supervisors and Managers) was carried out, covering the four work shifts, in the key aspects of the measurement and calculation process of crude oil discharges. These meetings also allowed us to learn about other aspects and details of the work of these teams.

We also met with the team of Mooring Masters, who carry out critical work for the normal development of tanker unloading operations and also influence the activity of the Inspectors on board. With them, we reviewed the issues associated with inspection procedures on board tankers. In turn, they enlightened us on some critical aspects of approach and mooring maneuvers, as well as the sometimes unpredictable relationship between weather conditions and the time available to carry out a task.