Senior Palm Oil Refinery Performance Engineer

Overview

A leading integrated palm oil organisation is seeking an experienced engineer to improve the operational and financial performance of a refinery in Johor.

The successful candidate must have worked across multiple palm oil refineries and understand how different facilities, technologies and operating models perform. The role combines engineering expertise, refinery operations and strong commercial awareness.

The engineer will assess current performance, benchmark the facility against other refineries, identify operational and financial losses, and implement practical improvements that increase throughput, yield, reliability and profitability.

Scope of work

Evaluate end-to-end refinery operations, including crude palm oil receipt, refining, fractionation, storage, utilities and product dispatch.

Assess equipment capability, process performance, plant utilisation and operational reliability.

Benchmark the refinery against other palm oil facilities and recognised industry practices.

Identify production bottlenecks, yield losses, excessive downtime, quality variation and inefficient operating practices.

Analyse refining losses, throughput, capacity utilisation, energy consumption, chemical usage and maintenance costs.

Review production economics, conversion costs, operating expenditure and financial performance.

Translate engineering and operational findings into quantified financial improvement opportunities.

Develop business cases for process modifications, equipment upgrades and capital expenditure.

Prioritise initiatives according to operational impact, investment requirements, payback and implementation risk.

Lead improvement projects across operations, maintenance, engineering, quality, finance and supply chain.

Improve daily operating decisions, performance reviews and management reporting.

Establish KPIs and dashboards covering operational and financial performance.

Coach refinery personnel and embed sustainable performance-management practices.

Ensure that all initiatives comply with process safety, food safety, environmental and sustainability requirements.

Expected Deliverables

Establish an operational and financial performance baseline.

Benchmark the facility against comparable palm oil refineries.

Quantify the main production, yield, energy, reliability and cost losses.

Deliver a prioritised improvement roadmap with financial impact and required investment.

Implement selected high-impact initiatives.

Establish sustainable operational and financial performance controls.

Key Success Measures

Increased refinery throughput and utilisation

Improved refining yield and product recovery

Reduced production and refining losses

Lower energy, chemical and conversion costs

Reduced unplanned downtime

Improved product quality and process consistency

Higher return on operational and capital expenditure

Measurable improvement in refinery profitability

Key requirements

• Degree in Chemical, Mechanical, Process or Industrial Engineering.
• At least 10–15 years of experience in edible-oil or palm-oil refining.
• Direct operating or performance-improvement experience across multiple refineries is essential.
• Strong knowledge of physical and/or chemical refining, fractionation, bleaching, deodorisation, utilities and storage operations.
• Proven experience improving yield, throughput, energy efficiency, reliability or conversion cost.
• Strong financial understanding, including OPEX, CAPEX, budgeting, cost analysis, business cases and return on investment.
• Experience working with plant P&L or operational financial reporting is strongly preferred.
• Able to connect process and equipment decisions with their financial consequences.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and cross-functional leadership capabilities.
• Comfortable working on site and driving implementation directly with refinery teams.
• Willing and able to be based in Johor, Malaysia.
• Fluency in English is required; Bahasa Malaysia would be advantageous.