Position: Head Refinery

Industry: FMCG – Edible Oils

Experience: 15+ Years

Location: Haldia, West Bengal

Position Overview:

We are looking for an experienced professional to lead the overall refinery operations at our plant in Haldia. The person will be responsible for safe plant operations, production, quality, cost control, process improvement, maintenance coordination and team management. The ideal candidate should have solid experience in refinery operations and should be capable of managing a large team and handling day-to-day plant challenges.

Key Responsibilities

1. Refinery Operations & Production

- Provide overall leadership for safe and efficient refinery operations.
- Ensure achievement of production targets in line with business plans, customer requirements and plant capacity.
- Develop and execute annual, monthly and daily production plans.
- Monitor plant operating parameters, throughput, yields, product quality and process losses.
- Ensure optimal utilization of plant capacity, manpower, equipment and utilities.
- Drive operational discipline through adherence to SOPs, operating procedures and control-room/field practices.
- Ensure effective shift management, plant start-ups, shutdowns and handling of operational upsets.
- Review operational performance and take timely corrective actions to address deviations.

2. Process Optimization & Operational Excellence

- Identify opportunities for improving process efficiency, yield, throughput and energy consumption.
- Drive initiatives for reduction of process losses, wastage and operating costs.
- Lead debottlenecking and capacity-enhancement initiatives.
- Implement best practices in process control, production planning and refinery operations.
- Use operational data and KPIs to identify performance gaps and improvement opportunities.




- Promote continuous improvement methodologies across the refinery.

3. Process Safety, HSE & Risk Management

- Establish and maintain a robust safety-first culture across refinery operations.
- Ensure compliance with all applicable statutory, environmental, safety and regulatory requirements.
- Drive process safety management, hazard identification, risk assessment, MOC, incident investigation and corrective-action systems.
- Ensure robust implementation of permit-to-work, LOTO, SOP, emergency-response and safe operating procedures.
- Lead initiatives to minimize incidents, near misses, process deviations and unplanned shutdowns.
- Work closely with HSE, engineering and maintenance teams to identify and mitigate operational risks.
- Ensure environmental performance and responsible management of emissions, effluents, waste and other environmental aspects.

4. Quality & Reliability

- Ensure consistent achievement of product quality specifications.
- Coordinate with Quality/Technical teams to address process and quality deviations.
- Drive root-cause analysis and preventive actions for recurring operational issues.
- Work closely with Maintenance and Reliability teams to maximize equipment availability and minimize unplanned downtime.
- Support predictive, preventive and reliability improvement programs.

5. Cost & Resource Management

- Own and monitor refinery operating costs against approved budgets.




- Drive optimization of energy, utilities, chemicals, catalysts and other consumables.
- Identify cost-reduction opportunities without compromising safety, quality or reliability.
- Ensure effective manpower deployment and productivity improvement.
- Participate in annual operating-plan and CAPEX planning for the refinery.

6. People & Leadership

- Lead, develop and motivate a multidisciplinary refinery operations team.
- Build a strong second line of leadership and succession pipeline.
- Set clear performance objectives and KPIs for the refinery team.
- Identify competency gaps and ensure appropriate technical and safety training.
- Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, operational discipline and continuous improvement.
- Effectively coordinate with Engineering, Maintenance, Projects, Quality, HSE, Supply Chain, Finance and other functions.

7. Projects, CAPEX & Expansion

- Provide operational inputs for brownfield/greenfield projects, debottlenecking and plant modifications.
- Review process design, operating philosophy and technical proposals from an operational perspective.
- Support commissioning, start-up and stabilization of new facilities.
- Ensure safe and efficient integration of new equipment/processes with existing operations.

8. Compliance & Governance

- Ensure adherence to company policies, operating standards and statutory requirements.
- Maintain robust documentation, operating procedures, production reports and management dashboards.
- Review refinery KPIs and present performance updates to senior management.
- Ensure timely closure of audit observations and compliance actions.
- Drive a strong culture of operational governance and accountability.

📌 Head Refinery - Edible Oil (Haldia)
🏢 Gentoro People Consulting
📍 Haldia