Industry Subject Matter Expert (SME) – Oil & Gas Refining

Part time Advisory | India

Engagement: Part-time advisor

Location: India | Remote with occasional workshops or customer sessions

Engagement Model

- Part-time Advisor
- Flexible engagement (approximately 5–15 hours per week, based on project needs)
- Remote with occasional workshops or customer sessions

About the Role We are building an AI-native, ontology-driven enterprise intelligence platform for the refining industry. The platform creates a digital understanding of refinery operations by modelling assets, processes, equipment, materials, events, operational decisions and business relationships.

We are looking for an experienced refinery professional who can help translate practical operational knowledge into reusable enterprise models that power AI applications.

This is an advisory role intended for experienced industry professionals who are interested in shaping next-generation industrial AI solutions.

Key Responsibilities

- Provide deep expertise on refinery operations and business processes.
- Define industry terminology, operational concepts, and business vocabulary.
- Validate refinery process models and workflows.
- Identify critical operational entities, relationships, and dependencies.
- Help model refinery operating procedures, best practices, and decision-making processes.
- Participate in ontology and knowledge modelling workshops.
- Review and validate AI-generated process models.
- Identify common operational scenarios, exceptions, and failure modes.
- Advise on KPIs, operational performance metrics,



and optimization opportunities.
- Support creation of reusable refinery knowledge models applicable across multiple customers.

Areas of Expertise Experience in one or more of the following areas is desirable:

Refinery process / function

Refinery process / function

Refinery process / function

Crude Distillation Unit (CDU)

Vacuum Distillation Unit (VDU)

Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC)

Hydrocracker

Delayed Coker

Catalytic Reforming

Hydrotreating

Alkylation

Sulfur Recovery Unit (SRU)

Hydrogen Plant

Utilities and Offsites

Tank Farm Operations

Blending Operations

Process Safety Management

Turnaround Planning

Maintenance & Reliability

Production Planning & Scheduling

Energy Management

Refinery Economics

Asset Performance Management

Process Control & Advanced Process Control (APC)

Digital Operations

Preferred Experience

- 15+ years of experience in refinery operations, engineering, production, maintenance, reliability, process technology, or operational excellence.
- Experience working in large integrated or downstream refineries.
- Strong understanding of cross-functional refinery operations.
- Experience participating in digital transformation, operational excellence,



or process improvement initiatives is desirable.
- Ability to clearly explain complex operational concepts to multidisciplinary teams.

Ideal Background Professionals with experience in roles such as:
- Refinery Operations Manager
- Production Manager
- Process Engineering Manager
- Senior Process Engineer
- Operations Superintendent
- Reliability Manager
- Maintenance Manager
- Technical Services Manager
- Planning & Scheduling Manager
- Asset Integrity Manager
- Operational Excellence Lead
- Digital Transformation Lead (Refining)

Expected Deliverables The SME will contribute to:
- Refinery business capability models
- Process and workflow definitions
- Business terminology and glossary
- Operational decision models
- Equipment and asset relationships
- Material and product flow models
- Operational event catalogues
- Industry KPIs
- Failure scenarios and operational exceptions
- Validation of ontology and knowledge graph models
- Review of AI-generated solution outputs

Time Commitment
- Approximately 5–15 hours per week.
- Participation in scheduled workshops, review sessions, and customer discussions.
- Flexible engagement based on project milestones.

What Success Looks Like Success in this role is measured by the quality and completeness of the operational knowledge captured, enabling the platform to accurately represent refinery operations and deliver meaningful AI-driven insights and recommendations that can be reused across multiple refinery implementations.

📌 Oil and Gas Consultant (Hyderabad)
🏢 Quest Global
📍 Hyderabad