About This Career

Distributes or processes gas for utility companies and others by controlling compressors to maintain specified pressures on main pipelines.

This career is part of the Energy cluster Production pathway.

A person in this career:

• Monitors equipment functioning, observes temperature, level, and flow gauges, and performs regular unit checks to ensure that all equipment is operating as it should.
• Distributes or processes gas for utility companies or industrial plants, using panel boards, control boards, and semi-automatic equipment.
• Controls equipment to regulate flow and pressure of gas to feedlines of boilers, furnaces, and related steam-generating or heating equipment.
• Controls operation of compressors, scrubbers, evaporators, and refrigeration equipment to liquefy, compress, or regasify natural gas.
• Records, reviews, and compiles operations records, test results, and gauge readings such as temperatures, pressures, concentrations, and flows.
• Determines causes of abnormal pressure variances, and makes corrective recommendations, such as installation of pipes to relieve overloading.
• Adjusts temperature, pressure, vacuum, level, flow rate, or transfer of gas to maintain processes at required levels or to correct problems.
• Collaborates with other operators to solve unit problems.
• Starts and shuts down plant equipment.
• Monitors transportation and storage of flammable and other potentially dangerous products to ensure that safety guidelines are followed.

Working Conditions and Physical Demands

People who do this job report that:

• You would often handle loads up to 20 lbs., sometimes up to 50 lbs. You might do a lot of lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling.
• Work in this occupation involves use of protective items such as safety shoes, glasses, gloves, hearing protection, a hard hat, or personal flotation devices
• Exposure to pollutants, gases, dust, fumes, odors, poor ventilation, etc.
• Work in this occupation involves using your hands to hold, control, and feel objects more than one-third of the time
• Exposed to conditions such as high voltage electricity, combustibles, explosives, and chemicals more than once a month
• Work in this occupation requires being inside most of the time
• Sound and noise levels are loud and distracting
• Work in this occupation requires being outside most of the time

Working in this career involves (physical activities):

• Picking out a particular sound in the presence of other sounds
• Identifying color and seeing differences in color, including shades and brightness
• Seeing clearly at a distance
• Detecting sounds and hearing the differences between sounds of different pitch and loudness
• Seeing clearly up close
• Speaking clearly enough to be able to be understood by others
• Identifying and understanding the speech of another person

Work Hours and Travel

• Rotating shift work