Venkat Pattabathula has more than 35 years of experience in the ammonia manufacturing industry in various parts of the world, such as Asia, North America, and Australia. He has extensive experience in process design, engineering, and operation of world-scale ammonia/urea projects engineered by different process licensors and EPC companies that are valued at more than US$ 800 million. He has been involved in the feasibility studies of H2 gas production from renewable energy sources and published papers on technology developments in Green NH3.
A technology manager, responsible for economic evaluation and technology selection in plant upgrades and performance guarantees on all ammonia, urea plant related projects. A track record of identifying and documenting Best Practices in ammonia, urea production processes to achieve world-class safety and reliability standards.
Venkat is a chartered professional engineer (CPE) of Engineers Australia and a registered professional engineer of Queensland (RPEQ), and a life member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Venkat was elected to the AIChE Ammonia Safety Committee in 2005 and has been on the committee since then. He is also on the Editorial Advisory Board of Chemical Engineering Progress (CEP) magazine of AIChE. Has been selected to be a part of the Public Perception Committee (PPC) of Ammonia Energy Association, AEA (Brooklyn, NY based) and has been part of the organizing committee of the Asia-Pacific conference for the Center for Hydrogen Safety. Venkat has published >130 papers focusing on ammonia, urea process safety, plant incidents, and technology developments. He also authored a chapter of the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology titled “Ammonia”. Venkat was recognized as a google scholar and is currently working with CCPS to write the book, “Process Safety in Ammonia Plants – What Went Wrong”.
He holds a post-graduate degree (M.Tech) in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and a certificate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
Venkat’s main areas of interest are – technology selection, process design, project management, process safety, process engineering, HAZOP studies, plant retrofits, commissioning, troubleshooting, plant operation, renewable energy-related H2, NH3 projects, and energy efficiency improvements.
Venkat has started his own consultancy firm known as “SVP Chemical Plant Services” to provide technical services to the ammonia, urea industry across the globe.