The company finances her enrolment in the Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and an internship

Sadaf Davari is the winning student of the fourth edition of the Work Experience Award of the BASF SONATRACH PropanChem SA. The company finances her studies at the Master’s in Chemical Engineering and also allows the winner to carry out the internship and the final master’s project at the company’s facilities. The project is based on a real case in the areas of processes, technology and asset management.

The chemical company collaborates with the URV, through the School of Chemical Engineering (ETSEQ), with the Work Experience award to promote Chemical Engineering studies as well as to recognise and foster the development of talented people within the field of Chemical Engineering. As part of this agreement, the company and the ETSEQ have awarded the Work Experience Award to a chemical engineer from the Islamic Azad University (Iran), Sadaf Davari. The company is financing her studies at the Master’s in Chemical Engineering, which she has already begun.

The award was handed to the winner of the fourth edition by Josep Maria Chillida, manager of the BASF SONATRACH PropanChem SA and associate professor of the ETSEQ for over two decades. The event, which was held on 8 March at the company’s headquarters, was attended by John Style, vice-rector for Internationalization; Josep Bonet, director of the ETSEQ; and Allan Mackie, deputy director of the ETSEQ.

Participating in the company’s activities is essential preparation in the early stages of the careers of chemical engineering students. Josep Maria Chillida describes the relationship between the university and the company as a perfect symbiosis for the business world, since companies can be nourished by very competent graduates who come directly from the university.

BASF SONATRACH PropanChem SA is a joint venture between BASF, which holds 51% of the share capital, and the Algerian state oil and gas company SONATRACH, which owns the remaining 49%. It was created in the year 2000 to build and carry out the operation of a propane dehydrogenation plant for propylene production. The facility has a production capacity of 350,000 tons of propylene per year, which is supplied to Basell Poliolefinas Ibérica, a LyondellBasell company that produces polypropylene. The propane needed for the production of propylene is imported through SONATRACH from Algeria.

The ETSEQ of the URV is one of the most influential university centres in chemical engineering. It offers a professional teaching method, based on the practice of engineering from the first year as well as a strong link with the industrial network, which helps the incorporation of graduates and masters into the labour market both in our country and throughout Europe. The ETSEQ degrees and the Master’s in Chemical Engineering are in the process of obtaining the international EURACE accreditation.