Education
  • Louisiana Tech University
    B.S. Chemical Engineering (1981)
Areas of expertise
  • Standard of Care
  • Accident / Incident Investigation
  • Insurance Claims
  • Offshore
  • Pipeline
  • Water/Marine
  • Operations and Maintenance
  • OSHA-related
  • Safety
  • Environmental
  • Product Quality
  • Forensic Analysis
  • Toxic Tort
  • Gasification
Industries
  • Oil & Gas Production
  • Natural Gas and NGLs
  • Petroleum Refining
  • LNG
Writings
Certifications

Professional Engineer (P.E.) AK & TX

Certified Fire & Explosion Investigator (CFEI)

Six Sigma Black Belt with LEAN tools

LETAPAEWE

Summary of Experience

Mr. Sinquefield has over 30 years of professional experience in refining, petrochemicals and oil and gas exploration and production. He began his career at Exxon’s Baton Rouge Refinery where he provided process operations support to Hydrocracking, Hydrotreating, and Middle Distillates process units. At BP, Mel began as a Gathering Center process engineer, followed by leadership positions in process safety management (PSM) and health, safety, and environment (HSE).

Mel’s experience in process engineering, PSM, and HSE cross-cuts refinery and production operations, major facility construction and commissioning, seismic, drilling, and well operations.

As a Master Root Cause Specialist, Mel investigated numerous incidents involving casualties, major asset losses, and environmental damages. He has deep insight into risk-based PSM/HSE management system requirements and the bearing of human factors on related incidents.

Mel served as the Safety Officer on the incident management team (IMT) for Deepwater Horizon and for many other global IMT events.

As a consultant for Baker & O’Brien, Mel has given testimony and has been the designated expert on over two dozen disputes. Most of these matters have involved personal injury, toxic tort, occupational safety and health, and process safety management. Mel has also provided environmental, social, and governance (ESG) consulting to lenders for major international and domestic projects. Consulting as a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator (CFEI), Mel has investigated fires and explosions at refineries, product terminals, onshore oilfield facilities, offshore platforms, a gas pipeline strike, a steel plant, and buildings.

Previous Experience

1991-2015: BP,
Health and Safety Director-Iraq
OMS Advisor-Houston, Texas
Asia Pacific Regional HSE Coach-Indonesia
Exploration Drilling HSE Manager-Brazil
Health and Safety Manager-Azerbaijan
Startup Technical Integrity Coordinator-Colombia
HSE Coordinator, PSM Coordinator, Senior Process Engineer-Alaska
Short-term risk management assignments in Jordan and Egypt

1989-1991: Engineering Consultants (Alaska Anvil and TEST),
Process Engineer

1985-1988: Exxon Chemical,
Market Planner, Plasticizers & Intermediates
Technical Sales Representative, Paramins

1981-1985: Exxon Company USA,
Process Engineer, Baton Rouge Refinery