A TEAM of first year Valero apprentices attending Pembrokeshire College had much to celebrate recently when they took home a prize at the Engineering Education Scheme Wales (EESW) awards, part of ‘The Big Bang Fair South Wales’ at Parc y Scarlets.

The team won the ‘Most Commercial Potential’ category for their project to design a device to detect hydrocarbons when in water, with real world applications for operations at Pembroke Refinery. The project team members Morgan Davies, Imogen Reynolds and Ben Brickle worked on the design at Pembrokeshire College as part of the Valero Apprenticeship Engineering Course with assistance from a Valero engineer.

The Valero team won £500 for their efforts and have now been selected to take the project to the Big Bang Young Scientist and Engineer Fair in March 2019 at the Birmingham NEC.

Refinery public affairs manager, Stephen Thornton, said: “This award is a real testament to our apprentices and the skills they have acquired during this programme, as well as a reflection of the amazing partnership between Valero and Pembrokeshire College. I know the team are very excited about bringing their project to a wider audience in Birmingham next year, and we are delighted to see the next generation of engineering talent progress so rapidly in their STEM careers.”