Meet Kris Kimmel: Ensuring Safety in Natural Gas Odorization & Sampling for Customers and His Team

What is your professional background? Have you always worked in the gas and oil market?

After graduating college with a corporate finance degree I spent 3 years working at the oilfield service business owned by my family. In 1988 I was approached by YZ Systems to take on a sales role in West Texas.

Why did you decide to make the move to YZ?

YZ was a small privately held business that engineered and manufactured very innovative products for the energy industry. They were aggressively building a strong team of talented individuals with big plans to lead the industry in innovation, quality, and a great customer experience.

What are a few key responsibilities in your role?

I have the privilege of leading an experienced team that operates with a sense of urgency. As a team, we are focused on constantly improving three key areas.

1. Our industry leading customer service model
2. Productivity in our manufacturing processes
3. On time delivery
    

YZ Systems operates in a niche area of measurement and odorization in the energy industry, but the company’s role is incredibly important. Can you talk a little about YZ Systems’ role in being a strategic vendor for your customers and how that impacts your work?

Custody transfer locations, where products leave one company’s pipeline and enter into another company’s pipeline are critical. Our composite sampling systems are installed at custody transfer locations and are considered the “cash register” for our customers. Every system has to be installed per accepted industry standards, perform accurately and reliably. Our NJEX odorant injection systems help our customers ensure the gas supply within a community is operating safely. The NJEX system provides a paperless audit trail that documents and verifies performance of the system in real time.

We tend to talk quite a bit about our odorization equipment and that’s really important because the right machine for the right location impacts public safety. However, our sampling equipment needs to be extremely reliable and accurate as well. Properly applied equipment can make a huge difference to our customers’ bottom line.

You make an interesting point about proper installation. How does your team help customers ensure that the reliable equipment they’ve bought also operates in the way intended? What challenges or questions do you address for customers?

A common challenge is to help end users and engineering companies properly apply our equipment. We get a lot of requests from those trying to design an odorization system from scratch. That’s when we jump in to help them navigate through that process, helping to make sure they get the right pump, proper storage capacity, and ensure other details are the right fit for their operation.

Our Field Service Group is a big benefit to our customers. During commissioning, they will ensure their equipment is operating correctly and “odor free”. Our composite sampling equipment has to be installed per exacting industry standards to ensure accuracy. The NJEX odorant injection system must be sized properly based on pipeline flowrates to ensure many years of reliable performance.

What projects are you currently working on?

Global demand for natural gas continues to grow requiring custody transfer applications for our sampling equipment and applications for our NJEX odorant injection systems. I am currently focusing on international opportunities in the Middle East and China.

What trends do you see in the market?

The abundance of natural gas in the United States is creating global export opportunities. Internationally, there is an increased focus on establishing “best practice” standards for odorization in natural gas and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) applications. For example, as a part of the American Gas Association, we worked to publish the new gas odorization manual last year. Additionally for sampling, the API 14.1 talks about new requirements around composite sampling for natural gas.

What is your favorite part of working at YZ systems?

I have been lucky enough to work in our industry for 30 years, so many of our customers and their families have become my friends. Additionally, I get to be part of the YZ Team, expectations are high and we care about each other. I’m here to help facilitate what they need and help make sure they have everything they need to be successful.

Learn more about the products our team works on here.