CAPEX, Projects Engineer at Louis Dreyfus Company

Job Description

Company Description

Louis Dreyfus Company is a leading merchant and processor of agricultural goods. Our activities span the entire value chain from farm to fork, across a broad range of business lines, we leverage our global reach and extensive asset network to serve our customers and consumers around the world. Structured as a matrix organization of six geographical regions and ten platforms, Louis Dreyfus Company is active in over 100 countries and employs approximately 19,000 people globally.

Your main responsibilities:

Capex & Project Lifecycle Management

• Project Execution: Initiate and deliver Capex projects (Asset Improvement, SHE, Maintenance, Discretionary) up to $5M annually. Ensure full compliance with LDC internal gate reviews (Platform, Engineering, Procurement, SHE/PSM, Risk, IT, Legal) and regulatory frameworks.
• Contractor & Stakeholder Leadership: Serve as the primary liaison between contractors, consultants, and internal teams during design, construction, and commissioning.
• Benefits Realization & Handover: Oversee seamless project handovers to Operations and Maintenance while tracking initial assumptions, cost savings, and ROI with Commercial and Finance teams.

Strategic Procurement & Sourcing

• End-to-End Sourcing: Manage market research, supplier pre-qualification (KYC), TCO-based RFP/RFQ evaluations, contract negotiations, and vendor performance monitoring for over 100 suppliers.
• Procure-to-Pay Governance: Oversee purchase requisitions, material receipts, contract completion certificates, and claims management while partnering with Finance and Control.

Operations, Maintenance & Asset Integrity

• Preventative & Corrective Maintenance: Drive high operational availability, yield, and safety for critical assets (boilers, weighbridges, utilities, and electro-mechanical systems).
• Workshop & Infrastructure Setup: Establish a standard electromechanical workshop and manage asset life cycles, including the disposal of obsolete equipment.
• Inventory Control: Monitor maintenance stores, spare part reorder thresholds, and fuel/water utility levels to ensure complete inventory accuracy.

Safety, Energy & Budgetary Compliance

• Financial Oversight: Manage annual Capex/Opex maintenance budgets, control KPIs (committed vs. spent, overruns), and execute cost-saving/waste-elimination strategies.
• SHE, PSM & Energy Leadership: Serve as Asset Energy Officer to lead annual energy audits and drive sustainability goals. Actively enforce safety regulations, risk assessments, and incident prevention.

People Management & Continuous Improvement

• Team Leadership: Supervise, schedule, and evaluate maintenance staff (including janitorial teams), enforce training, and manage overtime.
• Process Optimization: Implement QMS standards, best-practice maintenance frameworks, and data-driven root-cause analyses to resolve system losses and boost overall plant reliability.

Qualifications

Your profile:

• Experience: 5-8 years experience in a bulk storage terminal or warehouse, port operations, processing plant or similar experience.
• Knowledge: good background in food industry, construction, maintenance and projects management in a manufacturing or logistics environment, import/export port operations, continuous improvement initiatives, root cause analysis, managing teams.

Education:

• Degree certificate in Electrical/Mechanical/Civil/Industrial Engineering, Projects Management or a relevant field. Master’s certificate will be an added advantage. Additional certification such as Certified Energy Manager, Project Management Professional is highly desired.

Languages: English / Kiswahili

• Systems / Applications: Terminal Management Automation and Control Systems, MS Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Power, Water, MEP, Project Management and Scheduling Systems, Computerized Maintenance Management Systems, Design Systems (AutoCAD, Solid Works)

Technical / Functional skills:

• Tertiary qualifications in Occupational Health and Safety and comprehensive knowledge in the regulations and code of practice
• Knowledge of Hazard Management principles
• Accident investigation skills and preparation of comprehensive report with recommendations
• Aptitude for understanding the risks and precautions associated with the equipment in their area of responsibility
• Proven management skills with the ability to optimize team performance and development
• Highly skilled communicator with the ability to form and maintain good relationships internally and externally
• Strong interpersonal, negotiation and influencing skills
• Proven analytical, problem solving and organizational skills
• Strong planning skills with the ability to handle multiple projects through to completion and to manage competing priorities
• Project management skills
• Conflict management skills
• Commercial and financial acumen with a full understanding of the impact of failure in terms of business cost, production schedules and customer order fulfilment
• Excellent attention to details
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office
• Familiarity with ISO procedures such as ISO 9001 and how to internally audit processe