In fact, the dispatcher leads the entire production process - from raw materials to ensure the production and reagents, work units, processing and output. The dispatcher monitors the situation at the whole refinery.

“It is very interesting, but also a big responsibility. We must know all the settings, all manufactured products, standards it should comply with, know all the parameters of the equipment. Dispatchers need to be able to quickly, and most importantly, competently respond to emergencies. Dispatchers’ professionalism is evaluated according to the actions taken in the event of an emergency,” said Lyudmila Posokhina. 

“An important factor is the ability to work in a team, to find a common language with the colleagues. After all, we keep in touch with almost all production units. Experience comes over the years, and today with the first seconds of the phone call I know who is calling and why.”

Posokhina is a native of the Aktobe region. She came to the Atyrau Oil Refinery (AOR) in 1986, after she had graduated Orsk Oil college. Head of the HR department Herman Kim, decided to send the young specialist in the CFL. The young, strong-willed Lyudmila rejected the offer: she is technician and technologist and should work at the facility. So she ended up in the workshop No. 3 – under the management of Mikhail Volkov and his deputy Galimzhan Amanturlin. At first she worked as an operator, working on the installation of an inert gas, then - operator of a catalytic reforming process.

“My teacher was Yevgeny Rotnov. Then I was transferred to the third brigade under the management of senior operator Valery Tarabrin, reforming operator was Gennady Veretennikov, senior engineer Boris Baymenov, engineer Viktor Danilenko and Hamidolla Kozhabergenov worked as a stoker,” she said. “We were friends and learned a lot from each other.”

After the first year of work at the refinery Lyudmila Posokhina was invited to work in the production department by Farid Zakirovich Gumerov. But she refused, because they did not yet fully know the whole process of recycling. And when three years later, she was again invited to the production department, this time by Lyudmila Petrosyan, she agreed. 

“My mentor was Olga Antysheva,” she recalled. “I was trained exactly 10 days, then she put me on a shift. Then, plant manager was Vladimir Gafner, whose working day began at half past seven in the morning. And the first thing he did in the mornings was coming up to us. By then we had to prepare all the reports. I remember when I did not have time to do the reports, and the next dispatcher Roza Chesnakova, was starting her shift. I started to panic, she began helping me, and we managed to finish everything. Vladimir always said that the dispatcher - is the refinery’s director at night. And all the information came to us, indeed, and all the major experts began their working day from the control room. Today, virtually all the documentation is in electronic form, and the work is somewhat facilitated. In our times, we had to write by hand all the necessary information and keep some in mind, today it is entered into the computer. At different times, heads of the production department were: Vladimir Vakurov, Daul Kamitov, Lyudmila Petrossyan, Kairat Urazbayev. And each of them has a distinctive feature, for example, Vladimir Vakurov had a phenomenal memory. Each of these leaders was a real professional. We could learn a lot from them.

Here at the refinery Ludmila met her husband Sergei Posokhin – who is from a well-known dynasty of oil refiners, begun by Elena Posokhina, who participated in the construction of the refinery in 1943, and later worked there. Her husband Sergei Posokhin worked at the refinery since 1948, before the well-deserved retirement. Their children Vera, Nikolai and Sergei also have become oil workers.

Lyudmila together with her husband raised son Nikita, he now lives in Saint - Petersburg and daughter Angelina, she is a student at a Poly-technic College. The strong-willed by nature, our heroine tries to keep up with everything. Despite her employment and family errands she had graduated from a university and was active in the life of the refinery. This year was her 30th year at the refinery.

“In the beginning of 90th, of the last century, when Kazakhstan became an independent state, there were difficulties everywhere, including our company. But no matter the difficult times, the factory has always been stable. If there was no money, the salary was given in food or manufactured goods. That is, we’ve always had a sense of security that did not leave us in the lurch, did not put on the street, and we will always help. Along with the development of the country, and growing the plant. And today, we are already at a high level, being modernized, we keep up with the times. And I wish prosperity to the native enterprise and new heights.”