Industries / Petrochemical

Petrochemical & Refinery IT

Managed IT and compliance for Houston-area chemical plants, refineries, specialty-chemical producers, and the contractor firms that work inside their fencelines.

The industry

The Houston petrochemical corridor runs from the Ship Channel to Mont Belvieu to the Texas City refinery cluster — the largest concentration of chemical manufacturing in the United States. Refineries, specialty-chemical producers, turnaround contractors, NDT and mechanical-integrity firms, and the hundreds of service companies that work inside their fencelines all operate under OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM 1910.119), DHS Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS), API standards, and operator-led contractor-vetting programs (ISNetworld, Avetta, Veriforce). The IT side of these businesses can't look like generic business IT — the site-access rules, documentation retention, and OT / ICS segmentation requirements are different in kind.

Why Mako fits

Every Mako engineer holds a Transportation Worker Identification Credential. For petrochem clients along the Ship Channel, that clears the TSA-level portion of contractor vetting on day one — a real difference when you're weeks into turnaround planning and need another pair of hands on the shop-floor network. Combined with 25 years of Houston-metro operating history, PSM / CFATS-aware documentation practice, and a Tier III data center we work inside of, we're built for the actual compliance surface of this industry.

What breaks

Common problems for petrochemical businesses.

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TWIC® site access at refineries, chemical plants, and port-adjacent terminals — a hard prerequisite for most unescorted contractor work
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Operator-led contractor vetting — ISNetworld, Avetta, Veriforce — that layers on top of TWIC® with plant-specific orientations, drug screens, and safety training
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OT / ICS / SCADA segmentation from corporate IT — DCS, historian, and PLC networks that must be isolated without losing plant-to-business visibility
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OSHA PSM (1910.119) documentation — MOC records, P&IDs, compliance audits, and three-year retention with rapid audit recall
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CFATS CVI (Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability Information) handling — controls on who sees what, tracked by name
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Turnaround-season surge — hundreds of extra badged contractors in a two-to-six week window, all needing IT access configured and revoked on schedule
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Cyber-insurance applications sized for petrochem threat profile — OT ransomware, vendor-chain compromise, manufacturing-environment spear phishing
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ERP and mechanical-integrity software reliability — SAP, Maximo, PCMS, GE APM, and the specialty inspection platforms NDT firms run on

Built for petrochemical

Services tuned to how you actually work.

TWIC®-credentialed engineering, 100% of the bench

Every Mako engineer holds a Transportation Worker Identification Credential. That covers the TSA-level federal background check petrochemical sites require for unescorted access — so sponsorship and badging move in days instead of weeks.

IT / OT segmentation done right

Corporate IT and OT networks kept isolated per CISA and NIST ICS guidance. Historian data flows, plant-to-business reporting, and the inevitable Windows crossovers managed, patched, and monitored — without letting the business-network ransomware incident of next year walk into the DCS.

PSM / OSHA 1910.119 documentation support

Backups, access logs, and compliance evidence retained for the full three-year PSM audit cycle. When compliance asks for Management of Change records or access history for the last audit, we produce it.

CFATS CVI handling

If your facility is Tier-ranked under CFATS, we implement the CVI access-control and labeling requirements. Who opens what file, from where, is logged. People without CVI authorization can't see what they shouldn't.

Turnaround-season contractor surge

Pre-planned onboarding flows for the 100-to-400 extra badged contractors a major turnaround brings on-site. Access provisioning, MFA enrollment, MDM push, and scheduled deprovisioning on turnaround completion — without the identity debt that normally accumulates.

ISNetworld / Avetta / Veriforce readiness

We maintain our own standing in the major contractor-vetting platforms used by Houston-area operators, so when a new client's gate-access process starts with 'send us your ISN account,' we already have it.

Cyber-insurance questionnaires, answered accurately

Petrochemical carriers ask specific questions (OT segmentation, backup immutability, EDR coverage, IR plan currency). We answer with evidence — so renewals price cleanly and claims aren't contested.

Comparison

Generic IT vs. Mako for petrochemical.

What matters	Generic IT / DIY	Mako
Contractor site access at a refinery or chem plant	Start TWIC® and federal background vetting from zero — weeks or months of paperwork	Every engineer already holds an active TWIC®. Sponsorship and plant-specific orientation can move immediately.
ISNetworld / Avetta / Veriforce account	You hand your MSP the contractor-vetting portal login and hope they figure it out	We maintain our own account standing in the major platforms — operators can verify us directly
IT/OT segmentation	Flat network with a vague VLAN comment; one ransomware hit reaches the DCS	Segmentation aligned to CISA / NIST ICS guidance; historian and plant-to-business flows instrumented and logged
PSM documentation recall	Search the ex-admin's email archive under audit pressure	Three-year retention, indexed, produced the same day a compliance officer asks
Turnaround-season IT onboarding	Manual account creation in 300+ tickets; deprovisioning slips; identity debt piles up	Pre-planned onboarding / offboarding flows with automated provisioning and scheduled end-date deprovisioning
Cyber-insurance renewal	Check-the-box answers; price goes up 40% anyway and claim gets scrutinized	Evidence-backed answers on OT segmentation, backup immutability, EDR coverage, IR plan; renewals predictable
Mechanical-integrity software (PCMS, GE APM, inspection LOB)	Best-effort — 'call the vendor if something breaks'	Direct experience with the specialty platforms NDT and mechanical-integrity firms run on

Specialty chemical producers, refinery services, NDT and inspection firms, turnaround contractors, and mechanical-integrity shops across the Houston petrochemical corridor.A named case study for this vertical is being finalized with a client and will be published once they’ve approved the write-up.

FAQ

Petrochemical — common questions.

Do you work inside the operators themselves or just the contractor firms?+

Both, with more density in the contractor side — NDT, inspection, mechanical integrity, turnaround contractors, and specialty chemical producers. Operator engagements tend to be narrower (specific applications or segmentation projects). Either way, the TWIC®-credentialed engineering is the common thread that makes the work possible.

Can you handle the OT / ICS side, or do we keep our DCS vendor?+

Keep your DCS vendor — they own the control system and should. Our job is the IT side of the equation: corporate-to-OT segmentation, historian and business-reporting crossovers, patch management on Windows systems that live on the OT edge, backup of the engineering workstations, and making sure the IT-side threats (ransomware, BEC, vendor-chain compromise) can't walk into the plant network.

What's 'CFATS CVI' and why does it matter for IT?+

CFATS (Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards) assigns facilities a security tier based on chemicals of interest. Tier-ranked sites generate documentation called CVI — Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability Information — which must be access-controlled to named, authorized individuals. For IT, that means labeled file shares, access logging, and role-based controls mapped to the CVI authorization list your FSO maintains. We've implemented this.

How do you handle turnaround-season onboarding at scale?+

Pre-planned flows. Before turnaround starts, we work with your HR and safety teams to build the badge / account / MFA / MDM provisioning pipeline. Contractors get accounts at check-in with scheduled end dates. On turnaround completion, deprovisioning runs automatically. The compliance point: identity debt doesn't accumulate between turnarounds.

Do you have experience with PCMS, GE APM, and inspection-LOB platforms?+

Yes, across the client base. Tell us your specific stack and we'll be honest about depth — for the core mechanical-integrity platforms we work with regularly, no learning curve. For the long tail of specialty inspection software, we're comfortable learning alongside your vendor and usually have the platform running smoothly within the first engagement cycle.

Cyber insurance keeps asking about OT / ICS — how do you answer?+

With evidence. We document OT segmentation architecture, EDR coverage on Windows-based OT systems, backup immutability for engineering workstations and historians, and the documented IR plan covering OT-impact scenarios. When the carrier asks 'how do you know?', we produce the log excerpts, config exports, and tabletop notes. Questionnaires stop being a guess.

Relevant services

What petrochemical clients most often pair with.

Everything below is live on the site today — pick the one closest to what you’re trying to solve and start there.

Service areas

Where we support petrochemical clients.

Houston Ship Channel · Pasadena · Deer Park · La Porte · Baytown · Texas City · Mont Belvieu · Channelview · Galena Park · Freeport and surrounding Houston metro areas.

Services

Services petrochemical teams lean on most

Let’s talk petrochemical.

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