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REFINERY OPERATIONS


outgoing costs are energy related. The cost of energy is the highest refining cost after crude oil purchase. The energy cost for an average 100,000 barrels per day refinery can hit $100 million per year. The rising cost of energy and stricter


environmental emissions mean there is a need for better planning and management. In the future, there will be an increasing focus within refineries on energy optimisation rather than just hydrocarbons optimisation. Today, the previous focus on energy reporting is being


the operation of multiple units. New work is aimed at feeding targets from scheduling directly to the APC applications, which can understand current operating constraints and feed back to the scheduling system (and from there back to planning). Open loop performance management is also vital to adding


value in the refinery. Most performance management systems used today are actually performance reporting systems. For performance management to be valuable it needs to move beyond simple reporting by delivering information in as near real-time as possible, whilst also providing ‘look ahead’. This enables refiners to answer the question; How will this impact my monthly plan, defining the magnitude of the issue and facilitating rapid solution investigation? Performance reporting is capable of pinpointing where a


The energy cost for an average 100,000 bpd refinery can hit $100 million per year


superseded by a new focus on energy management, which requires management of both the demand and the supply side. Refiners need to question energy


costs. In particular, they should ask themselves; Can energy costs be reliably forecasted? Does energy usage and energy costs meet plan and can energy/emissions cause a constraint to the plan?


Operational Focus Some refineries today have successfully implemented and are continuing to integrate planning, scheduling and energy management systems as part of an overall risk management strategy, effectively taking a more integrated approach to the whole of their operational strategy. They can look to achieve


improvements in unit and refinery- wide performance by concentrating on two areas in particular: closed loop control and open loop management. In terms of closed loop control,


Advanced Process Control (APC) techniques typically come into play. Recent advances in APC have reduced the cost of implementation and made controller maintenance much easier. As a result, APC can now be justified on most units. Composite APC applications can be used to synchronise and optimise


54 March 2012


refinery is making errors and, therefore, helps to eliminate them re-occurring in the future. The point in question is not to make the same mistake twice, it is a matter of performance management and not making the same mistake once! Ultimately performance management is


extremely powerful because it draws on data from many of the other tools previously outlined from planning and scheduling through to APC. Refineries need to carry out a systematic analysis of current performance to quickly identify gaps and actions. To be effective, this requires multi-disciplinary input.


Closing the Gap – Key to Success Refinery margins continue to be squeezed in today’s highly


competitive marketplace. The difference between planned financial performance and actual financial performance may be up to 10% of the refinery gross margin. Closing this gap is one of the highest return opportunities for refinery managers today. Refineries need to regularly define current gaps in financial performance (typically on a monthly basis). However, to do so effectively requires a systematic analysis of


why actual performance falls below target. They then need to analyse each step of the process from planning, to scheduling, through operations and identify why there is a gap and what the financial value would be in closing it. Once the reasons for the gaps are known, appropriate actions can be taken. In some instances, these may be one-off actions (e.g. replacing unreliable equipment or ‘process systems’ that require long-term operation change). Refinery management must at all times bear in mind the fact


that small incremental changes can make huge differences to the competitiveness of a refinery. Software technology solutions provide a realistic method of closing the gap between planned and actual performance and will be critical to helping achieve long-term commercial success. •


Eric Petela is Director, Business Consulting at AspenTech, a


global provider of mission-critical process optimization software solutions designed to manage and optimize plant and process design, operational performance, and supply chain planning.


www.aspentech.com


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