Once a plant is up and running reducing production costs and squeezing extra value from the substantial investment falls to process optimisation tools and technologies.
As plant operators look for the best way to cut operating costs, process optimisation service providers continue to develop their offering to meet their clients’ requirements.
The current economic conditions coupled with increasingly complicated refining processes and growing competition between manufacturers, is proving to be ideal for the industry’s process optimisation specialists.
Refining & Petrochemicals Middle East speaks to a few of the industry’s top process optimisation experts and specialists to guage the situation on the ground for the ever-diversifying petrochemicals sector.
The basic premise of process optimisation involves measuring, analysing and then making informed decisions on what changes can be made to a process to improve performance-related results for a company.
“This could mean improved quality, increased revenues, or decreased cost,” says Ronauld Weeks, advanced solutions business development manager at Honeywell Process Solution.
According to this definition, he says process optimisation does not need to be carried out by a computer running a mathematical optimisation algorithm, it can be a manual activity and entirely implemented or completed by humans.
Hyperion Systems Engineering’s general manager, Nile Al Rushaid defines process optimisation as “the task of improving a process in order to meet specific objectives (specifications) such as maximising yields, minimising energy consumption, maximising throughput and final product.”
Process optimisation is also about controlling the process at it’s peak efficiency. “It involves both dynamic considerations (reducing variability) as well as steady state (where to set the setpoints),” says Jaco Bothma, business director asset optimization MEA at Emerson.
He says “that it requires models and algorithms that determine the optimum operating point that will maximise or minimise an objective function while observing all process constraints.”
Fundamentally, there are three parameters that can be adjusted to affect optimal performance including equipment optimisation, operating procedures and control optimisation.
“This should be done without violating certain limitations or constraints on other parameters such temperatures, pressure, raw material consumption, physical equipment capabilities such as vessel size and compressor power. That is why in general it is a complex task,” Bothma adds.
For both petrochemicals and refining, there are opportunities to optimise every process unit to increases the yields of more valuable products, reduce energy and improve product quality control.
The optimisation tools used for both sectors of the downstream industry are the same.
“From a reaction/process angle there may be different constraints on the actual process and different tools that should be used, however the techniques used and the goal remains the same,” says Al Rushaid.
Weeks says: “In the petrochemical industry, we are dealing with defined components. Whereas within the refining arena, we deal with pseudo-components where the major focus is on property tracking and maximising the refinery margin by optimising the distribution of these properties within the products they sell.”
In general, the optimisation of a refinery is more complex as it starts before the crude even arrives at the facility.
“It starts when the trader buys that crude,” Weeks explains. “However, we have one factor in our favour, our diet of crude in the region is in general, constant. This helps in reducing the optimisation problem our refiners face making our outcomes more deterministic.”
While the processes and models may differ between petrochemicals and refineries, equipment used is the same. “The equipment used in refineries and petrochemical plants like fired heaters, distillation columns, boilers, exchangers, have the same application in both areas,” says Bothma.
Juan-Carlos Mani, vice president of Process System Enterprise explains his company’s approach to process optimisation. “Our technology is built on what’s called Open Equation, which allows high energy efficiency for our clients,” he says.
The cost savings for a typical 100 000 bpd refinery optimising in areas such as process control, refinery planning and energy and emissions management is estimated to be between $10-50 million a year.
“One of the largest chemical manufacturers has adopted our process optimisation technology and has already reaped benefits to the tune of $70 million each year with half the number of assets that they originally planned,” says Emerson’s Bothma.
With the boom in the Middle East’s downstream sector, demand for process optimisation and control applications is increasing.
“We see a strong demand for technologies and applications that can optimise controls and daily operation of plants, and of course there is a separate level of optimisation effort happening in the interaction of the plant with the business which covers planning, scheduling as well as blending in refineries,” says Hyperion’s Al Rushaidi.
This trend is likely to continue as long as new and increasingly complex processes are integrated in the region’s downstream sector. Increasing competition between manufacturers will add to the mix as the best optimisation methods and new tools are sought.
“The Middle East is one of the fastest growing industrial regions in the world today, so we expect demand to be strong,” says Bothma.
End-users are also making more informed decisions he says. “Users are more savvy when it comes to software technologies these days, as they utilise it in their everyday life and expect that the same freedom and latitude should be possible with software being used in a high availability and mission critical environments where health, safety and security are top priority.”
While demand for process optimisation is positive, real-world environment and issues such as cyber-security are paramount, concludes Bothma.
