Refinery margins improved by up to 25 cents per barrell!

Invensys Operations Management has released its Refinery-wide Performance Optimisation Solution. The company has leveraged and integrated multiple technologies from its solutions portfolio to deliver different aspects of real-time business operations management to the refining industry. From simple control loop performance management and rigorous unit optimisation to LP vector updating for multi-unit planning optimisation, customers will be able to optimise all of their refining assets and reap cost savings and margin improvements of up to 25 cents per barrel.

"Based on the collective feedback from the more than 50 customers who are already using the solution, as well as our own industry expertise, we believe the Refinery-wide Performance Optimization Solution is the most comprehensive refinery performance enabler in the marketplace, capable of delivering millions of dollars in savings each year," said Don Clark, vice president, industry solutions, Invensys Operations Management. "It enables companies to quantify and understand the financial impact of their business decisions in real time and ensures that their technology does not fall into disrepair as they pursue operations excellence related to safety, the environment and asset management. With a sustainable, tuned optimiser, our customers are also able to ensure optimal refinery planning by automatically downloading updated planning model LP vectors that can further drive the profitability of their refining operations."

The solution leverages Invensys Operations Management's SimSci-Esscor(r) ROMeo® optimizer and Wonderware® Intelligence enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI) applications. The backbone of their On-line Performance Suite, ROMeo software is the industry's leading unified modeling environment for off-line and on-line optimisation and is being used to optimise operations in refineries, petrochemical and chemical plants worldwide. The Wonderware Intelligence EMI application acquires critical process and optimal performance data from the ROMeo optimiser and models and aggregates it with data acquired from other operational data sources, including laboratory information management systems, enterprise resource planning systems, manufacturing execution systems and refinery process historians, to provide deeper insight and tracking of refinery performance. The Wonderware Intelligence software can calculate and make readily available unique and extremely valuable key performance indicators to all plant personnel, allowing operators and executives to measure the real-time financial impact of the optimiser through flexible web-based dashboards.

With clear, measurable and visible benefits that can total millions of dollars per year, refining companies that utilise the solution can make better decisions about how to deliver long-term, sustainable benefits. Additional attributes of the Refinery-wide Performance Optimization Solution include:

• A scalable software platform that allows incremental, scalable deployment, all within a common architecture that helps ensure rapid ROI and the ability to grow as the benefits grow;
  
• The ability to layer the Wonderware Intelligence EMI solution on top of existing SimSci-Esscor ROMeo optimizer installations;
  
• Refinery-wide modeling to identify the most profitable processing of different crude oil feedstocks, which can help ensure the highest value product pools;
  
• Closed-loop optimisation of individual units and naphtha pools, as well as the refinery's utilities and hydrogen systems;
  
• Refinery-wide mass balance data reconciliation to identify faulty meters and optimal yield accounting;
  
• World-class refinery solutions talent from Invensys that have a proven track record of enabling success.