Refinery advanced process control planning system
The process of enhancing a refinery's performance through advanced control usually requires extensive analysis on the plant to determine factors that are constraining the plant from reaching optimum production conditions. An advanced control planning environment (APCO) was developed using mixed integer-programming methodology. It was supported by a friendly graphical user interface (GUI), to make it easy and accessible to refinery planning engineers. Advanced process control benefits programmed into advanced process control optimizer (APCO) are based on benefits already computed for a major refinery in Kuwait. In here, APCO has been customized to adapt a simplified flowsheet model for a 60000-barrel per day refinery. A number of case studies are included to demonstrate the capabilities of APCO. The case studies reflect situations encountered by decision-makers in refineries. These include single and multiyear plans, as well as self-funded and unit capacity limiting plans. APCO facilitates developing and evaluating different economical scenarios. Results show that analysis of APC benefits and their interaction among units would uncover APC implementations that are otherwise not considered by simplified payback period analysis. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
advanced process control planning optimization refining mixed integer programming