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Independently assessed savings of $1.7M* per year |
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Optimal furnace conditions and back-end setpoints |
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Optimal feedstock selection and allocation |
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Improved forecasting |
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Project payback of less than 6 months |
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Challenge
The Moerdijk olefins plant is primarily concerned with the production of
ethylene and propylene by cracking a range of input feeds. The process is
complicated by the ability to bring in feedstocks directly to the back-end
of the plant and by the options which are available to process the
by-products of the cracking process. Shell Nederland Chemie’s objectives
were to increase the cost effectiveness of the plant per tonne/throughput
by determining within the context of the plant as a whole:
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The optimal furnace operating feed rates and conditions |
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The optimal rates for the back-end feedstocks |
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The optimal routing of process fluids through the
back-end of the plant |
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The optimal feedstock - based on availability |
Solution
The system is based upon Emerson’s
AMS Optimizer product and provides an
off-line model and optimizer of the Moerdijk olefins plant.In addition to predicting the optimal values for the plant setpoints
(approximately 100 variables), the system determines the best combination
of feedstocks and furnaces based upon the current furnace and feedstock
availability.
Plant technologists use the system to evaluate the current plant operation
and to investigate the benefits which could be obtained from changes in
feedstock or operating philosophy.
Following the success of the first stage of the project Emerson
undertook a second stage. This involved an increase in the
scope of the optimizer to include additional units both at Moerdijk and Pernis
sites.
The system is in use at the Moerdijk site for day-to-day plant operations and
at the Pernis site, primarily for longer term studies.
The system comprises the following components:
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Model for process simulation and evaluation of plant energy costs |
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Setpoint optimizer to calculate optimal process setpoints |
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Mixed integer selection optimizer to determine the
optimal furnace feedstock |
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Model updating to tune furnace models to match current
plant performance |
* Exact value calculated at Nfl 3M per year. This figure
has been converted to US Dollars following the change of the Nfl to the Euro.
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