European Refiner Tackles Heat Exchange Issues and Saves Millions in the Process
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- Europe
Country
- France
Product
- Aspen HYSYS
- Aspen Exchanger Design and Rating (EDR)
- Aspen InfoPlus.21
Tech Stack
- Microsoft Excel
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Process Analytics
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries
- Oil & Gas
Applicable Functions
- Process Manufacturing
Use Cases
- Predictive Maintenance
- Process Control & Optimization
Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
INEOS is Europe’s leading independent crude oil refiner, processing more than 410,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Their production network spans 76 manufacturing facilities in 20 countries around the world. INEOS’ success is linked to a simple approach to business — a focus on customer satisfaction, total quality and reliability. When INEOS set its mission toward continuous improvement to become a low-cost producer of high-quality products, the heat exchange system became a priority because of its impact on productivity, costs and overall profitability.
The Challenge
INEOS, Europe’s leading independent crude oil refiner, processes more than 410,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Their production network spans 76 manufacturing facilities in 20 countries around the world. INEOS’ success is linked to a simple approach to business — a focus on customer satisfaction, total quality and reliability. When INEOS set its mission toward continuous improvement to become a low-cost producer of high-quality products, the heat exchange system became a priority because of its impact on productivity, costs and overall profitability. Fouling in each heat exchanger and the entire heat exchanger train is a common problem for refineries. Without proper monitoring and insight, refiners resort to reactive rinsing and cleansing operations, significantly disrupting the safe, efficient operation of plants — and costing them millions of dollars in lost revenue.
The Solution
INEOS created and implemented an automated fouling monitoring application utilizing Aspen HYSYS, Aspen EDR, and Microsoft Excel for visualization of the data. The ability to link the AspenTech solutions with Excel allowed INEOS to distill complex and rigorously processed data and render it in user-friendly, easy-to-read graphical output. Temperatures, flow rates, process stream characteristics, and heat exchanger design data were used to calculate heat transfer variables for the exchangers. For each heat exchanger, a clean heat exchange coefficient was calculated and compared to the actual (fouled) heat exchange coefficient. INEOS monitored this ratio between the coefficients and could, as a result, effectively assess the performance of the system, allowing the manufacturing team to consider and implement various cleaning scenarios that optimized production efficiencies.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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