Alliance to deliver combined refinery solutions

A Honeywell Industry Solutions product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Dec 19, 2003

Honeywell Process Solutions and UOP are to jointly develop, market and deliver refinery solutions.

Honeywell Process Solutions and UOP are to jointly develop, market and deliver refinery solutions that integrate UOP's process knowledge into Honeywell's software and system solutions for improved refinery operations.

These leading-edge software and service solutions will enable refining clients to identify, capture, and maintain improvements in their refinery operations.

Historically, many refiners have not realised the full value of their automation and information systems investments.

This often results from implementing advanced systems "out of phase" with the information or know-how necessary to make full use of system capabilities.

Alliance offerings that combine first-class control and decision support systems with an intimate knowledge of how the refining assets and decision variables contribute to profitability, will allow clients to increase safety, availability and profitability by maximising knowledge resources and process flexibility.

The alliance offerings will allow refiners to improve the return achieved on historical and future technology investments.

They also will improve decisions made throughout the refinery - from crude purchase and logistics, through unit operation and management, to final product blending.

Initial solution offerings will be in the areas of operator performance improvement, refinery scheduling and blending, and remote performance management.

The operator performance improvement solution includes unit-monitoring tools and focused training programs.

The solution tools are configured to monitor key process variables and critical equipment for impending abnormal situations.

Simulator-based training ensures operators properly respond to any abnormal situations that actually occur.

The initial release focuses on fluid catalytic cracking units, and is available now.

Future releases are planned for additional critical process units including hydrocrackers and continuous catalytic reformers.

The refinery scheduling and blending solution combines UOP's know-how and refinery scheduling/blending software technologies with Honeywell's Production Scheduler.

The offering aids the planning and scheduling groups within a refinery, or corporate logistics organisation, in making supply chain decisions from the tanker and pipelines, through the process units, all the way to blending and shipping finished refined products.

The configured solution will simultaneously generate feasible and economically optimum schedules that take into account the complex interactions of the entire facility.

A differentiating benefit of employing the joint scheduling and blending offering is the facility to execute not only fully automated sequences, but also the capability to manually interact with the model to allow sophisticated users an added degree of flexibility.

The remote performance management solution aids refiners in monitoring, optimising, and sustaining the performance of process units in a refinery or petrochemical facility.

The solution will provide timely access to information and recommendations, allowing refiners to make better economic decisions in how they operate their assets.

UOP and Honeywell will provide several levels of continuous service, from basic process unit monitoring to economical optimisation based on proprietary first-principles models.

Jack Bolick, President of Honeywell Process Solutions said: "The combination of UOP's refinery process knowledge and experience with Honeywell's leading software and systems solutions, such as Experion PKS, will have a significant impact in the industry.

The new solutions embody the concept of a true process knowledge system, enabling clients to capitalise on the knowledge and information obtainable throughout the organisation to improve operational safety, reliability, and profitability".

Graeme Donald, President and CEO of UOP said: "The Honeywell/UOP alliance allows us to leverage the tremendous knowledge and expertise of both companies to deliver sustainable solutions that enable refiners to make the most of the information existing throughout the operation-meaning that now they can use that information to safely and effectively execute the right decisions at the right time - every time".