Formulating refinery optimization problem

Abstract

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) is an Indian state?controlled oil and gas company headquartered in Mumbai producing a diverse range of products, from petrochemicals and solvents to aircraft fuel and specialty lubricants. In its Mumbai refinery, the Crude Distillation unit distills out these products from the raw crude oil. Any unconverted oil is processed in the Lubricating Oil Base Stocks (LOBS) plant to produce base oils of three types 100N, 150N and 500N differing in their viscosity index. Recently, demand for 250N base oil has started increasing. BPCL carried out a simulation to decide the process parameters that need to be maintained for the production of 250N base oil. A simple model was developed for this purpose. There is a need now to improve the model to incorporate all the relevant parameters and lend it robustness and effectiveness. The project thus, deals with understanding the production process, analyzing the present model, identifying relevant parameters and incorporating them into a much more complex and robust model that would help BPCL carry out the production of 250N base oil as well as other base oils to maximize the margins for the combined unit. The model developed for the LOBS process in conjunction with the HCR unit has been developed with the information provided by M/s BPCL. Based on the input provided in the input sheet for the parameters like the yield?rates of the different products across HCR and LOBS unit, feed?rates in different operating modes & margins and demand of all the relevant products produced in the process, the model would provide the optimum time for which the LOBS process should run in different modes. As the process and the data provided by M/s BPCL is confidential, the report contains only a brief description of the process and the model and complete information shall not be published.