One of the largest multinational energy companies sought to optimize its blending process at one of their US refineries to reduce giveaways and improve consistency. The company engaged Trindent to improve, standardize and optimize their blending process throughout the blending value chain, leading to significant cost savings and reduced quality giveaway.
How we Made it Happen™
Scheduling Optimization
- Improved prediction accuracy by regularly reviewing predicted vs. actual for MBO predictions, initiating component quality study, and updating property bonuses when appropriate.
- Enhanced prediction accuracy by 0.10 ON through the adjustment of the E10 ON Model Coefficients.
Execution Excellence
- Achieved a 70% reduction in check sample turnaround time, reducing it from 4-6 hours to just 1-2 hours, through the introduction of a new standard operating procedure and the implementation of a check sample turnaround dashboard.
- Standardized the field sampling procedure and reduce light hydrocarbons loss during the process, resulting in an improvement of sample integrity which generates $820,000 in annualized savings.
- Enhanced the blending Advanced Process Control (APC) configuration to increase the blending of butane and pentane proactively.
Data Accuracy
- Enhanced E10 ON uplift precision by reducing EtOH% Variance from ±0.5% to ±0.2% through the implementation of an Ethanol Hand Blend standard operating procedure aligned with industry best practices. ($610,000 of savings).
- Increased online Raman accuracy by improving Raman modeling practice and achieving precision to ASTM repeatability (0.13 psi for RVP, 0.20 for ON), resulting in $2,430,000 in annualized savings.
- Developed real-time online Raman Statistical Quality Control Charts to prompt the appropriate corrective action if a property/model is out-of-control.
- Installed a real-time prediction of gasoline properties from component qualities and blend ratio, when online Raman is unreliable for certain types of gasoline.
“Trindent has worked alongside us in building the necessary cross-functional communication and cooperation with our teams. Their focus on sustainability has ensured a smooth transition of new processes and tools to our team, enabling us to continue capturing value going forward and sustaining the many improvements enabled by the engagement team.”