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Title: A system for optimizing the scheduling and blending of crudes

Miscellaneous ·
OSTI ID:93343
;  [1]
  1. Haverly Systems Inc., Denville, NJ (United States)

Operational scheduling within the downstream oil industry covers a wide range of tasks and decision making activities which have traditionally been undertaken with little or no assistance from specialized decision support tools. HSI has recently addressed this software gap and has developed scheduling decision support systems aimed specifically at the needs of the operational scheduler. In this paper the authors discuss the potential application of this software to crude oil scheduling covering pipeline delivery, terminal operations and optimized blending for feed to topping units. In addition HSI`s new scheduling software can be configured for use in refinery process unit scheduling, product blending and product distribution giving comprehensive cover to all aspects of downstream oil scheduling activities. The main scheduling system has been designed as a modular one so that the appropriate level of system complexity can be installed for any given application and to allow for stagewise implementation. The modules include a short term optimization module using Linear and/or Mixed Integer Programming techniques, a rule based Expert System decision generation module, a comprehensive event based operations simulation module and full graphic and text reporting modules. It is designed for network applications so that a number of schedulers can use the same system for individual tasks sharing data and other elements of the system to produce a fully integrated operating schedule. Substantial financial benefits should come from the improved ability of the schedulers to recover from the wide range of operational disturbances that routinely affect operations, the ability to perform What If studies to improve operating schedules and a faster response to commercial opportunities that regularly arise. Estimates are that a fully functioning operations scheduling system designed specifically for the job should pay for itself in no more than one year.

OSTI ID:
93343
Report Number(s):
CONF-9503162-; TRN: IM9537%%387
Resource Relation:
Conference: 93. annual meeting of the National Petroleum Refiners Association (NPRA), San Francisco, CA (United States), 19-21 Mar 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English