7 replies to this topic

[Vegeta]

Dear Professionals,

 

If a refinery has gone through a revamp and new intermediate products are introduced, tank farm has to be analyzed to allocate the products to certain tanks and/ or to evaluate the need for new tanks.  I have tried to Google this problem and I found several interesting articles.  However, the evaluation involves complex mathematical analysis.  Are there available simple methods, that can be done in a spread sheet for example, to get at least an estimate of the optimum solution to the tank farm optimization problem?  Are there available commercial software that address this problem?

 

I appreciate your help...

 

Regards,   

[Saml]

As far as I know, there is commercial software that can provide scheduling. The assignment of tanks has to be done beforehand and configured into the system. One of those programs that comes to my mind is PIMS, developed by Bechtel and now Aspen, that is quite ubiquitous in refineries.

 

However you are asking about tank assignments itself and probably building new tanks. That is another game. Each problem is unique, and has to be developed on general purpose solvers (GAMS, GPROMS, MatLab, etc). Doing that requires knowhow. While the mathematics involved  probably don't go beyond a mixed integer linear problem (not rocket science), keeping the problem manageable and solvable is not trivial.

 

You don't mention if the refinery revamp is hypothetical, planned or actually taking place. If it is for real, and you want to go beyond a "rule of thumb" assignment, you need to contact someone knowledgeable.

Edited by Saml, 16 January 2018 - 09:35 PM.

[Vegeta]

SamI,

Thank you for your response.

The problem I have is for a big planned revamp for a refinery. As I mentioned, many intermediate products are introduced. The refinery representative asked us to analyze the existing storage tanks and make the best allocation to them keeping the batch scheduling, of the pipeline, as it was before the revamp. If this is not feasible, then we go for new tanks and proposing new schedule as the last option.

Do you think that is doable in an spreadsheet?
I appreciate if you can share a solved example of similar problem (if you have one).

Regards,

[Bobby Strain]

Are you an engineering contractor? Or an employee of the refinery owner.

 

Bobby

[breizh]

https://cheguide.com...mming-in-excel/

 

You may find some pointers reading this paper.

Hope this is helping you .

 

Breizh

[Vegeta]

Are you an engineering contractor? Or an employee of the refinery owner.

Bobby

An engineering contractor

[Bobby Strain]

You probably should have your client enlist the services of a company, through your company, that has the tools and knowledge. You need to do a lot of preparatory work to define the needs. This would probably be the best option for your client. This is more of a queuing problem than any other optimizing technique like LP.

 

Bobby

Edited by Bobby Strain, 21 January 2018 - 04:31 PM.

[Saml]

Vegeta, don't know where are you located, the magnitude of the project (a "big revamp" is not quite descriptive of the complexity of the change), and the relationship between your engineering company and the refinery.

 

The first think to look here is the scope of the contract. If this job was not clearly specified in the contract, it should be considered a change of scope. Probably the magnitude in cost will not jeopardize the project. And the timing seems right. You are at a planning stage of the revamp. Please talk to your management. This is a scope change. Not just a "put me quick numbers together as a favor" type of job.

 

I don't know about people that do this type of studies exclusively on commercial basis. My reading on these type of problems has been largely academic. One group that has actualy done field jobs on this topics is  Mr. Grossmann's  from Carnegie Mellon. It may be  a good starting point (I don't have any affiliation with Mr Grossmann).

 

To have an idea of  the kind of issues you have at hand, see the following link

 

http://egon.cheme.cm...p-16_Brenno.pdf

 

There are also several institutes around the world that work on similar problems you may contact.

The GAMS site list partners that may also help

 

https://www.gams.com...on-specialists/

 

However, ff they want to do something by rule of thumb, using excel, probably the refinery planners are in a much better position to do it than an engineering contractor.

 

Beware the alligators...