Emerson Exchange 365

The Hyundai Oilbank’s Daesan refinery is the fourth largest refining complex in South Korea, with a capacity of nearly 7 billion barrels of product each year. To ensure that every one of those barrels meets stringent regulatory and quality standards, Hyundai Oilbank recently renewed its focus on the final stage of its operation: blending.

At the 2015 Emerson Exchange in Denver, Emerson’s Patrick Truesdale discussed how his team helped Hyundai Oilbank implement a new integrated control and optimization system on the refinery’s gasoline blender unit.

During the blending process, various hydrocarbon components manufactured in the refinery are mixed together into final products. Blending recipes depend on the quality of available feedstock, as well as customers’ specifications and regulatory requirements, all of which can change from month to month—or even day to day.

The team’s vision was not just to replace outdated equipment in-kind, but to take advantage of the turnaround to introduce new technology as a way to blend multiple grades of gasoline closer to target requirements.  They faced several challenges when planning how to accomplish this. First, the quality of the existing component tank systems was limited and used default settings for most components. At the same time, product specifications would be extremely tight. South Korea has some of the most stringent specifications in the Asia Pacific region, with a lower sulfur content benchmark that that of the U.S.

“This meant that the blending system needed to be able to minimize process unit schedule upsets,” Truesdale said. “Allowing the customer to ‘blend right the first time’ became our mantra on the project.”

To meet these requirements, Emerson installed an integrated control and optimization system based on a new DeltaV distributed control system platform using Emerson’s SmartProcess Blender Control solution. This included a new blend order management system and new online optimizer. Near infrared (NIR) and Reid vapor pressure (RVP) analyzers were installed to provide real-time feedback on product qualities. The project scope also included a new blending and tank farm control center, analyzer shelter, and ratio control systems for five diesel blending units.

The blend order management system is integrated with both the DeltaV DCS and the blend optimizer. It includes multi-language support, a web-based user interface, and customizable blend batch reporting capabilities.

The migration required close coordination of various groups, from planning and operations to the laboratory and engineering teams. Meeting the various delivery schedule deadlines with minimum cost and inventory issues was of upmost importance for all involved.  In the end, thanks to a high level of communication and team work, the project was completed on time and without incident.

“The new blender control system allows us to optimize usage of available components and manage limit tankage while controlling quality based on the new NIR analyzers,” Truesdale said. “This new control scheme allows us to reduce variability, minimize costs, and achieve specification targets on our finished products at a higher rate than ever before.”