Emerson Exchange 365

Gaining Experience in the Refining and Petrochemical Industries

The work is ongoing along the Texas & Louisiana gulf coast to come back from the massive flooding from Hurricane Harvey. A MarketWatch article notes that more that 20% of the total U.S. refining capacity was shut down and only slowly now coming back online. And an RBN Energy post highlights the impact on the natural gas liquids (NGL) and petrochemical manufacturers in this region.

As a key supplier to these industries, Emerson and its local business partners in the affected areas have taken significant steps to help in the recovery efforts.

One of the many challenges is that it has been many years since a hurricane has hit the Texas and Louisiana coast. Many of the experienced engineers, operators and maintenance technicians have retired with less experienced personnel now in place to restart these large, complex facilities.

The picture in this tweet from the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers captures the time and complexity in bringing a refinery back online:

Here is the restart process for #refineries. Keep in mind, all refineries are different, but these are the basics. #Harvey pic.twitter.com/ow7Nl1gNbq

— AFPM (@AFPMonline) September 6, 2017

While large teams come together to do the intensive work to restart these facilities, experience will be gained to help these facilities to operate more efficiently and to better perform restarts in the event of another planned or unplanned shutdown.

I also wanted to mention some training modules available for those new to automation and control in these industries. Emerson’s Doug White shares his vast refining experience in these recorded, on demand educational modules.

You can watch the first module, An Introduction to Refining, for no charge.

The complete Refinery Product Blending: Fundamentals and Modern Automation Improvements training curriculum consists of 10 additional modules and is available for $450 USD. These modules include:

Module 2 – Introduction to Refining Economics – E1101
This module provides an introduction to the economics of refining.
Module 3 – Oil Refining Product Blending Fundamentals – E1101
This module explains product production and blending.
Module 4 – Gasoline Product Specifications – Performance and Driveability – E1101
This module reviews gasoline specifications and the analytical techniques used to measure the properties.
Module 5 – Gasoline Specifications: Environment and Distribution – E1101
his module reviews the environmental limits on gasoline, regulations, and distribution issues.
Module 6 – Gasoline Blend Quality Calculations – E1101
This module reviews the calculation procedures required to compute the expected properties of a blend from the properties of blend components.
Module 7 – Online Blending Regulatory Control – E1101
This module reviews how typical refineries plan, schedule, and control the production of gasoline blends.
Module 8 – Gasoline: Online Blending Quality Control and Optimization – E1101
This module reviews how to perform typical online gasoline blend quality control and optimization.
Module 9 – Gasoline: Blending System Upgrades – Economics and Implementation – E1101
This module reviews the potential financial impact of blending system upgrades and the keys to a successful blending project implementation.
Module 10 – Best Practices in Blending Automation – E1101
This module reviews the best practices in blending automation, such as typical blender problems areas, and best practices in flow measurement, equipment monitoring, tank monitoring, and online analyzers.
Module 11 – Course Review – E1101
This module provides a recap of the key takeaways from the previous ten modules.

You can connect with the Emerson Educational Services team for more information about this or other training opportunities to gain knowledge and know how.