PD-04-178 Risk and LP Techniques Determine Optimal Tank Farm Design

Description:

Foster Wheeler (FW) recently completed a detailed tankage and hydraulic study for the Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), which assessed the adequacy of existing tank farms at all three KNPC refineries for operations through 2010, and developed an optimized solution to the refineries' tank farm needs. In addition to dealing with routine operations such as planned turnarounds, the study had to assure that refinery tank farm capacity would be sufficient to handle unplanned events such as ship delays, power failures, weather problems, and unit outages -- as well as an expected increase in refined product diversification. In order to optimize the utilization of available storage capacity while also minimizing capital cost for upgrading facilities, Foster Wheeler, with significant support from Haverly Systems, developed a computerized model that incorporated Monte Carlo operational risk simulation techniques with the optimization power of linear programming (LP). This paper will discuss the basis, structure, and execution of this unique model, as well as its application in the KNPC study.