CC-00-141 REFINERY-WIDE OPTIMIZATION APPLIED TO A SMALL FUEL-ORIENTED REFINERY

Description:

This paper presents the results of the modeling and optimization of a fuel-oriented refinery. Detailed nonlinear models have been developed for four major units: a crude unit, an FCC unit, a reformer, and a gasoline blending unit. Other units in the refinery were represented by simplified models. Each of the single-unit models was benchmarked against the industrial data obtained from a refinery located in the Gulf Coast area in the U.S. The constrained, steady-state refinerywide optimization problem was solved using successive quadratic programming software (NPSOL, Gill et al., 1986). The solutions of refinery-wide optimization are compared with base case operation for two operation modes with different product pricing structures.