CC-01-164 IMPROVING FCC OPERATIONS BY UPGRADING TO A NEW GENERATION OF MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL AND OPTIMISATION TECHNOLOGY

Description:

The upgrade of an older multivariable control application covering the reactor and regenerator section of the FCC unit at SARAS’s refinery at Sarroch, Cagliari, Italy to a new generation of robust multivariable predictive control and optimization technology has yielded significant operational and economic benefits since commissioning in August 1999. Subsequently, multivariable control applications have been implemented on the fractionation section of the FCC unit. The third step towards the full on-line optimization of the FCC unit was a unit-wide dynamic optimizer, which was initially implemented in July 2000 and revised in July 2001 to include two new distillation columns.