Plant Performance &

Efficiency Monitoring
Introduction & Familiarization Module – Part 1
6 – July - 2020

Ahmed Mohamed Shafik Ali Attia

Process & Operations Engineering Expert
professionalche@gmail.com
Agenda

• Introduction

• Components of the process plant

• Performance monitoring
Introduction

Why are Plant Performance and Efficiency of such

importance?

Unlike consumer goods such as cars and clothes, most

commercial chemical products are “faceless” (e.g. polyethylene,
propane, LPG, …etc.) and the customer is therefore only
interested in the quality, price and availability to make his
choice.

For a company in the petrochemical industry to be competitive,

it ultimately boils down to bring cheaper AND better AND faster
than the competitors.
Introduction

The “Product Family Tree of the

Chemical Industry”, starting from
raw materials and progressing
through the basic products and
intermediates, to the refined
chemicals and final consumer
products.
Process Units Classification
Any Process Plant Consists of

Unit Operations:
This is the type of activities and equipment that are required in
the plant to produce the specific products as designed (i.e.
mechanical unit operations, fluid flow, heat transfer, mass
transfer, etc…)
NO REACTION
Unit Processes:
This is the specific chemical processes involved in the unit
operations to produce the specific products as designed (i.e.
oxidation, hydrogenation, desulphurization,…etc.)
REACTION
Basic Requirements to Monitor Plant Performance

1. Have a detailed knowledge of the various operations

and processes involved.
2. Know the design conditions and specifications
3. Have a reliable and up-to-date monitoring system
4. Have the ability to diagnose the root causes of
performance degradation
5. Anticipate the need for performance maintenance
6. Determine the economic impact of performance
degradation
What Triggers the need for Monitoring?

Due to significant changes in the recent past due to increased

cost of energy and increasingly stringent environmental
regulations, the Oil & Gas industry are forced to look seriously
at modifications to:

1. Plant design.

2. Plant operating conditions.

This will enable the improvement of the efficiency and

profitability.
Aim of Performance Monitoring

Although consumer final products (Y) change or being replaced by better ones
in the course of time, still raw materials (X), basic and intermediate products
do not change.

Design +
X Design 120% Y X Performance 150% Y
Monitoring

The only real variable is availability which is a mirror image for plant
performance & efficiency.

This highlight the need for better utilization of existing feed stocks and
increased R&D efforts to improve the efficiency of current operations and
processes.
It worth to mention that not only the products are subjected to change by
time, also the production processes have a life time and that’s why
brainstorming should be continuously done.
Components of the Process Plant
Components of the Process Plant

• Any chemical plant started with a vision (“bright

idea”).

• This initial idea was then tested and proven through

R&D in the laboratory, and further tested on pilot
plant modeling before actual implementation on
industrial scale for actual economical production of
the desired product.
Components of the Process Plant

• At the center of a HC processing plant is the chemical

reaction that produces the desired product.

• This reaction takes place on the surface of a suitable catalyst

which enhances the quality and the rate of production.

• This reaction determines the reactor (type, shape, size. Etc..)

that is required to hold the catalyst and provide the space and
environment for the chemical reaction to take place on the
active surface.
 Components of the Process Plant

• The reactor and catalyst properties determine the qualities of

the required feed stock (pre-treatment, filtration, mixing,…
etc.) as well as the product workup (rectification,
crystallization, drying, etc…), waste disposal, tank farms,
energy supplies, safety and environmental systems,..etc.

• Finally, the chemical industrial process that can run through its
whole production cycle without the involvement of people,
still has to be discovered. (Thanks To The Great Merciful Allah
to secure our jobs )
Performance Monitoring

• Performance Monitoring is a management tool to evaluate the basic

Operating Objective of any process, namely: To maximize the profitable
production of the specified products.

• Performance monitoring can be applied to any discipline or area of the

process including:

1. Personnel and working procedures.

2. Processes and Operating procedures.

3. Equipment and maintenance procedures.

4. Strategies and research procedures.

 Operating Procedures

• Operating procedures are compiled during design and start up

of the plant for which the process yields maximum profits,
within the constraints of products quality, constitute the best
set of operator objectives.

• However, the plant operators often cannot specify precise

operating objectives, particularly economic ones.

• Important that management, once they have decided to do

performance monitoring or optimization, include the complete
process and not only the individual parts or equipment.
What Influences the Operating Objectives

• Operating objectives may change due to:

1. Change in feedstock quality or quantity

2. Debottlenecking of existing processes

3. New technology that becomes available

4. Change in final product range

5. Economic survival of the company

6. Other market requirements.

Performance Monitoring Building Blocks
Performance monitoring involves the following activities:

1. Define the critical process variables.

2. Assign priority to each of these variables based on the impact on

production.

3. Identify key performance indices to meet the plant objectives.

4. Set values of baseline (operating envelope) and thresholds (Alarms &

Trips) on each of these variables to be monitored.

5. Define the frequency of monitoring, hourly / weekly/monthly…, based on

the priority of the variable.

6. Assess the gathered data and compile a list of bad actors / worst
performing activities which need immediate action to rectify.
Performance Monitoring

7. Ensure the precision of the applied control systems.

8. Ensure the precision of the process constraints.

9. Ensure optimum knowledge of the process system to enable linking

possible causes of disturbance / failures.

NOW, ARE YOU READY TO DEVELOP YOUR PROCESS MONITORING PLAN?

Next Time we will explore many examples!!!!

THANK YOU