Impact of crude distillation unit model accuracy on refinery production planning

In this work, we examine the impact of crude distillation unit (CDU) model errors on the results of refinery-wide optimization for production planning or feedstock selection. We compare the swing cut + bias CDU model with a recently developed hybrid CDU model (Fu et al., 2016). The hybrid CDU model computes material and energy balances, as well as product true boiling point (TBP) curves and bulk properties (e.g., sulfur % and cetane index, and other properties). Product TBP curves are predicted with an average error of 0.5% against rigorous simulation curves. Case studies of optimal operation computed using a planning model that is based on the swing cut + bias CDU model and using a planning model that incorporates the hybrid CDU model are presented. Our results show that significant economic benefits can be obtained using accurate CDU models in refinery production planning.