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25 years of advanced process control in Shell

02/07/2007

Shell Global Solutions and its clients are celebrating 25 years of a pioneering technology developed by the Shell Group (Shell) that has helped to increase production, efficiency, reliability and safety at refineries, gas plants and petrochemical sites worldwide.

Advanced process control (APC) is a model-based predictive tool that enables automatic online control of a unit and has thousands of applications in the processing industry.

APC within Shell began when three Shell technology centres – Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Grand Couronne, France; and Houston, USA – collaborated to find the best technology for APC. There was no outright winner, but the specialists pooled their brainpower to gain insight that led to the development of the Shell multivariable optimising controller.

One of the first implementations of APC was at the Shell Nederland refinery in Pernis, the Netherlands. APC was tested for several months on a high-vacuum unit. The objectives were to control the viscosity of the spindle, light-machine and medium-machine oils produced and to maximise the spindle-oil yield within certain limits. The application of APC to the high-vacuum unit delivered some $500,000 a year in benefits to the refinery.

Another early application was at Oman LNG LLC, where APC helped to increase the production capacity for liquefied natural gas by between 1 and 2%, and helped to improve the operational plant stability of the company’s two processing trains.

Tim Cook, section head, refinery instrumentation and process control, Shell Nederland, Pernis, comments, “It is impressive to see that after 25 years, APC has become such a value-adding technology.”