An oil and gas corporation, owned by one of the largest private companies in America, engaged Trindent to develop and implement an Energy Management program which included optimizing process heating efficiency and plant-wide steam utilization.
3%
IMPROVEMENT IN FUEL GAS UTILIZATION
$6,800,000
TOTAL ANNUALIZED ENERGY SAVINGS
41,000t
REDUCTION IN CO2e EMISSIONS
HOW WE MADE IT HAPPEN
Energy Management
- Established regular Energy Review Meetings with Refinery Leadership, Operations, and Engineering teams to promote sustainable energy practices and initiatives by fostering collaboration through effective managerial oversight.
- Implemented a field walk program to identify energy optimization opportunities and develop a culture of continuous improvement.
- Enhanced the Shift Handover process by revamping the Operator Logbook to document deviations, unplanned events, and key operational actions, supported by a structured guide card to standardize information flow between shifts, resulting in $275,000 in annual savings through improved decision making and greater shift-to-shift transparency.
Steam Utilization
- Improved the steam turbine utilization and availability interface tool to reduce Utility Operator decision variability, leading to $1,600,000 of savings and decreased inefficient steam usage across various process units up to 90%.
Process Heating Efficiency
- Developed a systemized approach to optimize reflux rate and reduce reboiler duty to align energy usage with product purity requirements, resulting in over $1,500,000 in annualized savings and a 30% reduction in the respective furnace’s duty.
- Implemented a furnace dashboard to minimize excess fuel gas usage, resulting in 80% of furnaces meeting or exceeding their excess oxygen reduction requirements, achieving top quartile performance compared to historical data.
- Applied furnace-specific efficiency standards to benchmark performance, providing valuable feedback for Board Operators and achieving a 5% gain in heating efficiency.
- Unlocked additional unit throughput capacity by optimizing heat integration to address energy constraints, resulting in a 2% increase in charge rate.
- Implemented a process to investigate O2 sensor signal noise by identifying variability root causes and aligning tuning requirements, allowing operators to safely minimize excess oxygen in the furnace, resulting in improved energy efficiency and natural gas savings of $900,000.