What’s New in the 2018 Fuels and Lubes Studies

Changes to the 2018 Fuels and Lubes Studies include the following:

• A new learning style in the Data Coordinator Seminars heightens the awareness of the entire team regarding the impact their involvement has on the results management sees.
• The Data Coordinator, supported by management, will have a team with heightened awareness regarding the interaction of their input tables on each other and the entire project.
• During the training, the team will have the opportunity to get to know the Solomon consultants and facilitate a coordinated effort.

• Slowdowns: Why are we not running to capacity? To help answer this question we added the classification of slowdowns to the Maintenance Sections. Once we have insight into the causes, we can determine opportunities for improvement. Not all reduced capacity events are market related or outside of your control.
• Planned shutdowns: How well were you able to predict downtimes? Which areas can be improved? In addition to slowdowns, we also included planned shutdowns. This will give you the opportunity to see how well the scope was planned and executed when it is compared to actual downtime. Understanding planning and implementation is extremely valuable in improving availability.
• Conversion unit yields: We’ve added additional granularity to the Process Data tables to ensure more reliable analysis of the major conversion units and key ancillary units to assist with the analysis and improvement of unit performance.

Every refinery is unique so opportunities will also be unique. The 2018 presentation will be tailored to your specific opportunity areas. The following new topics will be included in the presentations:

• Gross Margin Efficiency Analysis to enable you to understand if they are creating sufficient margin to maximize your refinery’s potential. See how much of the gap can be reclaimed to improve your refinery’s competitive position.
• Understanding how much of the value is extracted from the molecules entering your refinery and how much is left on the table.
• Insight into your refinery’s availability to run at full capacity through the slowdown and planned shutdown analysis.
• Deep Drill Down analysis to provide additional insights into opportunity areas.
• A peek into the World’s Best Refineries and what they are working on to improve.
• Discussing the energy strategies of the refiners that showed the most improvement in Energy Intensity Index®.

Presentations are only the beginning!

• We’ve created training seminars to help refinery personnel find and understand the value contained in the results files and make the data actionable.
• How2 and Advanced How2 seminars are based on the same new learning principles as the Data Coordinator seminars. The purpose of these new seminars is to assist in further exploring the opportunity areas uncovered and presented by Solomon.
• What if? The question every refinery engineer should be asking. We will provide the tools and skills to use the Solomon results to monetize those creative, value-added “what-if” questions.

Using the data already provided for the study, you want to understand how the key metrics you want to improve stack up to refineries that look more like you or are in the same region. We do this through improved value-added work like:

• Deep Drill Down (3D)
• Advanced Custom Peer work

• Uncover additional insight into your turnaround durations. To be 97% or more available, the plant can only be shut down 3% of the year. Turnarounds are the single most expensive undertaking in lost production and cost. Solomon can help you understand what is causing those delayed startups worth millions with the Turnaround Duration Study.
• Provide insight into your advanced control strategies. How does your advanced control solutions compare to the other refiners? Learn more about our Automation Study.

Solomon’s senior consultants have been in your shoes. Ask about our Advisory Services to assist you in creating project road maps based on our extensive and proprietary Fuel and Lubes Database.