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Abstract

This research work has two objectives: first, to identify actions and projects to be considered in the refinery's energy saving programme to improve its energy usage productivity; second, to develop a methodology for the analysis and evaluation of alternatives of design for a new refinery.

The energy saving problem of a petroleum refinery is analyzed in order to provide a conceptual frame using concepts, methods and tools from system engineering. Energy saving is a very complex problem in which there are several hundreds of different possible opportunities to improve the energy usage productivity.

The problem approach is based on the analysis of the energy consumption and usage at several levels: national, sectorial, petroleum industry, refining subsection and for a specific refinery.

First of all, a list of energy saving opportunities for a specific refinery is gathered, identified and classified. Three main kinds of actions are considered: operation, maintenance and design projects. The research work puts more emphasis on the third group of measures: the projects to design a new refinery or to redesign an existing one.

An evaluation model for calculating several economic parameters to support the selection of the best design or redesign projects is proposed. This model allows the analyst to make valid comparisons of projects establishing their proper priority according to the availability of financial resources.

A methodological scheme for the analysis of design alternatives of a new refinery based on cost-effectiveness criteria is developed. In this part, two problems are studied: how to design a new refinery optimizing its energy consumption, and how to design a new refinery optimizing its cost-effectiveness ratio.

At present this kind of projects are carried out in a traditional way, developing the different parts of each project using criteria from each engineering branch. The main idea is not to split the whole design problem into small parts but to analyze the entire problem using approach and techniques from system engineering.

In this work three frameworks are proposed: 1) For redesigning a refinery to improve energy usage productivity, 2) For designing a new refinery to improve energy usage productivity and 3) for achieving an integrated refinery design through a cost- effectiveness analysis.

The main objectives, achieved in the research work are: a complete analysis of energy consumption in Mexico, at different levels; a deep study about energy usage productivity in the Salina Cruz Refinery; an evaluation model to select the best projects to redesign an existing refinery or to design a new one; and finally a conceptual frame to solve the mentioned problem through concepts, methods and tools from system engineering.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Departments:	School of Science & Technology School of Science & Technology > Engineering School of Science & Technology > School of Science & Technology Doctoral Theses

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