Binh Son Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (BSR), a subsidiary of state-owned Vietnam National Oil & Gas Group (PetroVietnam), has let a contract to Honeywell International Inc. subsidiary Honeywell UOP LLC, Des Plaines, Ill., to provide a suite of cloud-based technology and interactive support services aimed at helping to improve productivity, efficiency, and profitability of the naphtha complex at BSR’s Dung Quat refinery in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam.
As part of the contract, UOP will implement its proprietary Connected Performance Services (CPS) technology, a cloud-based service that will integrate the complex’s specific process data with UOP’s history of operating experience to predict potential operational issues and deliver BSR real-time, actionable recommendations and solutions to ensure the complex runs at peak efficiency with the highest reliability, UOP said.
Part of Honeywell’s broader Industrial Internet of Things approach to automation, the CPS system will continuously monitor BSR’s streaming operational data and apply UOP process models and best practices, big data analytics, and machine learning to detect latent and emerging performance problems, as well as identify opportunities to optimize current operations.
Once an issue has been identified and analyzed via CPS’s cloud-based tools, the system will alert BSR’s designated plant personnel and provide specific operational solutions that a dedicated UOP CPS specialist will collaborate on helping to implement, the service provider said.
BSR selected the CPS system for Dung Quat to help increase the refinery’s production of gasoline as well as reduce its consumption of energy, said Tran Ngoc Nguyen, BSR’s president and chief executive officer.
The contract award follows a memorandum of understanding BSR signed with UOP in August for ongoing support in ensuring reliability and profitability of existing UOP-licensed CCR Platforming and Penex technologies at the Dung Quat refinery in line with the operator’s ongoing project to upgrade and expand the manufacturing site, according to an Aug. 20 release from BSR (OGJ Online, Jan. 26, 2015).
Refinery overhaul
BSR most recently let a contract to Amec Foster Wheeler to provide front-end engineering and design for the refinery’s expansion and upgrading, which will increase the plant’s crude processing capacity by 30% to 8.5 million tonnes/year (tpy) from a current 6.5 million-tpy (OGJ Online, Aug. 31, 2015).
The fully upgraded and expanded refinery is scheduled to be commissioned in 2021, BSR said.
Alongside work to increase capacities of existing units, revamping of auxiliary units, construction of additional oil storage and product tanks, and the addition of a single-point mooring terminal capable of accommodating vessels up to 300,000 dwt, the Dung Quat project will include the addition of refining units.
While it did not reveal specific providers, BSR said it has now signed technology-related contracts for the following seven new units to be added as part of the project: hydrogen generation, diesel hydrotreating, gasoline hydrotreating, naphtha hydrotreating, alkylation, solvent deasphalting, and sulfur removal.
In addition to enabling the plant’s flexibility to process a wider variety of crudes, the expansion and upgrade project also will equip the refinery’s production to conform to Euro 5-quality standards and increase its competitiveness in the global market, as well as reduce Vietnam’s dependence on imported petroleum products, according to BSR and PetroVietnam (OGJ Online, Aug. 26, 2014).
On Sept. 3, the Vietnamese government approved an agreement authorizing BSR to operate under its own autonomy beginning Jan. 1, 2017, the company said.
In accord with a government-set schedule and its hope to attract capital investors from abroad, BSR said it will launch an initial public offering of its business at yearend 2017.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
