Ethylene

Increasing Yield by Just 1.5% Equates to $12.6M/Year Additional Revenue

As global plastic demand rises, so does the pressure on ethylene production. With ever-increasing production targets and a highly competitive market, our customers face growing challenges in improving reliability, maximizing yield, and increasing throughput.

Challenges in Ethylene Production

Process disturbances can cost millions. Key challenges include:

Increased Process Resistance: Reduces compressor speed, impacting throughput.

Furnace Trips: Sudden loss of suction pressure to the cracked gas compressor can lead to process trips or unplanned shutdowns.

Propylene Refrigeration Train: Difficult to optimize due to interactions with front-end process changes, resulting in wasted energy.

CCC's Optimized Solutions

Increase Throughput:
CCC’s control system helps maintain higher compressor speed when pressure limits would otherwise restrict it. Advanced algorithms limit overshoot and provide tight control, enabling operation at higher pressure limits and speeds, thus maximizing throughput by optimizing pressure setpoints.

Achieve Design Yields:
Effective response to process disturbances is crucial. When a furnace trips, suction pressure drops. CCC stabilizes pressure in just 2 minutes under large disturbances, compared to up to 15 minutes with general-purpose controls. Robust algorithms minimize control margins, allowing control at lower CGC suction pressures. Reducing CGC suction pressure by 14 kPa can increase yield by an estimated 0.5%.

Decrease Energy Costs:
Optimizing the propylene compressor train’s energy usage is challenging without advanced, integrated controls. CCC’s integration of suction pressure control and antisurge systems significantly expands the operating envelope for each compressor section without recycling.

Proven Results
Process optimization for a 600,000 MT/A ethylene plant can achieve:

1% Increased Throughput: $8,400,000/year

1.5% Increased Yield: $12,600,000/year

Avoiding Process Trips: $2,000,000/day

Shaft Power Savings: Up to 9%

Invest in CCC’s advanced control solutions to enhance ethylene production, maximize yield, increase throughput, and reduce energy costs.