Crude unit control and optimisation at Grangemouth Refinery

BP Oil Grangemouth Refinery has installed a distributed quadratic program (DQP) multi-unit online optimiser across its three atmospheric crude distillation units and the splitter columns of the two distillate hydrotreaters. The main objective of the DQP application is to enhance the optimisation capabilities of the five existing MVPC controllers by taking account of product pool property constraints and blending economics. This article outlines its design and implementation.