Schneider Electric hosts Factory Forum, inviting domestic and international refineries.
Oil refineries are shifting to operating cost efficiency (OPEX).

Source: Schneider Electric website
Schneider Electric, which acquired Invensys last year to further strengthen its process automation and software capabilities, also introduced software for customers in the refining and petrochemical industries facing new challenges and presented a new vision for growth through profit maximization.

The four major domestic oil refiners recently announced their third-quarter earnings. While all four companies successfully returned to profitability, significantly improving their operating profits compared to the same period last year, their combined sales declined by 30%, failing to achieve significant growth. This decline was due to lower product prices stemming from continued low oil prices, driven by slowing demand in China and increased oil production. With this low oil price trend expected to continue into next year, the global refining and chemical industries are scrambling to find new solutions.

As simply building new plants becomes increasingly difficult to achieve revenue growth, many refineries are shifting their investment focus from capital expenditures (CAPEX) to operating cost efficiency (OPEX). In particular, software technologies that can enhance the efficiency of complex petrochemical processes while also enhancing facility stability are attracting attention.

Schneider Electric held the '2015 APAC Optimization Leadership Forum' on Jeju Island on November 12th and 13th, inviting domestic and international industry experts and oil refiners. Around 30 representatives from major domestic oil refineries and major oil refineries from six East Asian countries, including China's state-owned oil company Sinopec, Singapore Refining Company (SRC), Japan's Tonen General Sekiyu, and Thailand's Thai Oil, also attended the meeting and participated in the discussions.

Schneider Electric announced a shift in its software business strategy from a traditional product-centric approach to a customer-centric one. It also expressed its ambition to establish itself as a total solutions provider by expanding its technology and product capabilities to deliver tailored solutions for each segment. Furthermore, the company introduced ROMeo, a process optimization solution that provides an integrated modeling environment for offline and online optimization, and ROMeo Intelligence, which enables efficient and continuous facility maintenance.

Secure plant profitability using real-time plant data and simulation models.

Romeo is a software solution capable of integrated process optimization, designed to maximize profitability in the refining, petrochemical, and chemical industries. It utilizes real-time plant data and rigorous simulation models to extract validated process and equipment performance information, continuously optimizing plant profitability in real time.

It also optimizes how the plant supplies energy by reflecting real-time data from all utility components, including steam used in the process, types of raw materials, boilers, turbines, and other power distribution systems. Additionally, by controlling the flow rate, temperature, pressure, etc. of each required raw material, the refining process is optimized to be stable and loss-free, so that operating costs can be minimized simply by following the software.

Global petrochemical companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, and India's Reliance are achieving operating cost savings with Romeo, and it is rapidly spreading to the domestic industry. These customers are able to achieve cost savings of 1-3% of the total plant value on average, and the investment cost can be recovered within a year. In particular, domestic customers achieved a return on investment within 6 months. At the event, G Oil Company, along with Japan's Tonen General Oil and Thailand's Thai Oil, presented cases of reducing costs and operating expenses by applying Romeo. G Oil Company cited the following as reasons for adopting Romeo: continuous R&D and the ability to continuously improve products based on customer needs, and the confidence in product performance based on the cost-saving track record of global refineries.

“The importance of software that can optimize operational efficiency while increasing the stability of facilities will continue to grow,” said Taesang Park, Vice President of Software Asia Pacific at Schneider Electric, who presented at this forum. “We will help customers optimize efficiency and achieve sustainable profits through software that optimizes operational efficiency (RTO: real-time optimization).”