Study On The Optimization Of Import Crude Oil Opeartion Plan And Purchase Strategy Based On PIMS Linear Programming For SINOPEC Refineries Along The Yangtze River

The price of world crude oil fluctuated in wide range and experienced a big slump in the year of 2014-2015, which had substantially raised Sinopec's refining cost. The refineries' operation was facing a higher risk. The main factors on refineries' profit include cost of crude purchase, operation planning, product configuration and price. In order to hedge the price fluctuation risk, and reduce purchase cost and improve refineries' profit, this article has analyzed the characteristic of crude oil trade and their pricing methodology and developed a module based on object refineries' demand and operation planning and product configuration by using linear programming and PIMS soft. Different scenarios was set into the crude grades and product configuration. By comparing purchase cost and margins, the optimization cases of suitable purchase and processing plan were made to meet the needs of Yangtze Refineries.By comparing different plans, The simulation results show that the optimized suitable purchase and processing plan is the object refineries feedstock should focus on west African crude oil including DJENO, KISSAJE, PLUTONIO, NEMBA etc. And HUNGO, IH and MONDO crude oil should be their major feedstock when the auto diesel output is not affected. On the other hand, OMAN, UPPER ZAKUM and Arabic crude oil should be imported more if the blending conditions are permited.In addition, regarding the product configurations, object refineries should produce more 97 RON mogas and 0 RCN diesel to reduce the rigid demand of low sulfur crude oil, control purchasing cost and improve their profit.Moreover, if the conditions permit, a suggestion is made that more storage tanks shall be developed both in Rizhao port and Yichang pipeline transit which will enhance their flexibility in blending and pumping, and the grades to be purchased will also be diversified. The objective refineries should enhance their equipments adaptability in order to reduce their ragid demands on low sulfur and low acid oil, and make room for cost reduction and more profit.