Course Description

 

 The world of energy is going through a profound transition where traditional fossil fuels are losing favours with the society in general due to increased environmental awareness and climate change. The big gas guzzlers which use to be the norm around the world and people use to take pride in their possessions are becoming a thing of the past. Electric cars are already selling like hot cakes and many countries have already announced that by 2030 onwards there wouldn’t be any new gasoline or diesel cars produced in their countries. Even the so called transition fuel of natural gas is gradually being replaced with renewable sources of energy. Crude oil is projected to drop to 80 MMb/day from a high of almost 100 MMb/day before the Covid 19 pandemic. However, such trends will have a profound impact on one sector of oil sector and that is refineries.

The current model of refineries to make margins is completely skewed towards transportation fuels, yet that’s the very area the biggest cuts in demand are projected to happen. The industry is aware of this problem in general and a logical route is to invest more in the integration of the refinery with petrochemical plants. However, that does carry the risk that there may be excess capacity in the markets and the large amounts of investment needed for building these complexes may not be profitable as petrochemical is a volatile market not profitable everywhere.

Refineries in the Middle East and Europe are in a vulnerable state and several of them have either closed down or merged and this may happen much more in the future.  This training course will provide the in-depth analysis of the market dynamics of how margins in general can be improved region wise in general and what integrations or adaptations may be necessary for some regions to stay in business.

    Objectives

 

• Identify the scale of challenge
• Understand the technical & operational aspects integration/adaptations concept
• Analyse the various models adapted by successful refiners from around the world
• Improve on skills to build on current capabilities
• Develop economics of their current complexes

    Outline 

  

 Day (1) : Reinventing the Refinery: The Old Model

• The fundamental working of a typical refinery
• Processes and fuels
• Scale of the sector
• Why it became such a big sector
• Some of the biggest complexes and their working
• Market capacity and demand centres
• Crude spreads and margins
• Traditional markets and their working dynamics

   Day (2):

• Refinery schedules
• Economy of fuels
• Capacities of refineries (Fuels)
• Future demand and consumption in various markets
• Economics of petrochemicals
• Pros and cons of the petrochemical market
• Complexities and logistics of integration vs non-integrations

  Day (3): Commercial Strategies and Business Development

• Fluidised catalytic cracker
• Refinery flexibilites
• Advantage of feedstock and location
• Cost of integration
• CAPEX estimates
• Financial/Debt structure assumptions
• Forecasts in the market
• NPV / IRR / Valuation
• Polymers and their chemistry
• Poly ethylene and poly propylene

 Day (4):

• Economic drivers for base chemicals and polymers
• Risks of diversification
• Strategy development
• Forecasts and planning
• Regional optimization of capacity and utilization
• Sensitivity analysis of
• Oil cost
• Gas cost
• Catalyst cost
• Capacity utilization
• Economy of scale

 Day (5): Environment and Sustainability

• Refinery and the changed model of green economy
• Green credentials
• Carbon auditing of refinery processes
• Carbon pricing and trading
• Carbon capture and utilization
• Blending
• Creation of sustainable fuels and chemicals
• Competition and strategy

  

Training Method

A highly interactive combination of lecture and discussion sessions will be managed to maximize the amount and quality of information, knowledge, and experience transfer. The sessions will start by raising the most relevant questions and motivating everybody to find the right answers. The attendants will also be encouraged to raise more of their questions and to share developing the right answers using their analysis and experience. Course material through power point equipped with necessary animation, learning videos, and general discussion to provide the participant with full understanding concerning the subject course will be provided.

Flip chart – Lectures – Practical situations – Video – PowerPoint – Presentation –  style coach- led discussions – activities – Exercises - Quiz - Case study - Assessment.