Stochastic modelling as a decision making tool in an integrated green-brown fields growth program at the Sasol Secunda site, South Africa

ABSTRACT

Sasol, the world leader in coal to fuels, is embarking on a major growth program integrating new and existing technologies into its current facilities. This program will increase production capacity, improve energy efficiency, and enable compliance to expected future environmental and fuel specifications. The program will affect the entire production site and is of a very complex nature. This presentation discusses examples where the impact on the integrated refinery and propylene value chain operations are tested by means of a discrete-event simulation model to determine infrastructure and capacity constraints. Interactions between units and across value chains are taken into consideration. The presentation further discusses the use of the decision making tool for determining advantages and concerns of possible technologies for debottlenecking options for the current operating units.