Kuwait Paraxylene Production Co. (KPPC) has let a contract to Honeywell International Inc. subsidiary Honeywell UOP LLC, Des Plaines, Ill., to provide a suite of cloud-based technology and interactive support services aimed at improving productivity, efficiency, and profitability of operations at the Shuaiba petrochemical complex in Safat, Kuwait.
KPPC will implement two of Honeywell’s proprietary Connected Plant services, including the Process Reliability Advisor (PRA) and Process Optimization Advisor (POA), to ensure optimal performance of its continuous catalytic reforming (CCR) platforming and aromatics complex at Shuaiba, which produces 780,000 tonnes/year of paraxylene for plastic fibers and films, Honeywell UOP said.
Using big-data analytics and machine learning, both PRA and POA will integrate KPPC’s specific plant data with UOP’s history of operating experience to identify real-time operational adjustments that will enable the complex to run more reliably and at maximum efficiency.
Leveraging Honeywell UOP’s process and fault models configured to each operation, PRA is designed to detect problems that could hamper production, providing the operator an opportunity to take corrective action to prevent unplanned downtime, while POA provides recommendations based on continuous monitoring of real-time, plant-specific information—including actual operating constraints and economics—that can be used to improve overall plant profitability.
The service provider disclosed neither a value of the contract nor a timeframe for its scope of work on the contract.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Aromatics Co.—a joint venture of Kuwait Petroleum Corp. subsidiary Petrochemical Industries Co. (PIC), Kuwait National Petroleum Co., and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Co. (QPIC)—KPPC is operated by Equate Petrochemical Co., itself a JV of PIC 42.5%, Dow Chemical Co. 42.5%, Boubyan Petrochemical Co. 9%, and QPIC 6%.
As PIC’s aromatics unit, KPPC also produces 370,000 tpy of benzene used locally by fellow Equate-operated Kuwait Styrene Co. to produce 450,000 tpy of styrene monomer, according to Equate’s web site.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
