Gazprom Neft is to create the industry’s first production control centre, to be used in managing its own refineries. The future centre will facilitate the transition from managing individual facilities and complexes to the predictive management of entire processing chains. The implementation of solutions for developing the new centre and transforming production management processes at Gazprom Neft will be undertaken in conjunction with Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan). The memorandum confirming this was signed at this year’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum, with the signatories to the document being Anatoly Cherner, Deputy CEO for Logistics, Processing and Sales, Gazprom Neft, and Koji Nakaoka, Vice President, Yokogawa Electric Corporation.
An initial pilot project at the Omsk Refinery will take over operational production management, including control over daily plan fulfilment, product quality, energy consumption, equipment status assessments, and the monitoring of industrial and environmental safety. The new centre will be built around the work of modern, flat, cross-functional teams, united in a cohesive environment of IT tools and Big Data analytics systems. Thanks to the implementation of “digital models” — precise mathematical models of all of the refinery’s technological facilities and complexes — the production control centre will be able to ensure predictive and the proactive elimination of any deviations from optimum operation and integrated planning. The pilot project will be implemented at the Omsk Refinery in 2021 and, thereafter, at the Moscow Refinery by 2021.
Anatoly Cherner, Deputy CEO for Logistics, Processing and Sales, Gazprom Neft, commented: “Digital technologies open up fundamentally new opportunities for managing continuous, complex and large-scale production. We are, already, using machine-learning and neural-networking technologies to ensure continuous quality control over oil products, and are using Big Data analytics systems to develop refinery production plans. The new centre will be an important technological and managerial link in an integrated management platform covering the entire value chain, from refining to sales. Thanks to these and other digital transformation projects, we are able to address our strategic goal of improving the business’s operational efficiency, as well as improving reliability and safety in production activities. I am confident that Yokogawa’s experience — as a reliable partner to Gazprom Neft, with powerful technological expertise — will ensure the effective implementation of a project that promises innovation for the entire industry.”
A strategic cooperation agreement has been in place between Gazprom Neft and Yokogawa Electric Corporation since 2008 — Yokogawa having been involved in developing the long-term strategic programme for modernising automation systems at the Moscow and Omsk Refineries. Technical centres established in partnership with Yokogawa and designed to control technological processes and production using equipment and software produced by the Japanese company, as well as training appropriate specialists, are in operation throughout Gazprom Neft’s refineries.
Gazprom Neft’s Оmsk Refinery is one of the most advanced in Russia and one of the largest in the world. With an installed annual capacity of 20.89 million tonnes of oil per year it is one of Russia’s market leaders in terms of its conversion rate (91.7 percent) and light product yield (71.8 percent).
Gazprom Neft’s Moscow Refinery is a leader in the production of high-octane petrol and Euro-5 diesel fuels. The Moscow Refinery services more than 35 percent of demand in the Moscow Region’s fuel market, and produces 30 branded oil products. The refinery’s annual installed capacity is 12.2 million tonnes of oil per year.
Gazprom Neft is currently involved in a full-scale modernisation programme at its Omsk and Moscow refineries involving cumulative investment of more than RUB550 billion. The first stage of this modernisation has involved the construction and reconstruction of key technological facilities, allowing the complete transition to the production of Euro-5 fuels, significantly improving energy efficiency and environmental friendliness in production. The implementation of the second phase of the modernisation programme is ongoing, as a result of which conversion rate and the yield of light petroleum products will increase.
