Honeywell solution selected for Chinese petrochemical plants

The Sinopec Maoming Company has selected Honeywell’s business management and automation technology for its ageing petrochemical plants in Guangdong Province in China.

Honeywell’s Profit Suite R400 process optimisation software will be deployed at two of Maoming Company’s ethylene-cracking facilities, helping to improve plant performance by increasing energy efficiency, improving flexibility of its operations and maximising the plants’ yield of high-value products. The plants have been in operation for more than 50 years and currently produce 1 million tons of petrochemicals a year.

A screenshot of the solution’s interface display.

“Although new petrochemical plants are being built, globally the petrochemical industry is a mature industry, with many plants having been in operation for decades,” said Aldous Wong, vice president and general manager for Honeywell Process Solutions, China.

“Honeywell’s process optimisation solutions can breathe new life into these ageing plants, boosting profitability by increasing throughput and yields, improving product quality and reducing costs.”

Ethylene is an important building block for petrochemicals and is primarily used in the manufacture of polyethylene, which, in turn, goes into a wide range of products, such as packaging, detergents, synthetic lubricants and synthetic rubber. In China, about 70% of its polyethylene is used in product packaging.

“We want to establish this project as a benchmark for other similar facilities within the Sinopec Group,” said He Lijian, deputy chief engineer, Sinopec Maoming Company.

“Using this Honeywell solution, Maoming Company is expecting an increase in production that would improve our profitability by more than $6 million per year. Honeywell’s experience in advanced process control and support capabilities for a number of industrial projects in China helped us to decide to choose them as one of our trusted vendors.”

Profit Suite R400 is part of Honeywell’s Advanced Process Control (APC) and Optimisation technology portfolio, and has the ability to integrate with many different distributed control systems (DCS) by multiple manufacturers, as well as legacy systems.