There are reasons that in many plants saving in feedstock cost reductionin Ethylene Oxide manufacturing by improved operation are not realized:
- Lack of awareness of this potential saving,
- Unavailability of EO process specialists,
- Inaccuracy of information.
1) The cause of this lack of awareness has reasons similar to those explained at 2)
2) Operation of an EO plant at maximum profitability and minimum cost requires a well trained specialist in the EO process and production. In some plants, these specialists aren’t available. Without them the Ethylene consumption can easily be 2% more than necessary, and, there is no awareness of the high Ethylene use.
3) From available information it is often impossible to accurately conclude Ethylene consumption per ton of EO. Measurements often give contradicting and confusing information. Initiatives to reduce Ethylene use show data that randomly indicates reduction or increase in Ethylene use.
In the article on Feed stock cost of Ethylene Oxide manufacturing, the impact of catalyst and improved process condition have been quantified for a plant producing 500 kton of EO per year at an Ethylene price of $1000/ton. The Ethylene costs in such a plant are between 350 and 400 mln $/a. For such a plant, a well trained specialist can save up to 7mln $/a on the Ethylene costs. Many plants have such a specialist. But, that specialist will have difficulties to achieving the best results due to inaccuracy in measurement and performance data.
With the help of experienced, knowledgeable analytical and instrument specialists, the gap between lowest and highest performance data can be significantly reduced, but still is about 1%. As a consequence, the Ethylene consumption will be 0.5%, on average, above the lowest Ethylene costs. In the example, on average, the extra cost of Ethylene will be 2 mln. $/a more than the minimum achievable due to limits in the accuracy of measurement.