Earliest days SIM reactor suite models What it was like and how they came about Roger Pelham Software user conference 2018, USA

1. Proprietary Information
“Earliest Days of the SIM
Reactor Suite Models ”
WhatIt WasLike;AndHowThey
CameAbout.

2. Proprietary Information
Speaker
Roger Pelham
Pelham Consulting LLC
1996 - 2016
1961 - 1967 Chevron Inc.
1967 – 1994 Profimatics Inc.
1994 – 1996 Honeywell Inc.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

3. Proprietary Information
PresentationOutline
The talk will provide insights into the early days of the SIM Series,
including:
• What a computer was in those days
• No mouse, no screen, no key board
• Doing business internationally
• Pre fax, pre email, pre lap tops, and pre cell phones
• How each reactor model came into being
• Early evolution of SIM Series models
• Finally, an old refinery engineer’s reflections on modern refinery
simulation and IT
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

4. Proprietary Information
1960-70WhataComputerWas(OrWasNot)
• No mouse, no touch pad, no screen, no key board. (Also - no pocket calculators).
• Input – Punch cards
• Read in by card reader directly or transmitted
• Output – printed on paper
• Every office, every engineer had piles of printer output
• At Chevron Richmond, early 60’s
• No computer at refinery
• Data micro-waved to IBM 7040 main frame computer in San Francisco HQ
• Two runs per day. In 9am - back 3pm. In 5pm - back 8.00am
• At Profimatics, Late 60’s
• Bunker Ramo 340, 4 miles away. For rent by the hour
• Operate it yourself
• Core memory - 16K, 24 bit. Drum ?? Fortran compiler
• Portable Computers.
• First “luggable” ~ not until mid 80’s
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

5. Proprietary Information
BunkerRamo340Computer
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference
From it was born FCC-SIM and REF-SIM

6. Proprietary Information
1960-1970DoingBusinessinThoseDays
• Air Travel
• Jet planes in place. Probably nicer than today, but fewer flights.
• Telephone.
• All land line. At everyone’s desk. Used extensively. Away from office, use public phone box, or use customer’s
phone. Banks of phones at hotels and airports.
• Telex/Telegram
• Too cryptic and rarely used.
• US Mail
• The norm. Used extensively. Within USA 2-3 days. International 1-2 weeks.
• Fax
• Not invented. 15 years away
• Email
• Not invented. 20+ years away.
• FEDEX/DHL
• Not in business.
• Cell Phone
• In your dreams!
• Texting
• Phones are for talking, that’s a ridiculous idea!
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

7. Proprietary Information
SIM- SeriesBirth
• 1966, Skelly Oil, El Dorado, asked Profimatics to create Fortran flowsheet
subroutines for an FCC model. Skelly would code and run it
themselves.
• Dick Cline and John Mahoney (two founders) created the basic
flowsheet subroutines.
• 1967 Roger Pelham joined Profimatics. Given assignment to code the
subroutines and develop a working FCC model.
• Use was internally for FCC studies. Idea of licensing it simply had not
occurred.
• 1968, Sunray DX refinery in Tulsa, asked “can we buy it? Profimatics
(after head- scratching on how to sell software) said Yes.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

8. Proprietary Information
FCC-SIMKeyConcepts
• Base case first. Run a base case using one set of complete plant data.
• Update coefficients adjusted internally to match base case plant data.
No issues with “convergence” to plant operation.
• Then, run predictive cases, to show effect of changing feeds, operating
conditions.
• Model as fundamental as we knew how. Base on fundamentals, not
regressed plant data.
• Solution was “modular sequential” with internal looping to closure.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

9. Proprietary Information
FCC-Sim. Nestedloops.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

10. Proprietary Information
FCC-SIMKeyCustomerDeliveryConcepts
• Explain in the model (comment statements) what the code was doing.
• Pre delivery, set up model base case with client FCC data. Run variety of
predict cases. Resolve any issues, prior to delivery.
• Complete documentation on model basis, model structure, and how to
run the model.
• Supply source code to customer.
• Train users! Three day training on-site to customer engineers.
• In modern day parlance, assume nothing was intuitively obvious to user.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

11. Proprietary Information
FCC-SIM–EarlyTechnicalEvolution
• Some early enhancements
• Loop “trap out” to stop model looping for ever. (Typically 100-200
loops max).
• Add metric I/O option.
• Add catalyst data base
• Feed characterization (detailed breakdown into PNA for each carbon
number in the feed)
• Numerical integration of the cracking kinetic reaction rate in the riser.
• Restructure I/O to operate on a PC instead of main frame. (Major
internal battle on that!)
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

12. Proprietary Information
FCC-SIM–EarlyCommercialEvolution
• FCC-SIM was a label stuck on the first version simply to give it a name. Stupid name, but it
stuck. (50 years later you now have Petro-SIM - - -!!)
• Additional sales followed Sunray DX sale. (~2 per year). Great Northern Rfng, Ashland Oil,
and Mitsubishi Oil in Japan were early customers.
• Early adopters tended to be mid sized refining companies. (Sun , Conoco, Union)
• Majors followed (Texaco, the first). Catalyst and Engineering firms came later.
• Introduced Maintenance program.
• Provided performance/accuracy guarantees as option for extra fee. (Another major internal
battle).
• Upgraded License Agreement and Standardized.
• 2018 is the 50th birthday of FCC-SIM . It has now been licensed to the majority of the world’s
FCC operators, and all the major FCC catalyst companies.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

13. Proprietary Information
REF-SIM -Birth
• 1969, Esso retained Profimatics for a Control study on a Powerformer at an
Asian refinery.
• Dick Cline performed the study. To assist, Dick crafted a simple reformer model.
• David Lyche was given the task of coding the model and making it work.
• REF-SIM given to Exxon as a study deliverable (even though it was not in the
original scope of work).
• Exxon ran it against their own internal model, and declared it a better fit to their
units. Critically they provided inter-reactor composition data, which really
affirmed the model.
• Exxon never thought to claim ownership, and Profimatics had not thought to
license it.
• 1971. First sale - to the Houdry Company. (An early developer of cat reforming
technology). Sales to refinery operating companies followed quickly.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

14. Proprietary Information
REF-SIM -BasicStructure
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference
lbs catalyst
Feed rate and PNA
Feed Temp
H2 Recy and %H2
2nd -20th
Exit composition.
Exit temp = inlet
to next element
Reactor No 1
1st element
No 1 Rector Effluent
Reactor No 2
Calculate:
Dehydrogenation
Cyclization
Isomerization
Cracking
Heat Bal.
No 1 reheat
furnace
1st -20th
element
PNA = No 1 Effluent.
Feed Temp = Reheat
furnace outlet temp.
H2 Recy and %H2
No 2 Reactor Effluent
No 2 reheat
furnace
Reactors No 3-4 & No3
Reheat Furn
1st -20th element
Each Reactor
From 4th reactor effluent
composition, calculate
Reformate yield, H2 yield
and purity, properties,
octanes,.
Finish
Start

15. Proprietary Information
HCR-SIM- Birth
• Late 1970’s, Marathon Petroleum asked Profimatics about a Hydrocracker model. No vendor
had one then.
• Cline suggested a model structured similarly to REF-SIM. HCR-SIM was designed, coded,
packaged and delivered to Marathon. 2nd HCR-SIM was licensed to Sinopec.
• Then - complaints from both licensees. HCR-SIM did not properly predict gasoline, kerosene
and diesel yields in response to changes in feed boiling range.
• Cline determined broad boiling range lumps (as used in FCC-SIM) did not work in modeling
hydrocrackers. Solution was to estimate PONA for each carbon number in the feed range - a
first approach to “molecular modeling” in gas oil streams.
• This concept was developed and worked successfully for HCR-SIM. The same feed
breakdown was then retrofitted to FCC and REF -SIM, and later used in the Coker model.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

16. Proprietary Information
HTR-SIM–BirthandEvolution
• Early 80’s, Champlin (now Citgo), asked if Profimatics had a detailed hydrotreater model.
Needed model for their Gas Oil Unibon (UOP) unit which fed the FCC.
• Immediately obvious that HCR-SIM could become a stand alone hydrotreater model (HTR-
SIM) by simply removing the hydrocracker sections and leaving in the hydrotreater sections
• HTR-SIM was added to the SIM Series. Versions for Naphtha, Diesel, Vac.Gas Oil and Resid
hydrotreating were created and licensed.
• (Biggest challenge – initially how to price HTR-SIM on a stand alone basis, when it was
basically a subset of HCR-SIM!)
• Market for detailed hydrotreater models driven in 1990’s, by industry need to produce Low
Sulfur Diesel, and advent of high severity Gas Oil hydrotreating to increase the convertibility
of poor FCC feedstocks.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

17. Proprietary Information
ALK-SIM& DC-SIM
• Both models were developed in the 1970’s as internal tools for Refinery
Process/Energy Surveys and process control studies.
• Again, clients soon after began to ask if they could be licensed after these
studies.
• ALK-SIM
• Kinetic models of HF ALK-SIM (HF) and SALK-SIM (H2SO4) were originally
developed by Cline
• Profimatics had no ready fractionation models, so a tray-to-tray iso-stripper
model was also created by Cline
• DC-SIM
• Development of a delayed coker model was also performed by Cline, and a
detailed tray-to-tray model of the lower part of the coker main fractionator was
added.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

18. Proprietary Information
SIM–SeriesmodelsTransitiontoKBC
• 1994. Honeywell acquired Profimatics. Main interest was Profimatic’s APC,
Refinery IT, and Blending – all applications running on Honeywell hardware.
• 1998, Honeywell sold SIM Series business to KBC. The sale included the
Profimatics name. (Ouch! Strange to see Profimatics name and SIM Series
models under a KBC logo).
• 1998 – 2003. Internal competition within KBC. Which models as standard?
Intertwined with consulting vs software businesses. Intertwined with evolution of
process flowsheet systems (Aspen vs. KBC)
• Today. SIM series reactor models are the global standard. Petro-SIM strong
contender for same position in detailed refinery flowsheeting.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

19. Proprietary Information
SIM–SeriesModelsTributetoDickCline
12 September 2018
KBC Users Conference
Profimatics Staff Circa 1971

20. Proprietary Information
SIM–SeriesModelsTributetoDickCline
• Richard P. Cline. Chem Engineer. Worked at Union Oil in LA, then Bunker Ramo Corp.
• Dick had extraordinary talent in understanding the kinetics of each refinery process
and equal talent in reducing complex ideas to a few simple equations.
• Without Dick’s creative genius, the “Profimatics Models” would simply have never
existed.
• Profimatics had no conceptual idea, or development plan, or strategy, to be in refinery
process modelling business.
• Each model was conceived ad hoc. Either from a specific inquiry (FCC, HCR) or simply
something Dick whipped together as part of some study he was doing for a client.
(REF, ALK, COK, MEK).
• Dick “wrote” the models on paper. Did not code, documented very little, didn’t go out
and sell them, or drive the evolving business.
• He was always the “go to guy” whenever we had a “model problem”.
• But, in a very real sense, he was the Father of the SIM series models.
12 September 2018KBC Users Conference

21. Proprietary InformationProprietary Information 12 September 2018KBC Users Conference
Thank you!