Refiners hit by the drop in the price of crude oil should look to “Smart” performance improvement projects to rescue depressed margins.

That is the view of Dr Chin Kin Ong, Principal Consultant at Palmer International LLP. Writing on the company’s website www.pipllp.com/blog, he said that the current state of the market had forced many oil and gas refiners to cancel or delay multi-billion-dollar investment projects.

“At a time when budgets are tight, refinery managements will find that “Smart” projects will deliver a high return for relatively low investment,” Dr Ong explained. “They can also help refiners to take advantage of the excess capacity within the EPC fraternity, which had geared up to work on the mega projects.”

He cited the example of how Palmer International engineers were able to save one refinery $30 million a year by introducing a new hot water belt to collect waste heat from various process units to preheat deaerator feed water. All for an investment of just $10 million.

However “Smart” projects are not easy to identify, often requiring a holistic approach. Nevertheless, the results usually speak for themselves.