• Author / Uploaded
• NISHANT SINGH

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• Refinería de petróleo
• Barril (Unidad)
• Gasolina
• Petróleo
• Destilación

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case W89C99 April 7, 2010 Izak Duenyas

Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise Petro Refinery LLC is a Kazakhstan-based oil refinery. Its main focus is on providing refined petroleum products to markets in China, the United States, and several European Union countries. The president of Petro Refinery hosts weekly meetings with select team members. This week he is prepping his colleagues and two outside consultants, both recent Ross Executive MBA grads, for an upcoming evaluation of the refinery operations. The goal is to maximize the firm’s financial performance. Dimitri (President): Hello everybody, thank you for coming. I would like to introduce you all to Jennifer and Miguel -- consultants who will help us look for areas of improvement in our business. Both of the consultants have experience with process optimization. Jennifer has years of experience in the energy sector, and Miguel comes to us from the automotive sector. My assistant will be sending out several documents. First document will provide a brief overview of the refinery business. Second document covers the crude refining process. Third document covers our firm’s current production possibilities and costs. Those who are familiar with the details of the refining business can ignore the first two documents and focus on the third. For our next weekly meeting, please work with the consultants to come up with suggestions on how our financial position can be optimized. In your analysis, please assume that the prices we pay for crude oil will stay the same. Furthermore, assume distributors will pay us the same rates for each gallon we sell them. Please carefully review the production possibilities and costs document for more details, along with Tables A, B, and C on page four.

Refinery Business Overview1 A refinery is basically a factory. Just as a paper mill turns lumber into paper, a refinery takes crude oil and turns it into useful petroleum products such as diesel. Different crude oil input produces different volumes of petroleum products. Crude oil is classified by density (light, medium, or heavy). If the input is a barrel of light crude, more products such as gasoline will be produced. If the input is a barrel of medium or heavy crude, more products such as diesel will be produced. The most modern refineries can turn more than half of every barrel of light crude oil into gasoline. Published by WDI Publishing, a division of the William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan. ©2010 William Davidson Institute. This exercise was written by Research Associate Sergei Kolomeitsev under the supervision of Professor Izak Duenyas as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. This case was prepared exclusively as the basis for class discussion and is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a situation. The case should not be considered criticism or endorsement and should not be used as a source of primary data.

This document is authorized for use only in Dr. Ashish Kumar Kaushal's Quantitative Methods for Decision Making 2019 at Great Lakes Institute of Management - Gurgaon from Jun 2019 to Dec 2019.

Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

Refineries require substantial initial capital investment. Few new oil refineries have been developed over the past 20 years. In many parts of the world, including in Central Asia, there is an effort to upgrade and modernize older refineries. This is in fact what Petro Refinery LLC started doing with its refinery a number of years back. It is important to note that when it comes to oil refining, if the input is equivalent to a 42-gallon barrel of crude, the output is roughly 45 gallons of petroleum products. (See Table A.) This is due to the overall density changes that occur during the refining process. Other pieces of information worth noting: •

Unless maintenance is needed, refineries operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

•

When a US consumer goes to the pump and purchases a dollar’s worth of gasoline, roughly 68% of that goes to pay for the crude oil, 6% goes towards the refineries, 15% goes towards taxes imposed by the government, and 11% for marketing and distribution. The tax percentage varies dramatically between regions such as Europe and United States, or Africa and Asia.

Crude Oil Processing2 All refineries perform three basic steps -- distillation, conversion, and blending. Distillation Modern distillation involves channeling crude through hot furnaces. The resulting vapors and liquids then move into distillation towers. Inside the towers, the vapors and liquids separate according to weight and boiling point. Conversion In the conversion stage, cracking and rearranging of molecules results in transforming lower-value input into higher-value output. This is where liquids and vapors from the distillation towers are transformed into intermediate components that eventually become finished products. Blending The last stages of the refinery process fine-tune the products produced in the conversion stage. This is where different types of diesel and gasoline are configured based on customer specifications.

Production Possibilities and Costs at Petro Refinery LLC Petro Refinery LLC purchases light and heavy crude oil and refines it into gasoline, diesel, and various other products. The petroleum products are then sold in gallons. For the next week, the refinery expects to be paid $2.50 per gallon of gasoline sold to distributors, $2 per gallon of diesel, and $2 per gallon for all other refined petroleum products. Petro Refinery LLC can sell as many gallons of these petroleum products as it can refine. The firm’s refinery operations are grouped into three standard steps: distillation, conversion, and blending. Capacity in each department is calculated by measuring the equipment hours needed per refining each 1,000 barrels of crude. The firm’s output possibilities are based on equipment hours available, in combination with equipment hours required, in each step of the refining process. As an example, Petro Refinery LLC’s 2

This document is authorized for use only in Dr. Ashish Kumar Kaushal's Quantitative Methods for Decision Making 2019 at Great Lakes Institute of Management - Gurgaon from Jun 2019 to Dec 2019.

Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

weekly refining capacity is sufficient to process either 800,000 barrels of light crude or 800,000 barrels of heavy crude if devoted fully to either crude type. However, Petro Refinery LLC usually processes both light and heavy crude in any given week. For example, if 500,000 barrels of light crude are processed, there would still be sufficient availability of refining equipment for also processing 360,000 barrels of heavy crude. Data on the equipment hours required for refining light or heavy crude at each step of the way can be found in Table B. The Petro Refinery production schedule for the prior several months resulted in a weekly processing of 700,000 barrels of light crude and 120,000 barrels of heavy crude. The weekly output was 15,800,000 gallons of gasoline, 8,800,000 gallons of diesel, and 12,300,000 gallons of other petroleum products. At these levels of production, the blending facilities were operating at full capacity. However, the distillation and conversion facilities were not maximizing capacity potential. Table A

Crude input and output Input

Sweet light crude

Heavy crude

Price

$80/barrel

$75/barrel

Gasoline

20

15

Diesel

10

15

Other (jet fuel, heavy fuel oil, LPG gases, etc.)

15

15

Output per barrel (in gallons)

Table B

Refining equipment demand per 1,000 barrels Sweet light crude

Heavy crude

Equipment hours available per week

Distillation

2 hours

2 hours

3,000

Conversion

2 hours

3 hours

2,400

Blending

3 hours

2.5 hours

2,400

Input

Table C

Overhead and labor costs Fixed overhead

Variable overhead

Labor

Distillation

$2,000,000/week

$2/barrel

$0.5/barrel

Conversion

3,000,000/week

3/barrel

1/barrel

2.5/barrel

1/barrel

Blending

2,000,000/week

3

This document is authorized for use only in Dr. Ashish Kumar Kaushal's Quantitative Methods for Decision Making 2019 at Great Lakes Institute of Management - Gurgaon from Jun 2019 to Dec 2019.

Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

Questions 1. How much money has Petro Refinery LLC been making per week under its current production policy of processing 700,000 barrels of light and 120,000 barrels of heavy crude after subtracting the labor costs, the variable overhead costs, and the weekly fixed overhead costs? 2. Can you come up with a better policy for next week given the pricing for gas, diesel, and other products? 3. Suppose distillation is available for an extra 100 hours per week. How much would that be worth to the firm? Suppose conversion is available for an extra 100 hours per week. How much would that be worth to the firm? 4. Suppose the price of heavy crude decreases by $1/barrel (with light remaining the same). How much would that affect Petro Refinery’s profits?

4

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Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

Exhibits Exhibit 1

Petro Refinery LLC Output from a Barrel of Crude Oil, in Gallons (2010) Light Crude

Heavy Crude





 Diesel
‐
10


Diesel
‐
15


Other*
‐
15
 Other*
‐
15
 
 Gasoline
‐
15


Gasoline
‐
20


*includes jet fuel, heavy fuel oil, LPG gases, etc. Source: Petro Refinery LLC

Exhibit 2

Typical Output from a Barrel of Crude Oil, in Gallons (2008)

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

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Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

Exhibit 3

How Crude Oil Is Refined into Petroleum Products At a refinery, different parts of the crude oil are separated into usable petroleum products. How does this transformation take place? Essentially, refining breaks crude oil down into its various components, which then are selectively reconfigured into new products.

Source: Adapted from Chevron

Exhibit 4

Crude Oil Prices (1980-2010)

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

6

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Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

Exhibit 5

Leading Oil Production Companies from Around the World

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Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

Exhibit 6

World Oil Reserves by Country as of January 1, 2009 (billion barrels)

Source: “Worldwide Look at Reserves and Production,” Oil & Gas Journal, Vol. 106, No. 48 (December 22, 2008), pp. 23-24.

8

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Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

Exhibit 7

Access to Oil Reserves

Source: PFC Energy, 2008

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Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

References 1

T he Refinery Business Overview section relies heavily on the Energy Information Administration website. The website was accessed on April 6th, 2010. http://www.eia.doe.gov/

2

T he Crude Oil Processing portion also relies heavily on the Energy Information Administrative website, particularly the section which covers the refining process. The website was accessed on April 6th, 2010. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index. cfm?page=oil_refining#tab2

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Petro Refinery LLC - Linear Programming Exercise

W89C99

Notes

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Established at the University of Michigan in 1992, the William Davidson Institute (WDI) is an independent, non-profit research and educational organization focused on providing private-sector solutions in emerging markets. Through a unique structure that integrates research, field-based collaborations, education/training, publishing, and University of Michigan student opportunities, WDI creates long-term value for academic institutions, partner organizations, and donor agencies active in emerging markets. WDI also provides a forum for academics, policy makers, business leaders, and development experts to enhance their understanding of these economies. WDI is one of the few institutions of higher learning in the United States that is fully dedicated to understanding, testing, and implementing actionable, private-sector business models addressing the challenges and opportunities in emerging markets.

This document is authorized for use only in Dr. Ashish Kumar Kaushal's Quantitative Methods for Decision Making 2019 at Great Lakes Institute of Management - Gurgaon from Jun 2019 to Dec 2019.