Nordics' Largest Refinery Mordenised

Honeywell (USA) recently announced that it has been selected by Preem AB to modernise one of Europe's largest refineries – Preemraf Lysekil – with Honeywell's Enhanced High Performance Process Manager (EHPM) industrial process controllers.

The project should significantly extend the life of the existing control system at the refinery, located in southern Sweden. Preem AB, the country's largest oil producer, will use the enhanced high performance process manager to as much as triple the capacity of the refinery's existing controllers.

Preem AB has an annual refining capacity of more than 18 million metric tons, accounting for 75 percent of refining capacity in Sweden and about one-third of the entire Nordic region. Preem AB is the largest supplier of ultra-low-sulphur diesel fuel in Sweden, with a sulphur content of less than 5 ppm (parts per million), significantly lower than the Euro 4 requirement of 50 ppm.

"Honeywell's Enhanced High Performance Process Manager enables Preem to modernise their refinery and increase through-put while maximising legacy investments and intellectual property," said John Rudolph, vice president for Honeywell Process Solutions' Lifecycle Solutions and Services business.

The upgrade will be completed during planned maintenance at the refinery and will not require any additional downtime. It is scheduled to be completed before the end of the year.

"This investment builds on Lysekil's position as the region's leading refinery and will deliver real benefits for decades," said Lars Andersson, automation manager at Preem AB. "It also means we can maintain and improve on a safe, efficient operation, without the disruption and cost of ripping out and replacing the entire control system."

With support for peer-to-peer communication planned for the future, EHPM will allow Preem to incorporate other technologies from Honeywell, to provide an integrated solution that can include continuous and batch processing controls such as Experion C300, safer operations with Safety Manager, and Honeywell's fault tolerant ethernet FTE technology, that offers more robust, faster network diagnostics and improved security.