Valero initially plans to will deploy the application at its seven refineries globally.
The Invensys solution monitors and measures real-time hydrofluoric acid levels by analyzing differential responses from online sensors, which increases the efficiency of the refinery as it can improve crude stock yield and associated costs.
Invensys noted the system replaces conventional manual laboratory sampling and other types of analysis, and uses real-time online sensors instead of people, minimizing accidental exposures and environmental hazards.
Invensys Operations Management vice president and enterprise client executive Maxie Williams said an integral component of the company’s InFusion Enterprise Control System, its HF alkylation measurement solution can openly communicate with a larger refinery and enterprise-wide control, information and decision-support system to provide real-time data and analysis.
"And because it is built from rugged materials long proven in industrial HF applications, implementing it costs about half that of other systems and requires little maintenance, with estimated mean time between failures exceeding 29 years," he added.
