HMEL selects IBM to build green refinery

BATHINDA, INDIA:  IBM today announced that HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL), a joint venture between Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, an Indian government-owned enterprise, and Mittal Energy Investments Pte Ltd, Singapore, has selected IBM as its strategic partner in the design and implementation of their Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for their zero residue refinery.

HMEL is investing more than US$4 billion to build the green refinery, which will be able to process 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Located in Bathinda, in Punjab. The energy efficient, environment-friendly, high distillate yielding complex refinery on commissioning shall produce clean fuels and polypropylene by processing all types of crudes, said a press release.

Through the 1.5 year, multi-million dollar agreement, IBM would integrate all of HMEL’s operations, ranging from manufacturing to marketing and distribution. This would help HMEL to get unified view of business operations and access to real-time information across all systems, which would result in  refinery efficiency and improve return on investments with decision making.

”It is critical for HMEL to establish processes that help the company get a single, comprehensive view of its operations and also bring in greater efficiency into the system," said Richard Dirckx, vice president (Operations), HMEL.

He added, "IBM understood our needs and has the global expertise, knowledge repositories of leading practices, processes and key performance indicators to support our goal of becoming one of the smartest refineries in the world. In fact, HMEL will be among only a handful of refineries to start operations with the full suite of MES applications."

The applications supporting the new refinery will be integrated using the IBM Chemical and Petroleum Integrated Information Framework, a technology platform based on open industry standards that will bring together advanced information management, analytics and process integration software from IBM and other suppliers. 

HMEL will use business intelligence and performance management software, including performance dashboards, to monitor performance, set targets, and optimize resources.

The refinery is expected to be commissioned by early 2011.