KBC Announces a Strategic Partnership With HTRI to Provide the Oil and Gas Industry With Enhanced Engineering Design, Debottlenecking, Troubleshooting and Optimization Capabilities

HOUSTON, October 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The combination and interoperability between XSimOp^® from HTRI and Petro-SIM^® from KBC will enable more efficient delivery of high fidelity operational and design studies for process units 

KBC (A Yokogawa Company) today announces an extension of its engineering simulation capabilities through an enhanced collaboration with HTRI, the leading source of process heat transfer technology and research, to deliver advanced capabilities in heat exchanger simulation and rating.

The interoperability between XSimOp ShellTube, a new module for doing detailed simulation and rating of shell and tube heat exchangers, and Petro-SIM will enable more efficient delivery of high fidelity operational and design studies for process units. Process engineers will be able to quickly investigate and analyze the performance of heat exchanger networks in a single simulation case thereby reducing overall design time, minimizing equipment over-design and ensuring design flexibility that appropriately accounts for process variability.

In many process plants, heat exchanger failures and diminishing heat transfer efficiency can cause major process safety problems, account for around 30 per cent of unplanned downtime, and limit unit capacity and throughput.  This can cost some plants in excess of $10 million as a result of various factors including mechanical and chemical-induced corrosion and fouling.

When undertaking operational and design studies, it is vital that technologies for design and rating of heat transfer equipment are fully integrated with the process simulation flowsheet. This ensures the many interacting mechanical and process-related parameters are considered when determining optimal thermal design and operation of heat exchangers within the overall process configuration.

"Heat exchangers sit at the heart of the yield / energy trade-off in operations and their design can have a major influence on plant profitability as well as reliability and safety. Fast, accurate and integrated heat exchanger modeling is vital for delivering safe, reliable and profitable operations," states Andy Howell, CEO of KBC. "The industry sees HTRI as the heat exchanger design and simulation leader and so we are pleased to be able to include their product within the Petro-SIM family^[1] for end-to-end integrated simulation."

"We are continuing our extensive research into heat transfer technology and highly value this new partnership with KBC for expanding industry access to our deep know-how and intellectual property in this area," said Claudette D. Beyer, President and CEO of HTRI. "We know that many of our members derive a lot of value from KBC's Petro-SIM, so its interoperability with XSimOp and use in end-to-end simulation will unlock even more value for them."

KBC's Petro-SIM is the world's most widely applicable steady-state and dynamic process simulation and optimization software platform. Its open platform architecture promotes exceptional levels of integration and collaboration among project teams. It supports the full engineering workflow across the process lifecycle from design and operations, through performance optimization and stewardship, reducing capital and operating expenses.

HTRI's Xchanger Suite^® - a standalone heat exchanger simulation product - has for some time been able to interface with Petro-SIM. This new strategic partnership builds on the existing relationship between HTRI and KBC to seamlessly integrate XSimOp (a new suite specifically designed to be embedded in 3rd party simulators) within Petro-SIM.

Full interoperability between Petro-SIM and XSimOp ShellTube will be available in Petro-SIM 7 which is due to be released by the end of 2018.

About KBC 

KBC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yokogawa Electric Corporation, is all about excellence in the Energy and Chemical industry. Living excellence in all we create and in all the services we deliver and leaving a sustainable legacy of operational excellence among our customers.

We make excellence real for our customers through the actions of our people fused with our technology and best practices. We provide leading software and expert services, powered by the cloud, to assure process operations achieve their full potential. Our customers achieve operating performance that surpasses ordinary standards, now and into the future. For more information, visit http://www.kbc.global.

About Heat Transfer Research, Inc. 

HTRI is a leading source of process heat transfer technology, research, software, and services. Incorporated in 1962, the company conducts studies on heat transfer and fluid flow at a multimillion-dollar testing facility in Navasota, Texas, USA. HTRI technology has been used by companies worldwide for decades to help them design, operate, and maintain heat exchangers and fired heaters. HTRI provides advanced experimental research to the oil and gas, chemical, and petrochemical industries. For more information, visit https://www.htri.net/

1. The Petro-SIM family of products includes Petro-SIM steady state and dynamic process simulator; SIM Reactor Suite® non-linear, kinetic refinery reactor models; Multiflash® PVT thermodynamics simulator; the Maximus® thermal hydraulic pipeline simulator; and Petro-SIM Energy for utility system modeling.