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Russian petrochemical major Sibur

spearheads digital transformation

RUSSIA RUSSIAN petrochemical major Sibur has told effort. Thanks to their joint efforts, the Russian
East-West Digital News (EWDN) it has devel- giant was among the first petrochemical compa-
A pilot project in Tomsk oped a technology which allows high-preci- nies worldwide to adopt maintenance and sup-
uses a digital model sion modelling of physicochemical processes port services using AR and developing remote
of a high-pressure in petrochemical production. This technology assistance procedures.
polyethylene reactor is unique for Russia, says the company, reports The adoption of these solutions are a part
to make it possible to EWDN. of Sibur’s digital transformation programme,
significantly optimise A pilot project was launched at Tomskneft- which encompasses three main fields. Advanced
operating costs. ekhim in Tomsk, Siberia, where a digital model analytics are used to build predictive models
of a high-pressure polyethylene reactor made it based on machine learning, big data and visual-
possible to significantly optimise operating costs isation. Process digitisation improves and sim-
in its production. plifies business processes leveraging mobile apps
Sibur’s research centre in Tomsk has become and software automation.
the centre of such comprehensive efforts. Tech- While technology deployments are crucial,
nologists of the company’s enterprises undergo it is also important to create digital processes
additional training there. Since 2019, as a result, that could showcase tangible results. Through
every company within Sibur has its own model- multivariate analysis companies can better
ling specialist. understand what causes quality to change from
In total, 139 combinations of various param- one batch of product to another, and can cut the
eters of equipment operation, raw material con- development time for a new product from 2-3
sumption and reaction initiators were tested on years down to 4-6 months.
the digital model at the Tomsk plant. The opti- Improving production efficiency by 10%
mal mode, in effect, allowed a reduction in the could yield up to $220mn to $260mn bot-
specific consumption of expensive additives by tom-line impact on a single brownfield asset,
12% without losing product quality. according to McKinsey.
International ecosystem for corporate trans- Innovation spreads globally Adopting digi-
formation Sibur says it has been systematically tal processes comes with a unique challenge to
developing the application of technological petrochemical companies. Whereas many of the
modelling for more than five years. These and leading ones are in the process of digital transfor-
other digital transformations are critical to the mation, a majority are just starting out.
success of petrochemical companies and funda- Sibur was among the first companies world-
mental to their future, which is why Sibur has wide to translate high-precision modelling of
considerably increased capital investment in this physicochemical processes in petrochemical
field. production into practice – but it is not the only
Sibur strives to expand utilisation of working one in its sector to have adopted breakthrough
processes based on automation, visualisation solutions.
and data exchange in manufacturing technol- Several other energy and petrochemical
ogies. This often goes with open innovation majors are also engaged in similar digitalisation
and international collaboration, as witnessed efforts. Among them are Bechtel, the US engi-
by Sibur’s recent moves: Last year, Sibur opened neering, construction, and project management
the PolyLab research and development centre in corporation: its data analytics team has helped
Skolkovo. Equipped with high-tech laboratories improve decision-making in areas such as piping
and 12 production lines, it allows the relation- productivity and staff logistics.
ship between the properties of polymers and Major energy corporations such as Borealis
of finished products made from them to be and Qenos partnered with AspenTech, the lead-
studied. ing asset optimisation software company. Most
In May, Sibur teamed up with Brochesia, an recently, Halliburton entered into a strategic
Italian provider of software solutions for weara- agreement with Microsoft to stay on top of digi-
ble devices, to support its network digitalisation tal transformation. ™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 46 18•November•2020