Modelling and simulation of the influence of operational parameters on oilsands processing plant equipment reliability

在最近与加拿大一家大型矿业公司的一位高级主管会晤时，申请人被告知，他们的全球维护费用为12.5亿美元。 从历史上看，采矿业一直在努力理解、建模和改变影响其维护成本的参数。 申请人最近结束了一年的休假，在此期间，他花了大量时间与一家大型油砂公司的加工厂可靠性小组合作。 在此任期内，很明显，有有限的，几乎没有模型，描述工厂的操作参数对工厂设备的维护和可靠性的影响。 事实上，采矿加工厂一般都是如此。 关于油砂的一个有趣的观察是，它是石油生产和采矿两个行业的整合。 在典型的石油加工厂中，操作环境稳定，可以连续运行数年而不会发生重大停机。 在典型的采矿加工厂中，设备受到明显更动态的操作环境的影响，因此维护停机的频率更高。 当您将联合收割机与石油加工厂结合在一起时，其结果是一个极其多变的操作环境，对于麦克默里堡阿尔伯塔的三个现有操作，工厂维护成本每年超过10亿美元。

During a recent meeting with a senior executive of a major Canadian mining company the applicant was informed that their worldwide maintenance costs were 1.25 billion dollars. Historically, mining has struggled to understand, model and change the parameters that influence their maintenance costs. The applicant recently finished a one year sabbatical during which extensive time was spent working with the processing plant reliability group of a major oil sands company. During this tenure it became apparent that there is limited and practically no models that describe the influence of plant operational parameters on plant equipment maintenance and reliability. In fact this is true of mining process plants in general. An interesting observation with regards to oil sands ithat it is the integration of two industries oil production and mining. In your typical oil processing plant the operating environment is stable and they will run for years without major outages. In a typical mining processing plant the equipment is subjected to a significantly more dynamic operating environment and consequently a higher frequency of maintenance outages. When you combine a mining environment with an oil processing plant the result is an extremely variable operating environment whith plant maintenance costs in excess of 1 billion dollars per year for three existing operations in Fort McMurray Alberta.