Smarter refineries start with smarter models: Why AVEVA Process Simulation leads for refining

Posted: April 28, 2026

Refiners are operating in a high-stakes environment where margins can tighten quickly and decisions made early can lock in years of operating cost and carbon intensity. Across new builds, revamps, and day-to-day optimization, three pressures keep rising:

• Efficiency: Energy is often the largest controllable operating cost, and energy intensity directly impacts competitiveness.
• Emissions: CO₂ constraints and tightening environmental expectations require measurable reductions, not just targets.
• Execution risk: Projects are more complex, schedules are tighter, and late design changes are expensive. A small mistake in assumptions (feed properties, heat integration, equipment limits) can become a large cost and reliability problem after commissioning.

Refining leaders need ways to make earlier decisions with higher confidence, before capital is committed and before operating constraints become surprises.

Why process simulation matters more than ever

Process simulation has moved from being “nice to have” engineering software to a core decision-support capability for modern refining. The reason is simple: refineries are no longer optimizing around a single objective. They must balance:

• Profitability and yield
• Energy use and utility constraints
• Emissions and environmental performance
• Operability, control, and reliability
• Feedstock variability and product slate changes

Simulation provides a rigorous, physics-based way to test decisions virtually, reducing reliance on trial-and-error, minimizing rework, and improving the quality of both engineering and operational decisions.

Key refining trends: Energy intensity, emissions constraints, and feedstock flexibility

Here are some of the key trends in the refining industry:

1. Energy intensity is a board-level lever
   Hydrogen networks, steam/power balance, fired heaters, fractionation, and heat integration define energy performance. Even small improvements in exchanger approach temperatures, column operating pressures, or control strategies can translate into material savings at scale.
2. Emissions constraints are becoming design constraints
   Refiners increasingly need to quantify how changes affect CO₂, whether from fuel gas, imported electricity, steam generation, or hydrogen production. That pushes teams to evaluate options earlier (heat integration, electrification pathways, carbon capture readiness) with credible, comparable numbers.
3. Feedstock flexibility is now a competitive advantage
   Crude slates and intermediates can vary more frequently, while product specs remain strict. Flexibility is not just commercial but also technical, depending on factors such as hydrotreating severity, hydrogen availability, fractionation constraints, and unit interactions. Simulation helps you understand how the entire system responds, not just one unit in isolation.

How process simulation enables smarter, earlier decisions

The biggest economic value often comes from decisions made before detailed design is complete. Process simulation helps refining teams:

• Evaluate scenarios quickly: “What if the feed changes?” “What if we constrain hydrogen?” “What if utilities are limited?”
• Stress-test constraints early: Identify pinch points in heat recovery, compressor limits, column flooding, and control interactions before they become project delays.
• Reduce uncertainty: Replace spreadsheet approximations with thermodynamically consistent models for yields, properties, utilities, and emissions drivers.

In practice, this means fewer surprises, faster convergence across stakeholders, and designs that perform closer to intent once built.

Designing for efficiency, operability, and environmental performance

Refinery performance is not just about achieving a steady-state design point, it is about running safely and profitably across real operating ranges. Simulation supports that by helping teams design for:

• Energy efficiency: Better heat integration, optimized column pressures/temperatures, and utility consumption visibility. 
• Operability: Understanding controllability, constraints, recycle behavior, and how units respond to disturbances. 
• Environmental performance: Quantifying energy-related emissions drivers and comparing alternatives (e.g. recovery, electrification, carbon capture readiness) with consistent assumptions.

This “design it right the first time” mindset is what sets leading refiners apart, especially when revamps must fit into short shutdown windows and tight execution schedules.

Where AVEVA Process Simulation fits in the refinery life cycle

Refining organizations need continuity, from concept screening to operations support. AVEVA™ Process Simulation is built to support that life cycle approach:

• Concept/feasibility: Rapid evaluation of configurations, key equipment sizing inputs, and utility/emissions implications. 
• FEED and detailed engineering: Strong foundation for process definitions, heat and material balances, and engineering decisions that reduce rework.
• Revamps and debottlenecking: Model-driven assessment of changes to throughput, feed, or constraints, supporting safer, faster project execution. 
• Operations and optimization support: A simulation “source of truth” that helps engineers and operators diagnose issues, test changes, and maintain performance over time. 

The result is not just a better model; it is a more connected way to make decisions across teams and phases.

AVEVA Process Simulation capabilities for refining

What makes a simulator “the best” for refining is not just a single feature, but how well it supports refinery reality: complex thermodynamics, wide operating ranges, tough constraints, and the need for credible answers fast. AVEVA Process Simulation is a strong choice for refiners because it combines:

• Robust, refinery-relevant modeling depth to represent complex unit operations and interactions.
• Thermodynamics and property methods suitable for hydrocarbon systems, critical for credible yield, phase behavior, and energy calculations.
• Scenario evaluation and decision support that helps teams compare alternatives consistently (energy, constraints, emissions drivers, operability).
• Life cycle usability that supports early concept work through engineering and into ongoing improvement, so models don’t become “single-use” artifacts.

Most importantly, AVEVA Process Simulation is designed to help teams move from “we think” to “we know” earlier—when changes are cheaper and impact is higher.

How simulation supports decarbonization without sacrificing profitability

Decarbonization in refining is often viewed as a cost, but when treated as an optimization problem with clear trade-offs, it can create value. Simulation helps refiners find pathways that reduce emissions while protecting (or improving) margins by:

• Identifying energy efficiency opportunities that reduce both fuel cost and CO₂ intensity.
• Testing heat integration changes and utility strategies before committing to capex.
• Evaluating electrification or alternative utility schemes with realistic constraints.
• Improving hydrogen and fuel gas network understanding, where both economics and emissions are tightly coupled.
• Enabling “what-if” comparisons across decarbonization options with consistent assumptions and measurable impacts.

When decarbonization decisions are modeled rigorously, teams can prioritize actions that deliver both environmental and financial returns, rather than trading one blindly for the other.

If you are evaluating how to improve refinery performance under tighter energy and emissions constraints—without increasing execution risk—join the webinar below and learn how process simulation supports smarter refineries.

Register here: