Reduce RVP Giveaway Increase Blended Gasoline Profitability

• Butane costs ~ 25% to 30% less than most other high octane blend components
  • Blending more butane into summer blends while staying under government Reid vapor pressure (RVP) regulations can greatly reduce costs
• Unlike many other forms of spectroscopy (e.g., near-infrared [NIR]), Raman can accurately detect butane levels in gasoline blends
  • Measures “mogas” RVP to within 0.1 psi to 0.2 psi over a wide range
    • 5 psi to 16 psi using a single chemometric model

Improved RVP measurements

• Breaking up a full range RVP model (5 psi to 16 psi) into multiple smaller, sub-blend models that match seasonal blends can greatly improve online RVP standard error of prediction (SEP)
•  One 240,000 bpd Bay-area refinery using Raman reduced their RVP SEP target from 0.2 psi to 0.1 psi for summer blends (SEP x 2 = ASTM “R”)
  • Annual RVP GIVEAWAY savings of $6 million

Modeling Best Practices

• Typical RVP blends are covered with two to four sub-blend models
• Process Instruments offers proprietary PROspect™ real time online prediction software throughout the blending season
  • State of the art modeling techniques
  • Automatic selection of the correct RVP range model
  • no need for blend control center to load a particular RVP model or change models