AspenTech
PushingBoundaries via Cutting-edge Software

The world is witnessing a watershed moment with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the economies enter into lockdown, the slump in business has flattened the growth curve. Although governments, healthcare organizations, and researchers are leaving no stone unturned to contain the spread of the infection and find an effective cure for it, the damage is already deep for global industries. The oil and gas industry seems to be the worst hit. The prices of oil and petroleum are dropping drastically, primarily due to failed agreements on production cuts. Additionally, the need for chemicals and refined products has fallen from industrial slow-downs and travel restrictions, thereby impacting demand and supply. Many industries are rushing to adopt digital transformation to reduce the impact on productivity. The aim is to leverage modern technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and innovative digital tools to sustain business operations. AI in the oil and gas landscape is segmented into several parts, such as predictive maintenance and machinery inspection, material movement, quality control, and reclamation. However, predictive maintenance is one of the fastest-growing segments in the market that addresses costly downturn by predicting maintenance schedules for equipment to prevent the possibility of equipment failures, thereby saving cost.

“ As a global leader in asset optimization, AspenTech is not only helping leading industrial companies manage their operations efficiently and safely, but also enabling innovation while reducing waste and impact on the environment”

Massachusetts-based company Aspen Technology (AspenTech) (NASDAQ:AZPN), a provider of software and services for the process industries, is turning the corner for the oil and gas industry by using AI and other leading technologies. AspenTech’s state-of-the-art solution, backed by AI, helps the world’s largest oil and gas, chemical, and engineering companies achieve their goals, such as safety, sustainability, and profitability. The purpose-built solution enables oil and gas companies to weave a digital thread throughout the design, operation, and maintenance of their facilities and value chains. The real-time data and actionable insights delivered by the solution helps clients mitigate the various challenges they face in their day-to-day business operations. The solution plays a significant role in maximizing and accelerating value gained from digital transformation initiatives with a holistic approach to the asset lifecycle and supply chain. What differentiates AspenTech from its competitors is its deep experience and expertise in the engineering, processing, and construction (EPC) industries. By consistently delivering solutions that drive operational excellence even in the most challenging market conditions, AspenTech has earned the trust of its clients for more than three decades.

“AspenTech has gained considerable experience in enabling our customers’ digital transformation strategies, for both owners and EPCs,” says Paul Donnelly, Director—Industry Marketing of AspenTech. “We have a unique combination of technology, domain expertise, and partnerships that can help clients accelerate their transformation, regardless of where they are on the journey.”

By consistently delivering solutions that drive operational excellence even in the most challenging market condition, AspenTech has earned the trust of its clients for more than three decades

Enhanced Value through Minimal Workforce

AspenTech offers a range of solutions to help clients mitigate production challenges with minimal workforce onsite. For instance, the current situation has compelled companies to work with a smaller staff, meaning there are fewer eyes on the process and equipment to monitor any problems that might arise.To address the issue, AspenTech offers an asset performance management (APM) solution built for predictive maintenance. The solution improves the availability and utilization of assets, lowers maintenance costs, and improves health, safety, and environment (HS&E). Additionally, it enables clients to avoid unplanned downtime by providing early and accurate warnings of equipment failure. Not only this, the solution also helps prioritize production risks by calculating the impact of asset downtime on overall plant performance and revenue.

Moreover, AspenTech understands that today’s oil and gas market needs to minimize the production of low-demand products. To achieve this goal safely, sustainably, and profitably, the company’s production optimization solution enables clients to determine optimal operating conditions. Besides, it enhances feedstock planning and scheduling to increase throughput and decrease margin leakage. Clients can also optimize multiple units in real-time and sustain optimal performance for the best-wide economic results. Not only that, they can also automate workflows and processes to improve execution and performance.

What’s more, AspenTech offers its clients with a wide range of products to help clients manage their business processes more efficiently. Among the unique products offered by the company is Aspen HYSYS, a process simulation software that plays a significant role in optimizing upstream, midstream, and refining processes in a single environment, integrate models from gathering networks to processing facilities, and sustain refinery profits with faster updates. Aspen HYSYS enables users to implement seamless, integrated tools for costing, energy management, safety analysis, and equipment design. The innovative product has bagged the position of being the most sought-after process simulator.

If that’s not all, Aspen Plus is yet another popular product provided by AspenTech. Aspen Plus is regarded to be a leading process simulation software in the chemical industry. One of the primary benefits of the Aspen Plus is that it helps in enabling lifecycle modelling, from design through operations for faster troubleshooting, online performance monitoring, and real-time optimization.

Benefiting Clients Worldwide

Over the years, the unique solutions and products have earned AspenTech a surpassing customer-base, which spans across some of the world’s renowned process industry companies.

In other words, the AspenTech’s solutions are used by more than 100,000 process engineers, plant operators, planners, and schedulers to optimize engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain operations. A case in point, China HuanQiu Contracting & Engineering Corporation (HQC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Petroleum Engineering Corp. Ltd., implemented Aspen HYSYS software to maximize safety, throughput, and profits at the design phase of critical systems. The easy adoption of the process simulation software helped in advancing HQC’s digital transformation journey to increase asset value and improve performance early in the asset lifecycle. The company implemented AspenTech’s HYSYS software to validate the natural gas liquefaction system and petrochemical process design of an owner-operator customer. HQC achieved an intelligent design through this implementation, which further enabled optimization across multiple operating scenarios to maximize economic and safety outcomes. Thanks to Aspen HYSYS, HQC can today offer advanced digital solutions to its customers, and thereby in a strong position to pursue overseas market opportunities.

“ AspenTech understands today’s oil and gas market needs to minimize the production of low-demand products and provides a production optimization solution that enables clients to determine optimal operating conditions safely, sustainably, and profitably”

Adding to the list of successful customer stories is Hitachi Zosen Corporation, Japan-based engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firm that designs and constructs waste treatment plants, industrial plants, and machinery and equipment for industrial and construction processes. To remain competitive and ahead of peers, Hitachi Zosen had to ensure that not only its products are innovative, but also allows their client to retain a competitive edge with traditional products and other emerging technologies. As such, the client company sought to develop a zeolite membrane alternative to conventional ethanol dehydration. However, the challenge was that removing excess water from ethanol is an expensive and time-consuming procedure that limits ethanol competitiveness in the energy market. A mixture needs to be at least 99.5 percent ethanol to be added to gasoline. Although Hitachi Zosen was able to produce a zeolite membrane solution, the Hitz Dehydration System (HDS), it ran into an issue with physical property consistency using a home-grown segmented model of the membrane. This is where AspenTech’s Aspen Custom Modeler (ACM) and Aspen Process Economic Analyzer (APEA) came into play. The two products enabled Hitachi Zosen to model novel processes integrated into larger systems while also keeping track of the bottom line. The client company was able to consider the cost, and simultaneously design a new technology which not only paved the way for a better solution but with fewer iterations in the conceptual stage, in a cost-effective and timely manner.

As a global leader in asset optimization, AspenTech is not only helping leading industrial companies manage their operations efficiently and safely, but also enabling innovation while reducing waste and impact on the environment. Moving forward, AspenTech continues to provide a faster and more accurate analysis of efficiency and performance boundaries through effective AI modeling and traditional principles of process engineering.