capSpire Blog

You know because you likely just experienced this in March or April — refinery turnaround months are highly volatile. These changes are disruptive to your supply network and often costly. The expenses associated with diverting supply elsewhere to satisfy contractual obligations can reach into the millions of dollars in some scenarios.

But what if there was an opportunity to mitigate the financial impact of your refinery turnaround? Even if you reduced costs by just 10 percent, your savings could be well over six figures.

With capSpire’s Optimization Platform, you have your cost-saving opportunity. The platform has two tools that lower diversion costs by providing more visibility into supply-chain networks, identifying efficiencies, and improving productivity during turnarounds and throughout the year:

• The simulation tool runs through all the thousands of possible scenarios for moving product within your supply chain and helps you choose the least costly, most practical option. Relying on a manual analysis of this task is time consuming and you could be leaving money on the table.
• Intuitive analytics help you understand what your plan should be and execute that plan successfully.

The figure below illustrates how using the capSpire Optimization Platform to divert supply is superior to attempting a manual diversion. With a manual diversion, the tendency is toward wholesale lease movement; with the platform, there is no guessing game. You know in advance, with a high degree of confidence and precision, details such as which station should receive a specific percentage of leases diversions to save the most money.

Now let’s use a recent case study to demonstrate the money-saving power of the platform. capSpire worked with a client who needed to divert 20% of their truck barrels during a turnaround month. The manual method outlined above resulted in a loss of 27-cents-per-barrel because sub-optimal deals had to be made with four new stations that are not part of the normal network. Using the platform to better inform product-movement decisions, the client reduced losses by 22 cents per barrel—only 5 cents per barrel was lost compared to normal circumstances. This represents a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Refinery turnaround time is coming up again. Now is the time to plan ahead to make sure you save as much money as possible. We encourage you to get started at www.capspire.com/capspire-optimization-platform/ or us at info@capspire.com.