KBC, the business improvement company for the energy and chemical industry, announced a solution for integrated engineering design, optimisation, cost estimation and cost management, involving interoperability of two market-leading software products: Cleopatra Enterprise from Cost Engineering and Petro-SIM from KBC.
Cleopatra Enterprise is a comprehensive project cost management solution. It offers the tools needed for the full project life cycle for estimating, budgeting, planning, cost control and benchmarking of technical projects, and complex, time-driven, turnarounds.
Petro-SIM is the leading rigorous steady-state and dynamic process simulation and optimisation software platform for hydrocarbon processes. Its open platform architecture promotes exceptional levels of integration and collaboration among project teams. It supports the full process life cycle, from design and operations through performance optimisation and stewardship, reducing capital and operating expenses.
The combined solution is applicable to upstream oil and gas production, NGL (natural gas liquids) processing, natural gas liquefaction, oil refining and petrochemicals operations. As well as economic optimisation of the process operation by Petro-SIM, the addition of Cleopatra Enterprise provides the capability to generate cost estimates with each iteration of the simulation, increasing project efficiencies.
Cost Engineering CEO Christiaan des Bouvrie said: “In the energy and chemical industry, assets need to be designed and optimised for maximum safety, reliability and profitability. During the conceptual, front-end engineering and design and operations stages of projects, optimal process configurations need to be evaluated in an efficient manner. An exercise which involves intimate iteration between process configuration and cost estimation and management.
“Our customers demand data-driven engineering, and a key step involves integrating process engineering and cost engineering disciplines through a common simulation environment where data interchange is effortless. We are very pleased to deliver a solution to this challenge with KBC.”
Through this strategic partnership, KBC now offers Cleopatra Enterprise as a component of its Petro-SIM simulation portfolio. Full interoperability between Petro-SIM and Cleopatra Enterprise will be available in Petro-SIM 7 which is expected by the end of 2018.
KBC CEO Andy Howell said: “KBC has invested heavily in Petro-SIM’s unique database architecture and functionality to address the design and engineering-related challenges of today, including project cost management.
“KBC and Cost Engineering share many mutual customers, and the market has been calling for a tighter integration of our two products. With the partnership we are announcing today, we plan to more fully embed Cleopatra Enterprise within Petro-SIM to take a huge step to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of process engineers, cost estimators and project controllers, while continuing to deliver on the KBC promise of operational excellence.”