Full crude-to-product yield reconciliation ensuring every barrel of intake is accounted for across all refinery output streams.
All process documentation and equipment recommendations comply with API 660, 661, and applicable refinery design standards.
Average energy reduction through preheat train optimisation and flare gas recovery identified via rigorous H&MB analysis.
Oil Refining
Heat & Mass Balance
Oil refineries process complex hydrocarbon mixtures through crude distillation, cracking, reforming, and treating units — each demanding rigorous heat and mass accounting. Our H&MB analyses model entire refinery process units, reconcile product streams, and identify heat integration and flare gas recovery opportunities to improve margins and meet API standards.
H&MB Challenges
in Oil Refining
Multi-component hydrocarbon systems, high-temperature operations, and strict API requirements demand precision balancing.
Crude Unit Heat Integration
The crude distillation unit processes multi-component feeds with dozens of product and pump-around streams. Accurate heat and mass balances are essential for preheat train design and coil inlet temperature optimisation.
Flare Gas Recovery Modelling
Flare systems receive intermittent gas streams from multiple units. Mass balance modelling quantifies recoverable hydrocarbons and sizes flare gas recovery compressors for economic payback.
Product Stream Reconciliation
Refinery-wide mass balance reconciliation ensures that all crude oil input is accounted for across products, losses, and fuel consumption — critical for yield accounting and economic planning.
High-Temperature Operations
Processes like catalytic cracking and coking operate at extreme temperatures where accurate enthalpy calculations require specialised thermodynamic models for heavy hydrocarbon fractions.
Our 11-Step
Methodology
A systematic approach refined for refinery-scale complexity, meeting API standards throughout.
Initial Meeting with Customer
Engage with the customer in a structured kick-off session to thoroughly understand process requirements, operating constraints, and performance targets.
We define the full project scope, success criteria, and key deliverables while mapping stakeholder expectations. This early alignment ensures that engineering efforts remain focused on the outcomes that matter most to your operation.
Data Gathering
Collect comprehensive plant data including piping and instrumentation diagrams, equipment datasheets, laboratory analyses, and historical operating logs.
We systematically catalogue temperature, pressure, flow rate, composition, and thermophysical property data for every process stream. Missing or uncertain data points are flagged early so that targeted measurements or conservative design assumptions can be applied before modelling begins.
Process Simulation
Utilise industry-standard simulation platforms such as Aspen Plus, HYSYS, or DWSIM to build rigorous steady-state and dynamic models of the process.
Appropriate thermodynamic packages and equation-of-state models are selected to accurately capture phase behaviour and reaction kinetics. The simulation fidelity is directly tied to the quality of input data, and our engineers validate each sub-model against known benchmarks before integrating the full flowsheet.
Data Analysis
Analyse simulation outputs to quantify heat duties, mass transfer rates, energy consumption profiles, and utility demands across every unit operation.
Our engineers perform sensitivity analyses and pinch-point evaluations to expose thermodynamic bottlenecks, excess energy losses, and capacity constraints. The results are benchmarked against industry norms so that improvement opportunities are grounded in measurable performance gaps.
Report & Presentation
Compile findings into a structured technical report with simulation outcomes, heat-recovery opportunities, and prioritised optimisation recommendations.
The report is presented in a collaborative review session where our engineers walk through key findings, risk areas, and cost-benefit trade-offs. Actionable next steps and a preliminary implementation roadmap are agreed upon with the customer before proceeding to detailed design.
Process Flow Diagram (PFD)
Develop a comprehensive Process Flow Diagram capturing all major equipment items, interconnecting streams, control loops, and key operating conditions.
The PFD serves as the single-source-of-truth blueprint from which all heat and mass balance calculations are derived. Stream tables annotated with temperatures, pressures, enthalpies, and flow rates are embedded directly into the diagram, ensuring full traceability between the visual representation and the underlying engineering data.
Mass Balance Calculations
Apply species-level and overall mass balance equations to every unit operation, rigorously accounting for reactions, phase changes, and recycle loops.
Balances are resolved across liquid, gas, and solid phases, with particular attention to trace components that may accumulate in recycles or affect product purity. Closure tolerances are defined per stream, and any discrepancies are systematically reconciled before proceeding to energy calculations.
Energy Balance Calculations
Perform rigorous enthalpy-based energy balances to quantify heating, cooling, and work duties for every unit operation in the flowsheet.
Applying the first law of thermodynamics, we account for sensible heat, latent heat of phase transitions, heats of reaction, and mechanical work inputs. The resulting duty profiles feed directly into utility sizing, heat-exchanger specification, and pinch analysis for maximum energy recovery.
Iteration & Optimisation
Iteratively converge the coupled mass and energy balance equations, then apply parametric optimisation to maximise throughput, yield, or energy efficiency.
Process variables such as reflux ratios, heat-integration networks, recycle split fractions, and equipment capacities are systematically varied to identify the optimal configuration. Each iteration is evaluated against economic and operability constraints to ensure the solution is both technically sound and commercially viable.
Simulation & Validation
Cross-validate the finalised balance calculations against independent simulation runs, plant data, or pilot-scale measurements to confirm accuracy and robustness.
Turndown, upset, and seasonal operating scenarios are modelled to verify that the design performs reliably across its full operating envelope. This proactive validation identifies potential issues — such as fouling, flooding, or thermal stress — before capital is committed, significantly reducing project risk and rework costs.
Reporting & Documentation
Prepare the definitive heat and mass balance package comprising fully documented calculations, assumption registers, stream tables, and equipment duty summaries.
The deliverable set includes an executive summary for decision-makers alongside detailed appendices suitable for FEED or detailed design handover. Recommendations for energy-saving measures, capacity upgrades, and operational improvements are clearly prioritised by impact and implementation effort.
What You
Receive
API-compliant process engineering deliverables for refinery operations.
Process Flow Diagrams
Detailed PFDs for each process unit showing all streams, temperatures, pressures, and flow rates with API-compliant documentation.
Unit Mass Balances
Complete mass balance for each refinery unit — CDU, VDU, FCC, reformer, hydrotreater — with component-level tracking.
Energy Balance & Utility Map
Full energy balance including fired heater duties, exchanger duties, steam generation/consumption, and cooling water requirements.
Yield Reconciliation Report
Overall refinery yield accounting reconciling crude intake against all product streams, fuel gas, and losses.
Flare Recovery Assessment
Mass balance based analysis of flare gas composition, flow rates, and recovery potential with economic evaluation.
Optimisation Roadmap
Prioritised list of process modifications to improve yields, reduce energy consumption, and minimise losses with ROI estimates.
Proven Results
in Oil Refining
Based on H&MB studies across crude oil refineries, gas processing plants, and petrochemical complexes.
Oil Refining
H&MB FAQ
Common questions from refinery operators about our heat and mass balance service.
Ready to
Optimise?
Our refinery specialists deliver API-compliant H&MB analyses that improve yields and reduce operating costs.
- Comprehensive energy & material flow analysis
- Oil Refining-specific process simulation
- Detailed cost-benefit analysis & documentation