ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF USING BIOETHANOL AS AN ADDITIVE TO TARGET HIGH QUALITY UNLEADED MOTOR GASOLINE PRODUCTION IN A NIGERIA REFINERY

Abstract

The study was aimed at estimating the optimum production rate of gasoline (quality and quantity). This was achieved by formulating and minimizing an objective function for the minimum cost of blend using linear programming technique on MATLAB R2015a. The objective function was explored in three areas; effects of bioethanol price changes, changing the percentage of bioethanol added to the gasoline, and possible production rate that can be obtained from the same pool. The Prices (N/bbl), amounts (bbl/day), RON and RVP of all the gasoline pool components (FCC Gasoline, Reformate and Light Naphtha) for the blend to produce 15000 bbl/d of Gasoline with RON of 90 and RVP of 9 psi max were obtained from KRPC. These data were simulated and gave an optimum cost of 23,783N/bbl. To obtain 15000 bbl/d of unleaded Premium Gasoline with RON of 93 and RVP of (8 min-9 max) psi, these data were simulated with Bioethanol (RON 109, RVP 2 and 5% min -10% max) as an additive and it gave 25,796 N/bbl as the optimum cost. The effect of bioethanol price changes revealed that lower prices of bioethanol below actual price of 55,650 N/bbl gave optimum costs below 25,796 N/bbl, while the higher prices above the actual price gave optimum costs above 25,796 N/bbl. The study of bioethanol percentage changes between 3% and 15% showed that 3% and 4% gave lower optimum cost below 25,796 N/bbl, while 6 to 10% gave higher cost above 25,796 N/bbl. The study of production rate of 11000 bbl/d to 17000 bbl/d gave the same optimum cost of 25,796 N/bbl. Bioethanol addition of 12% to 15% and Production rate of 18000 bbl/d to 20000 bbl/d could not be achieved due to unavailability of FCC Gasoline