Process and ChemicalArtificial Intelligence in Refining Operations
Refineries generate enormous quantities of process data and have used models for decades, which makes them a genuine rather than speculative application for machine learning, and also one where a wrong output has physical consequences. This course covers the realistic uses. Delegates work through soft sensors and inferential property prediction, predictive maintenance on rotating and fired equipment, yield and blend optimisation, and anomaly detection on process data. Model validation is treated seriously, since a model informing an operating decision must be defensible. The course covers the operator interface question of trust and override, and closes on evaluating a vendor proposal against refinery reality.
Course objectives
- Identify the refining applications where these methods genuinely help
- Build and validate soft sensors for inferential property prediction
- Apply predictive maintenance to rotating and fired equipment
- Use anomaly detection on process data and triage the output
- Support yield and blend optimisation with models
- Validate a model whose output informs an operating decision
- Design the operator interface for trust and override
Who should attend
- Refinery process and technical services engineers
- Advanced process control engineers
- Data and analytics staff in refining
- Reliability and maintenance engineers
- Operations managers evaluating investment
Course outline
- 01Why refining is a genuine application
- 02Soft sensors and inferential properties
- 03Predictive maintenance on critical equipment
- 04Anomaly detection and triage
- 05Yield and blend optimisation
- 06Model validation for operating decisions
- 07Operator trust, interface and override
- 08Evaluating a vendor proposal
Scheduled sessions
| Dates | Venue | Format | Price | Register |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 November to 4 December 2026 | Online | Online | R8,500 per delegate | Register Now |
| 25 to 29 January 2027 | Durban, South Africa | Classroom | R19,950 per delegate | Register Now |
| 8 to 12 February 2027 | Windhoek, Namibia | Classroom | R19,950 per delegate | Register Now |
| 15 to 19 February 2027 | Kigali, Rwanda | Classroom | USD 1,325 per delegate | Register Now |