Revolutionising the downstream
Industrial AI will allow plants to reach their autonomous potential
Reactiveness, resilience and reliability are becoming increasingly important in the refining industry. As a result of fluctuating pricing and demand, the safety, logistics, environmental impact and economics of new scenarios must be analysed daily. Sustaining stable operations and improving competitive advantage will come down to reacting as quickly as possible to real-time analysis while factoring in resilience and reliability. The ultimate vision for the industry is the self-optimising, autonomous plant—and the increasing deployment of AI across the sector is bringing this closer to reality. However, while refining has been an early adopter of many digital tools, the industry has yet to fu
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