Gazpromneft bitumen. Bituminous materials from Gazprom Neft are in demand abroad
We would like to thank the editors of the Siberian Oil corporate magazine of PJSC Gazprom Neft for providing this material.
Understanding what the future of almost any customer service looks like is very simple using the example of the already household name Uber and its followers. A digital platform instead of cumbersome dispatch centers, private drivers instead of an army of hired taxi drivers - the cost reduction has turned out to be so drastic that only premium companies can resist online taxis today.
Uberization is a vivid example of how digital technologies are changing our lives, making it cheaper and more convenient. A couple of manipulations in the smartphone, and we get the car within a few minutes, and we know in advance which car we will drive, when it arrives, how much the trip will cost. In turn, the driver does not need to keep in mind the location of all the streets and lanes, because there are navigators that lay the best routes. And what kind of car to send to which client is decided by artificial intelligence, based on the fact that the service must be provided as quickly as possible - and at the same time get the most profit for the company. The ideal business model: minimum costs with high efficiency. Not surprisingly, uberization is taking over a wide variety of businesses today. Gazpromneft-Bitumennye Materialy (Gazpromneft-BM) is also planning to build its relationships with customers on the same principle. Although everything is much more complicated here, because it is planned to include the stage of not only transportation, but also production in the digital model of the bitumen business.
From the client’s point of view, the principle of operation of the bituminous Uber will not differ much from the usual Uber. A convenient web interface allows you to select the desired product and place an order from anywhere in the world where you have Internet access, indicating at what time and in what volume bitumen is needed. At the same time, of course, the customer will have access to information confirming the quality of the shipped products, he will be able to track the movement of the ordered batch in real time. In general, nothing supernatural, we have long been accustomed to all this. Moreover, today almost all of this can be done online in the personal account of the Gazprom Neft-BM counterparty. In it, you can send an application, view the quality certificate of a particular batch of any product, track the fact of shipment, and conduct financial calculations. Customers have become more comfortable, but the efficiency of the bitumen business itself has not been affected by such a partial transfer of customer relationships to digital mode. After all, applications are still processed manually, the appointment of carriers and the production site from which products are shipped is not always optimal, since the process of their selection is also not automated, shipment and delivery of products to the consumer are not protected from the influence of the human factor. No, we are not talking about the fact that the bitumen business of Gazprom Neft is inefficient, otherwise the company would not be among the industry leaders. However, the potential for improvement is impressive, and the key to increasing efficiency is digital technology.
“Our goal is to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of processes,” Vyacheslav Sundukov, head of the information technology department at Gazpromneft-Bitumen Materials, confirmed. — We are restructuring our business process so that the system actually processes information on the fly. It will itself calculate which assets have what volumes of which product, how to optimally distribute shipments, at what time the car should leave, by what route and after what time it will arrive at the consumer, as well as a host of other parameters. That is, we are talking about creating an eco-environment of interaction with a software platform at the heart - this is a toolkit that will allow all partners to build communications and processes in a new, highest quality model. The client will receive the right product at exactly the right time, the carrier will minimize downtime and increase the utilization of vehicles, and for us this delivery will be more efficient in terms of planning and more profitable, taking into account the development of long-term relationships with partners.”
Dmitry Orlov, CEO of Gazpromneft-Bitumen Materials:
The bitumen business of Gazprom Neft is ready to make a technological revolution in a fairly conservative sector of the economy. Already implemented projects, such as passportization, the Personal Account service, and completely new programs: Digital Factory, Smart Logistics, Digital Technologist, will become the basis for digital transformation. The result of building a modern digital architecture will be to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency. In essence, we are talking about creating a single information space that will unite all production assets and allow us to provide our customers with advanced tools and services.
However, it will not be possible to confine oneself to the development of the software part. If we take as an example one of the most, at first glance, simple elements of the logistics scheme - the movement of a single bitumen truck - then here the task is much more complicated than it seems. In order to build the optimal route and strictly follow the traffic schedule, it is important to know everything down to the smallest detail: when the car arrived at the factory, what checkpoint it passed through, how quickly it drove to the loading stand, what load was at the loading stand at that moment, what the actual volume was loaded into the tank when the car left the checkpoint. And this is only a small segment of the path of just one car. Modern tools allow not only tracking, but also calculating the full path of vehicles from the moment of appointment to unloading. However, for this it is necessary to use a huge set of electronic devices that make it possible to evaluate the state of a particular process at any given time. That is, we are talking about the introduction of automated monitoring systems in all areas of the logistics scheme.
The launch of Smart Logistics will have a positive impact on the efficiency of the company, but only the creation of a single digital complex in which all business processes will be connected into a single whole will allow reaching a truly qualitatively new level. Therefore, Gazpromneft-BM is now actively implementing Industry 4.0 technologies in the production segment as well.
Digital model for real-time management of the supply of bituminous materials with the determination of the optimal point of shipment and transport ( enlarge image)
If the example of a taxi is clear to everyone, then the robot factory is still an idea more from science fiction series than from reality. Of course, there are already separate projects for the creation of smart factories that operate with little or no human intervention, but they are all implemented far from the borders of Russia and mainly in high-tech industries, such as the electronics industry. Gazprom Neft, on the other hand, decided to robotize bitumen production, which, in fact, can be considered a mini-copy of a refinery, but with less complex processes and technological risks. The company's specialists considered this an advantage that could become a driver of digital transformation, its starting point. Bitumen plants do not have super complex installations, there are much fewer technological processes and connections, but at the same time, the scheme is absolutely the same: the setting of production processes depends on the parameters of the incoming raw materials, and the optimal operation of the installations, in turn, affects both production efficiency and the quality of the finished product. So for the entire oil company, this is an opportunity to gain experience in the integrated implementation of digital production. And at the same time, the successful implementation of a unique project will provide an important line of business with additional competitiveness. “Today, there is no system that was originally designed for the full production cycle - from the receipt of raw materials to the sale of finished products - it is always a set of separate ready-made solutions that need to be linked. And the lack of a single platform, reliable and secure integration mechanisms leads to compromise solutions that poorly meet the needs of the business,” explained Vyacheslav Sundukov, head of the information technology department at Gazpromneft-BM. — In addition, the number of Russian solutions in this area is extremely small. So, when implementing the project, we are, by and large, responding to the demand of the industry and the market as a whole.”
Gazprom Neft decided to create a pilot digital plant on the basis of one of the assets of Gazprom Neft - Bituminous Materials. The bitumen business has separate production sites with a full production cycle, while remote from the location of the management office, which means that they require closer attention to control systems. At the first stage, the production asset must acquire an automated process control system (APCS) built on Russian solutions and software. On the second - a production management system that will combine all the flows of a production asset: the receipt of raw materials, its movement, storage, processing, product output, warehousing and shipment. When building this system, the technology of digital twins will become the basis: a virtual twin of all processes of the bitumen enterprise is created at the plant.
To create duplicates of production objects, data is used that is accumulated at the MES level. They are processed and loaded into a virtual environment, and the model created in this way can project changes in technological parameters onto the current situation. For example, an enterprise receives raw materials that differ in their characteristics from the standard. The system, after analyzing these deviations and simulating the result of their influence on the existing technological process, gives recommendations to the operator or, if there have already been similar cases, independently corrects the operating mode of the installation in order to obtain products with the specified parameters at the output. That is, we are talking not only about facilitating the work of the operator, leveling human errors, but also about creating a fully automatic scheme of work in the foreseeable future.
At the same time, one of the features of the system being created at the bitumen plant is its microservice architecture, in which each process is isolated and manages a small functional block, and the overall effect is achieved by connecting these blocks within a single platform.
Automation of a production asset based on modern technological solutions. The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to form a unified decision support system ( enlarge image)
Over the four years of operation as an independent subsidiary of Gazpromneft-Bitumen Materials, we have built an effective management of production sites, ensuring high competitiveness in the market and the production of high-quality products. However, the involvement of artificial intelligence in the process of creating qualitatively new binders provides additional opportunities for business development. The implementation of the Digital Technologist project involves the construction of a mathematical model that will look for a correlation between the characteristics of raw materials and finished products based on the analysis of a large amount of statistical information and, using the data obtained, create new recipes that surpass all existing ones in terms of characteristics.
“But this is only a part of the reservoir that we are opening as part of this project,” said Vyacheslav Sundukov. — Bitumen is unique in its physical and chemical properties. Modern means of measuring density or mass only work when it is in a static state. So, we can find out the characteristics of the finished product only after laboratory tests. This is costly in terms of time and resources. We are testing technologies that, on the one hand, accumulate the parameters of finished products, accumulate them, on the other hand, analyze the entire process of binder production and give out future quality characteristics of the product, comparing the obtained parameters with the accumulated basis. That is, we are talking about machine learning. And as a result - building a system that will give the characteristics of the finished product online."
The basis for the implementation of this project was the Ryazan Bitumen Materials Plant (RZBM) - it is here that production statistics are collected and accumulated. At the RZBM site, the production of new products will be mastered, the formula of which will be found by artificial intelligence. And the think tank for creating and training the Digital Technologist is the Gazpromneft-BM Research Center, which is located right here in Ryazan.
An analytical system for predicting and optimizing the quality of bituminous materials based on digital twins with the possibility of self-learning ( enlarge image)
digital union
Despite the fact that the digital projects of Gazprom Neft’s bitumen business look quite futuristic, all of them have defined criteria for success, and their implementation period does not fall into the “someday” category.
“We try to develop solutions as quickly as possible and do it consistently to start generating profit for the business. Therefore, we do not have a goal to release everything at once, we use release schemes, issue parts of IT solutions that can independently create added value,” said Vyacheslav Sundukov. The first releases are almost ready, and Gazpromneft-BM plans to get noticeable results before the end of 2018. In many respects, such efficiency and efficiency is due to the fact that each of the projects the company implements together with partners who have the status of the most advanced and qualified in Russia. "Digital Technologist" is created together with "Yandex", "Digital Plant" - with the company "Cifra", which is part of the Renova group, "Smart Logistics" - with "Mail.Ru Group". Such a combination of the technological leader of the Russian bitumen market with the leaders of the domestic digital technology market will ensure the creation of innovative platforms for business development at a new level. Moreover, Gazprom Neft is not going to be limited to the implementation of all these projects separately. They should become elements of a single digital platform for the company's bitumen business. The general logic of the scheme is as follows: the "Digital Technologist" selects the recipe based on the characteristics of the raw materials, transfers the necessary information to the "Digital Plant", which adjusts the technological mode in accordance with these data. Further, the Digital Factory issues products with the specified characteristics to Smart Logistics, which manages shipments, product delivery and supplies the system with information about orders, with the help of which production plans are formed and statistics are collected to predict demand. Moreover, it is planned that the perimeter of this system will include not only Gazprom Neft's own enterprises, but also third-party ones: processing sites, transport companies.
The successful experience gained in the framework of bitumen digital projects will be used in the digitalization of large refineries, and the bitumen business digital platform will help create a single digital platform for refining and marketing logistics, which will also have a microservice architecture. Actually, this is the comprehensive digital transformation that Gazprom Neft was the first to launch in the industry.
Text: Sergey Orlov, Photo: Dmitry Voroshirin
Gazprom Neft Bitumen Materials, the operator of Gazprom Neft's bitumen business, has acquired a high-tech production and logistics terminal (TA Bitumen Group of Companies) in the city of Salsk, Rostov Region. The new asset will become an important element of the logistics system being built by the company to provide the southern regions of Russia with innovative bitumen products.
The terminal's infrastructure allows for the transshipment of up to 140,000 tons of bituminous binders annually. The tank farm provides a one-time storage of about 30 thousand tons of finished products. The technological scheme of the new facility includes a plant for the production of polymer-bitumen binders (PBB) with a capacity of 300 tons per day, a packing site (up to 200 tons/day), an automated loading point for vehicles (up to 2000 tons/day) and a railway overpass for loading packaged bitumen and loading and unloading of railway tanks. Raw materials will be supplied from the Gazprom Neft Moscow Refinery, where one of the most technologically advanced bitumen production complexes in Russia is located.
The production unit of the Gazprom Neft bitumen terminal in Salsk is fully automated and complies with international industrial and environmental safety requirements. Having our own laboratory allows us to carry out comprehensive quality control of raw materials and finished products at all stages of production.
Gazprom Neft is comprehensively developing the bitumen business by providing a full range of related services: multimodal logistics, optimal packaging solutions, technical and scientific support for the use of bitumen materials, and IT services. The creation of our own terminal network will strengthen the company's leading position in the bitumen market and expand the geography of deliveries of modern and high-quality products,” said Anatoly Cherner, Deputy General Director for Logistics, Processing and Sales of PJSC Gazprom Neft.
The Southern Federal District is a target region for Gazprom Neft to expand the geography of deliveries of the company's bitumen products. In 2016-2017 agreements were signed with the governments of the Rostov Region, Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories on the development of cooperation in meeting the needs of the regions in high-tech bitumen and bitumen-derived products produced by Gazprom Neft for the construction and reconstruction of roads. In 2017, the volume of deliveries of the company's bituminous materials to counterparties in the southern regions of Russia doubled compared to 2016.
REFERENCE:
Group of companies "TA Bitumen" is the market leader in the distribution of bituminous materials in Russia. The company's business includes the direction of the sale and logistics of bitumen materials, the design, construction and direct operation of bitumen terminals.
Gazpromneft-Bitumen Materials - a subsidiary of Gazprom Neft, specializing in the production and sale of bitumen products. Today the company occupies a leading position in the bitumen market of Russia. The volume of sales of bitumen products by Gazpromneft-BM in 2017 amounted to 2.3 million tons.
Production facilities are located in Moscow, Vyazma, Omsk, Yaroslavl and Ryazan regions, as well as in Kazakhstan and Serbia. The company produces road, construction and roofing bitumen, polymer-bitumen binders (PBV), polymer-modified bitumen, bitumen-derived products (mastics, sealants, joint tapes, etc.). All Gazprom Neft bituminous materials comply with Russian and international quality standards.
The bitumen plant of the Gazprom Neft Moscow Refinery is the largest site for the production of binders in Russia. In 2012, as part of a large-scale modernization of the Moscow Refinery, a bitumen plant was reconstructed, thanks to which the complex became one of the most high-tech and largest in Europe in terms of output: the potential capacity is up to 1.7 million tons of bitumen per year.
Gazprom Neft has a good chance of becoming a significant player in even the most demanding and competitive bitumen markets in the world. New opportunities have emerged with the development of the production of high-tech bituminous materials.
world needs
The capacity of the global bitumen market today is just over 100 million tons, while the growth potential is quite high. According to experts, the global demand for bitumen will reach 106 million tons by 2016, 116 million tons by 2018, and 120 million tons by 2020. The main centers of consumption are traditional in the current economic situation for almost any industry: about a third of them are in the countries of the Asia-Pacific region (primarily China and India), the same is in the countries of North America. Of the remaining third, Europe consumes most of the bitumen, with the Middle East and Africa also among the major markets, and these are growing regions. As for production, the United States produces the largest volume of oil bitumen - more than 38 million tons per year; for comparison: in Russia, according to the results of 2014, it was only 5.4 million tons per year. However, despite such a serious scale of bitumen production in Russia (of which 4.9 million tons are road bitumen), most of the production goes to the domestic market.
As for exports, from countries outside the post-Soviet space, the flow of Russian bitumen exports actively passed only through Mongolia (10%). Europe is an attractive market, but the competition is extremely high, and there are enough local producers here: the countries of the Old World account for 17% of the world bitumen production. Until recently, the states of the Asia-Pacific region were practically absent on the map of Russian bitumen supplies. However, neither European nor Asian markets are closed to Russian bitumen producers: there is an obvious potential in the supply of high-tech products, primarily polymer-bitumen binders (PMB).
In Europe, the use of modified bitumen averages 10% of the road material, in the USA and China this figure is higher: the share of PMB in the volume of bitumen binders for road construction is 15%. In Russia, this figure does not yet exceed 3%, but for the Russian market this is a significant progress: from 2009 to 2014, the volume of PMB production in the Russian Federation increased seven times - up to 148 thousand tons.
For all these five years, Gazprom Neft has acted (and continues to act) as one of the main drivers of the development of the modified bitumen segment on the Russian market. The construction of a PMB and bitumen emulsion unit at the Omsk Refinery, the acquisition of the Ryazan Pilot Plant for Petrochemical Products, the launch of joint production with TOTAL at the Moscow Oil Refinery - all this made the company a leader in the Russian PMB market in 2014. At the same time, the emergence of centers for the production of high-tech products in areas convenient for exporting them abroad created obvious prerequisites for export. The most convenient logistics routes are organized to the countries of Europe and Central Asia.
Overseas prospects
The first steps in the implementation of the export strategy were taken by Gazprom Neft Bitumen Materials to the Central Asian markets: to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, that is, the directions traditional for Russian bitumen producers were worked out, including with a high-tech product - PBB.
Unlike the Asian direction, the Central European market today is characterized by both a large number of players and high demand. At the same time, local producers in local markets maintain a fairly high level of prices for bitumen products, so consumers are open for cooperation and are actively looking for new partners themselves. True, the requirements for the quality of bituminous materials from European road builders are also quite stringent.
However, the quality of Gazprom Neft products is in no way inferior to European counterparts. For example, the production of high-tech bituminous materials from the Ryazan plant meets European standards and has successfully passed EN certification. As part of the development of promising European directions, the first test batches of polymer-bitumen binders were sent to the Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, Estonia, and Turkey. And the results are already there.
Based on the tests of Russian-made binder, conducted in the Czech Republic by specialists from one of the leading construction holdings in Europe - the Strabag construction concern and state laboratories, since the beginning of 2015, regular deliveries of PBV-60 have been organized.
In Italy, Technonicol Italia, one of the largest European manufacturers of roofing and waterproofing materials, became the first client of Gazpromneft-Bitumen Materials. Cooperation with Technonicol Italia is a continuation of work with the TechnoNikol holding, with whose Russian representative office Gazpromneft-BM has been closely cooperating for several years and has established itself as a reliable supplier of high-quality bitumen materials. Russian modified bitumen, produced for Italians according to a special recipe, will be used in the production of bitumen-polymer roll materials for industrial and low-rise construction.
Another potential and interesting consumer of Russian PMB is Türkiye. The Turkish certifying laboratory has already issued a conclusion on the compliance of the binder production of Gazpromneft-BM with national standards.
Successful localization
Work on foreign markets is possible not only through deliveries from Russian factories. Another effective expansion tool is localization through the construction or purchase of ready-made industries in countries with serious market prospects. It was this approach that allowed Gazprom Neft to preserve the Kazakh market after restricting the import of bitumen from Russia. In early 2013, the company acquired Bitumen Plant LLP in the southern part of the republic, near Shymkent. This is a new modern technological complex, put into operation in 2011 and geographically very conveniently located in terms of proximity to the company's Omsk refinery, that is, its own source of raw materials for the production of bitumen. Thanks to timely localization, today Gazpromneft-Bitumennye Materialy remains a prominent player in the capacious and promising market of Kazakhstan. True, we are not talking about PMB, but about traditional materials. But, according to Dmitry Orlov, Director General of Gazpromneft-BM, modified bitumen also has a future in Kazakhstan: “Thanks to active road construction, premium products on the Kazakh market have great potential. In addition, supply restrictions do not apply to high-tech products, and the first batch of PMB has already been sent to the road workers of Kazakhstan from the Omsk Oil Refinery. When the market for modified bitumen is formed in Kazakhstan, we will consider the issue of organizing production here.”
Logistics opportunities
The organization of bitumen supplies, especially to remote regions, is not only a matter of marketing and quality, for this it is necessary to have a set of modern and efficient logistics solutions in the arsenal. When using traditional types of transportation over long distances, the bitumen cools down, which leads to the need for its numerous warm-ups and, as a result, to a deterioration in quality characteristics. Therefore, the perimeter of the use of a bulk product is limited to tens, a maximum of several hundred kilometers.
Gazpromneft-BM has several technologies for transporting polymeric bitumen over long distances. One of the most convenient packaging options is clovertainers. Moreover, this container is convenient for both producers and consumers, ensuring the smooth operation of asphalt concrete plants: outside the season, bitumen in clovertainers accumulates in several tiers, and then, as necessary, is melted and used for its intended purpose. Depending on the needs and wishes of consumers, the company's capabilities allow the use of other packaging options (such as soft packaging - big bags), which are maximally adapted to European standards and provide convenient delivery by all modes of transport.
In general, the choice of packaging depends on the needs and legal framework of the export destination countries. For example: bitumen is supplied to Italy in big bags to reduce disposal costs.
The base allows
Of course, the strategic focus of the bitumen segment of Gazprom Neft on the domestic market remains. Taking into account the plans for the development of the country's road network, this priority is fully justified. However, interest in Russian bitumen in foreign markets is growing. First of all - in the countries of the post-Soviet space. In the future, it is also possible to enter the markets of the regions of countries with actively developing economies, such as the market of the Asia-Pacific region, where bitumen in clovertainers can be shipped by sea. The company is also evaluating the possibility of supplying the Chinese market.
At the same time, deliveries through already established export channels - to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia are no less important. The main goal in Europe is to become as competitive as possible for consumers, to increase volumes, including by involving new countries in the supply perimeter, working under long-term contracts. The existing production base of Gazpromneft-BM today allows all this.
Dmitry Orlov, General Director of Gazprom Neft - Bituminous Materials:
The development of the export direction and, first of all, the export of PBB indicates that the quality of bitumen products manufactured at our facilities is not inferior in quality to analogues widely used abroad. To achieve the targets set by Gazprom Neft’s long-term bitumen business strategy until 2025, we plan to further improve production technologies and formulations of our materials, as well as the quality of service provided to our partners both in Russia and abroad.