Cost estimates, plant Accounting

Pressure drop, chart, 102, 103, 111 Computer aided drafting, 17 Condensate, flashing flow, 135-142, 147 Charts, 142, 143 Control valve pressure drop, 90 Calculations, 90-96 Cost estimates, plant, 45-49 Accounting, 48... 

Domestic. Estimates of U.S. uranium resources for reasonably assured resources, estimated additional resources, and speculative resources at costs of 80, 130, and 260/kg of uranium are given in Table 1 (18). These estimates include only conventional uranium resources, which principally include sandstone deposits of the Colorado Plateaus, the Wyoming basins, and the Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas. Marine phosphorite deposits in central Elorida, the western United States, and other areas contain low grade uranium having 30—150 ppm U that can be recovered as a by-product from wet-process phosphoric acid. Because of relatively low uranium prices, on the order of 20.67/kg U (19), in situ leach and by-product plants accounted for 76% of total uranium production in 1992 (20). 

The allocation of home office expenses shows up in this category. It has been argued that home office expenses do not increase with the addition of a new plant or unit. Hov/ever, a full allocation of home office overhead should be made for each study, since old units are phasing out or losing profitability. The new units must carry their share. Further, as discussed next in the section on Economics, each new unit must stand on its own and contribute to the overall company s profitability. The cost of yield clerks, plant accountants, plant personnel representatives, plant transportation department personnel, etc., must be estimated and included here. 

If Plant 5 in Table 9-5 is ignored, the cost estimates of Example 9-3 and those for the three other plants of Table 9-5 built in the late 1960s are within 17% of the average 16,400,000. This is very good for this type of estimate, since this method does not take into account any differences in the scope. It assumes everything is similar, which is obviously false. This is why this method cannot be expected to provide anything better than a ballpark estimate. 

The ratio method is a simple technique whereby known capital cost data for an existing chemical plant are adjusted to provide a cost estimate for the desired plant capacity. This method is also able to update figures to account for inflationary effects of past years. Finally the capital cost figure is adjusted for exchange rate differences between countries. The method is centred around the use of key cost estimation indices such as the CE Plant Cost Index and the Marshall and Stevens (M S) Index. 

In the simplest form, cost accounting is the determination and analysis of the cost of producing a product or rendering a service. This is exactly what the designer engineer does when estimating costs for a particular plant or process, and cost estimation is one type of cost accounting. 

Capital cost estimates for the H2 system are presented in Table 2. The PV power plant is the largest capital component. With 10% efficient PV modules, the PV power plant accounts for 59% of total capital investments. With cost reductions achieved by PV module efficiency gains, the proportion of capital for 14% efficient PV modules is reduced to 51%. The second largest capital investment component is the electrolysis plant. The electrolysis plant accounts for 18 22% of total capital for... 

The money spent to acquire capital equipment and facilities used in research (referred to as capital expenditures) sometimes is not allocated to project-level management cost accounts. How companies allocated these expenses to specific NCEs for the purpose of the survey is unknown. If a responding company estimated only direct expenditures in its clinical period R D, but included R D capital expenditures in its total R D expenditures, the costs in the clinical period would be underestimated, but the ratio of preclin-ical period costs to total R D costs would be overestimated. Because clinical period costs occur later, the total capitalized cost would appear higher using this method. On the other hand, plant and equipment costs are always accounted for with depreciation formulas, which spread costs out for a number of years subsequent to the actual capital expenditure. 19 Because a proper cost estimate should be based on actual cash outlays, the delay in accounting for capital costs will skew expenditures toward the end of the period and will cause the total costs of R D capitalized to the point of market introduction to be underestimated. 

Ammonia is the principal component in the fertilizer production. The world ammonia capacity for 1995-1996 is estimated at 123,640,000 tons of nitrogen per year [70], Ammonia plants are high energy consumers, and selection of the feedstocks is the most important factor in determining the capital investment and production costs. The availability and cost of raw materials are factors to be taken into account when deciding on the construction of a new ammonia plant. The primary feedstocks for ammonia production include natural gas, naphtha, heavy residual oil, coke gas, and coal. Of all these feedstocks, natural gas is the raw material of choice when available because it ensures minimum investment and production costs, a plant that is easy to operate, and minimal environmental problems. Therefore, steam reforming of natural gas has become the most widespread process for ammonia production. 

The cost of utilities will show considerable variation so that a check in established rates at the plant location site will be necessary for accurate 30st accounting. FtV preconstruction cost estimating, the rates shown in Tables 6-11 and 6-13 will suffice. A brief discussion of the most important utilities follows with a more adequate coverage included in Chap. 7. 

The total installed cost for the air-based plant is nearly 50% greater than for an oxygen-based plant. The capital cost for an air separation unit is not included in the estimate for the oxygen-based process. It is assumed that oxygen is purchased over the fence as a raw material and the cost is accounted for in the production cost estimate as the cost of feedstock. 

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