Cost estimation operating costs

The rules of thumb refer to capital cost estimation, operating cost estimation, financial attractiveness and financial reports. 

The cost of utilities is one of the most significant, yet difficult chores encountered in estimating operating costs. As discussed earlier, the amount of utilities required for both the process and the offsite areas must be estimated as accurately as possible. If utilities are generated in the project, the utilities required to operate the utility area must be included. Any increase in the project requires re-estiraating the utilities consumed in the utility area. This can result in a trial and error calculation to get the total cost of utilities. 

Estimating Operating Costs from Similar Plants... 

Several rules of thumb have been developed for estimating operating costs. For instance, Grumer (Reference 3) suggests that the raw material costs can be estimated as a percentage of the sales price of the finished product. Correlations have been made that indicate the overall operating costs can be related to the lbs of products, i.e., the total operating costs are a constant cents/lb of finished product. This obviously will work only when history can be used to get the recent cost on a similar plant. 

Estimated operating cost (BuMines liquefaction of waste)... 

The estimated operating costs were 6510/m of treated waste. This estimate inclnded binder costs of 85 cents per pound the labor costs eqnivalent to 4 fnll-time technicians at 70 per honr and the cost of the 55-gal barrels at 100 per barrel nsed to mix, cnre, store, and dispose of the waste. The operating costs of the baseline cement stabilization process are lower at 4300/m of treated waste (D20934H, p. 15). 

The vendor states that SPI Division can assist potential customers by providing cost modeling services based on factors listed to identify estimated operating cost, processing rate, and emission prediction. 

TABLE 1 Vendor-Estimated Operating Cost of BioTrol Biological Aqueous Treatment System per 1000 Gal (3785 liters)... 

TABLE 2 Estimated Operating Cost for DC Graphite Arc Furnace System ... 

Estimated Operating Costs for HRUBOUT Process Using Dump or Auger... 

Estimated operating costs include electricity, propane, labor, overhead, insurance, and depreciation (3 years). 

For ROPE applications to tar sand mining, economic projections were published for capital costs and operating costs. Total capital costs were estimated at 53,336,000 and annual operating costs were estimated at 9,683,000. For the estimation of capital costs, direct field cost was estimated at 35,558,000. Other capital costs were based on percentages of that estimate. These cost estimates were based on mid-1989 dollars (D13089C, pp. 242-243). 

According to information supplied by the vendor in 1996 (during phase 2 testing), the estimated operational cost was 0.72/ft. This amount included waste disposal (D15497W, p. 2). 

TABLE 1 Vendor-Estimated Operational Costs for a 20-yd /hr Soil Washing System... 

Table 4.7 Estimated operating costs for 6-APA production. March 1983 cost basis US. ...

In the daily production routine, both enzyme costs and operating costs play decisive roles. In addition, the amount of production is likely to be adapted to demand the load for the product, here HFCS, so that at high demand the optimal production temperature is higher than at lower demand. From Figure 19.9 it becomes apparent how optimal operating times and temperatures can be estimated if the operating costs of a column as well as the costs for the immobilized enzyme... 

Estimated installed capital costs are shown in Table III and estimated operating costs are given in Figure 5 and Table IV for the production of hydrogen from heavy fuel oil by use of the SGP and Sulfinol units along with CO-Shift, C02-Removal and Methanation units. The design bases for the process economics case are described below. 

In addition to investment costs, ongoing operational costs will divert your innovation s revenue stream. Use pro forma operations specs (Exhibit 11.4) to identify and estimate overhead costs. 

After compiling the estimated operational costs, update the income statement (Exhibit 11.5) to see if your initial profit projections are still on target. For our coffee shop example, total costs will likely be less than predicted on the reverse income statement, which increases the amount of projected profit. Of course, had the pro forma operation specs predicted higher costs than the initial estimate. Pikes Peak Coffee would need to either reduce costs or increase revenue projections. 

Historical data on disposal costs are often inadequate for estimating operating costs for a new unit, since environmental laws have changed extensively. In the early stages of planning for a plant, many of the trace impurities and their disposal problems may not be defined, especially for a first of a kind unit. Every effort should be made to define the waste products and their compositions. The operating costs for the ultimate disposal of every waste stream must be estimated. If not enough is known, then an allowance for the costs of the most expensive disposal method must be included. 

Table 6.3. Estimated operating costs for various hydrogen plants (adapted from [6.11]).

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