Main plant item costs

Average main plant item cost x 10 (GBP2000 basis)... 

Figure 14.1 Approximate relationship of Lang factor to average main plant item cost. (Redrawn and updated from de la Mare [45].)...

Equipment or Base Cost The total cost of the main-plant items is generally used as the base cost. Again, care must be taken with equipment costs which may be quoted as installed (INST), delivered to site (DEL), or free on board the delivery vehicle at the place of manufacture or other specified location (FOB). 

Base equipment includes all equipment within the battery limits whose cost is as significant as the cost of a pump. For example, storage tanks, knockout drums, accumulators, heat exchangers, and pumps are classed as main-plant items (MPl). Early in the development of the process-flow diagram, it is advisable to increase the estimated (MPl) cost by 10 to 20 percent to allow for later additions. When the scope of the process has been well defined, (MPl) costs should be increased by 1 to 10 percent. 

Battery-limit costs (range of factors iu percent of basic equipment) average unit cost of main-plant item (MPI)... 

NOTE The average unit cost of the main-plant items is the total cost of the MPI divided by the total number of items. Figures include up to 3 percent for BL outside lighting, which is not covered in building services. 

Both in the paper by Ramshaw and in the report from the UMIST conference, first definitions (or rather descriptions) of process intensification can be found. Ramshaw (11) describes PI as devising an exceedingly compact plant which reduces both the main plant item and the installation s costs, while according to Heggs (12) PI is concerned with order-of-magnitude reductions in process plant and equipment. In one of his subsequent papers, Ramshaw writes about typical equipment volume reduction by two or three orders of magnitude (13). 

Approximate corrections to the base equipment cost of complete, main-plant items for specific materials of construction or extremes of operating pressure and temperature can be applied in the form of factors as shown in Table 16. 

Option 1 Main Plant Items and an Average Cost for Instrument... 

Estimated 15% reduction on capital investment costs for main plant items (MPI). 

Control valves including all materials cost 240000 for the number of main plant items, MPI, = 75 with n = 1.2 for the range 15-400. Alloy cost factor c/s X 1.00 chrome/moly X 2.4 s/s X 4.2. 

Table 2.1 shows a cost breakdown for a relatively simple plant for anunonium sulphate manufacture. The figures in the table correspond to the proportion of the total capital cost (%) with the 100% total at the foot of the last column. It can be seen that, in order to convert the main plant items (MPI) to a working system, many other cost components are involved, such as piping, support structure, civil engineering and foundations, etc. It is both surprising and significant that piping costs in this case (last column) are almost equivalent to the total MPI cost. In the case of... 

The cost estimates presented here are based on existing technology. This implies that capital-related cost may come down in the future as technology develops. We note, however, that many of the main capital items, from SMR plants to hydrogen compressors, are essentially mature technology, and the scope for further cost reduction is relatively small. The case may be different for forecourt reformers and forecourt electrolyzers, but, as will be elaborated below, the effect thereof is relatively limited. 

Figure 10.4 presents an estimated cost breakdown of desalinated water produced in a typical plant. The main component is, of course, the capital and financial cost, comprised of the cost of the main equipment items feed tanks, pretreatment filtration units, pumps, pressure exchangers and piping, controls, membranes and membranes housing, post-treatment and product tanks. 

Most of the work in the estimating process relies on the application of well-established factors to a basic figure of the cost of all of the main items of the plant, as delivered to the site entrance. This figure has thus to be calculated as accurately as possible, based upon the plant design as available at the time of the estimate. It depends upon the identification and rough sizing of the key process plant items (such as reactors, distillation columns, heat exchangers, and so on), and the determination of approximate delivered prices for these items, from charts and other information published in textbooks, journals and on the internet. 

Capital-related costs The capital costs are determined mainly by the required membrane area for a certain plant capacity and feed and required product concentration. Other items such as pumps and process control equipment are considered as a fraction ofthe required membrane area. This fraction depends on the plant capacity. The same is true for the required land that also depends on the location of the plant. 

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