Exxon 2009 Annual Report Download - page 32

business cycle, reflected by our divestments of selected
refineries and logistics assets over the past decade. Our
capital investment program includes projects to produce
higher-value products and chemical feedstocks, process
lower-cost raw materials, lower operating costs, meet
new product quality requirements and demands, reduce
environmental impact, and further upgrade safety systems.
In 2009, ExxonMobil and our partners started up new
facilities that tripled the size of our joint venture refinery in
Fujian Province, China, and a new joint venture condensate
refinery in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar, to meet the
growing demand for products in Asia Pacific and the Middle
East. In addition, we started construction at our Baton
Rouge, Louisiana; Baytown, Texas; and Antwerp, Belgium,
refineries on projects to increase lower-sulfur diesel fuel
by 50 percent, or approximately 6 million gallons per day,
representing a total investment of over $1 billion.
Increasing Margins
We improve margins by focusing on three key areas:
economically growing production, reducing raw material
costs, and improving product yields.
We strive to increase production by maximizing the economic
utilization of our existing refining capacity. We focus on
improving reliability, identifying and eliminating operating
constraints, optimizing planned maintenance and intervals
between planned downtimes, and expanding market outlets.
We also selectively invest in capacity expansions and
debottlenecks.
We continue to increase operational flexibility to allow us to
reduce raw material costs. For example, ExxonMobil is an
industry leader in processing challenged crudes, running
about twice as much as industry on a percentage basis.
These crudes are typically discounted in the marketplace
because they have properties such as acid corrosivity,
high nitrogen content, and other impurities that make
them difficult to handle or process. Since 2004, we
have increased challenged crudes processing by over
50 percent.
Our Molecule Management technology enables us to more
precisely select and blend crudes and feedstocks with
properties that will maximize yields and margins throughout
our operating facilities. Our process models enable us to
optimize, at a molecular level, the entire manufacturing
site as well as individual process unit operations on a
real-time basis to increase the yields and blending of
higher-value products.
Improving Operating Efficiency
Worldwide cash operating costs at our refineries are
substantially below the industry average, as confirmed by
external benchmarking. Our average cash operating costs
have been within the first quartile of individual refineries
since 2004, and we continue to widen our operating cost
advantage. We achieve industry-leading cost performance
by reducing energy use and leveraging our scale and
integration as well as our leading-edge technology to
produce cost efficiencies.
Improved energy efficiency is a key contributor to our cost
performance, and we have consistently outpaced industry
in this area. ExxonMobil’s proprietary Global Energy
Management System (GEMS) focuses on opportunities that
reduce the energy consumed at our refineries and chemical
plants. Savings equal to 15 to 20 percent of the energy
consumed at our manufacturing sites have been identified
to date using GEMS. Through 2009, we have captured
over 60 percent of these savings.
We continue to make significant investments in cogeneration
facilities that simultaneously produce electricity and useful
heat or steam. With the latest technology, cogeneration
is significantly more efficient than traditional methods of
producing steam and power separately and also results in
lower emissions. In 2009, we completed commissioning
of a 125-megawatt unit in Antwerp, Belgium, and started up
a 250-megawatt facility in Fujian Province, China.
New facilities to increase production of lower-sulfur diesel
were installed at our Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery, which
celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009.
EXXON฀MOBIL฀CORPORATION฀ •฀ 2009฀SUMMARY฀ANNUAL฀REPORT 29