Price Sensitivity

In the price sensitivity workflow, you vary the price of one or more products from your refinery and see how this influences the amount of crudes purchased.

1. Review base blend

   On the Base Blend page, make sure that all the crudes you want to include in the base blend have the Active check box selected. Do not lock solutions: If any solutions are locked (padlock icon in the Parent Case Solution cell) select them and click Unlock Solution in the Behaviour group of the Home ribbon tab.

   You can retain, create, or deactivate constraints (in the Min, Max and Fixed columns) according to your requirements.

   

2. Review candidates

   You can define one or more candidates on this page. Candidates will be added to the base blend either separately or together, depending on whether they are assigned to different groups.

   

3. Set up sensitivity scenarios

   Open the Sensitivity page and click on Add Items in the Sensitivity group of the Home ribbon tab. Add any products you want to vary the prices of.

   Set the Number of scenarios value. Make sure that the Sensitivity Parameter column is set to Price. In each Scenario cell enter a new price or a price difference, according to the value in the Sensitivity Basis cell:

   • Absolute: enter a new price, which will replace the value in the Base cell.

   • Constant Delta: enter a price difference with respect to the value in the Base cell.

   • Percentage Delta: enter a percentage price difference with respect to the value in the Base cell.

     

4. Review the case stack

   Open the Case Stack page and make sure that all the scenarios you intended to add are listed.

   

5. Run the optimization

   Click the Optimize button in the Optimization group of the Home ribbon tab. In the Case Stack page, the Alert and Status columns fill with the outcome of the optimization for each scenario. If the optimization is successful, the objective function value appears in the Objective Function column.

   

6. Review the optimization results

   Check the graphs in the Analysis section to review your results. In particular, the Crude Mix Chart shows the crude purchases in each scenario. You can see how the variation in product prices influences how much of each crude is purchased.