AAK sustainability report 2018

50 AAK Colombia has been finding better ways to mea- sure and improve the performance of its refinery. In doing so, it has also been able to enhance product quality and – crucially – reduce GHG emissions. At AAK Colombia, we understand “refinement”. While on one hand this relates directly to the industrial process we manage, it also refers to our ongoing commitment for improvement on the other. In particular, over the last year we started to examine the performance of our boiler. In doing so we began to find small issues that, although only minor, we knew could be addressed to give a higher quality production outcome. Finding the trend Working closely with our Maintenance department, we discovered an unusual trend with the gas supply to our boiler. As shown here, the gas supply was oscillating with too much time in high flame and too many troughs down to zero. We knew that this temperature fluctuation would affect product quality. Furthermore, the subsequent production inefficiency would also be represented in our KPI indicator (around 13 m 3 natural gas/ton product) and in our daily gas consumption, which had risen above normal levels of 2,000 m 3 . AAK Colombia Improving quality and reducing emissions An impressive result Fixing this issue by making the gas supply more constant would not only reduce gas consumption, but also reduce the amount of GHG emissions (by improving fuel efficiency and the stability of the burning process). We took action and the results can be seen in the graph below. We achieved a reduction to 9 m 3 natural gas/MT product and an average gas consumption of 1,400 m 3 per day. This represents an impressive saving of about 50 kg of CO 2 every month. However, for us this isn’t good enough! We are now looking to achieve an even steadier process. This can be made possible by the replacement of our burner for one that controls the process in a modulating manner. If all goes to plan, we hope to additionally improve the process by a minimum of 10 percent. Gas supply with significant flow variations High flame Low flame Zero Gas supply with more stable and efficient flow High flame Low flame Zero 50 kg of CO 2 saved/month