Why Roebling

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Chemicals & Fuels

Capital planning for new capacity, expansion, and decarbonization retrofits across commodity and specialty chemicals, fuels, cement, and advanced materials.

Capital planning in chemicals and fuels is a screening problem. There are more candidate projects, routes, and sites than any team can study, and conventional front-end engineering evaluates two or three of them in six months. The projects that would have penciled are often the ones that never made the queue.

Roebling screens the whole slate in parallel and returns the estimate in days, not months. Process and cost live in one model, so a change in feed price or capacity cascades to installed cost, operating cost, and cost per unit of product, and the number that emerges is traceable to sources your capital committee can inspect.

Portrait of Crystal Bleecher, PE, Critical Minerals Team Lead at Roebling

Justin Montanti

Chemicals & Fuels team lead

“Developing a process or designing a facility takes curiosity, creativity, and comfort in uncertainty, but most of all, it takes the humility to walk away from your own ideas when they don't pencil out. The faster you can get from idea to economics, the faster you can pivot, and that iteration is the only way to drive the project forward.”

Previously

A new basis for capital planning

Every route, scale, and site screened in parallel, so detailed work is spent only on the candidates that will pencil.

Customizable unit operations for the solids, high-temperature, and first-of-a-kind synthesis and capture chemistry that standard libraries do not cover.

A continuously updated estimate basis keeps your estimate up to date as your project evolves, from AACE Class 5 through AACE Class 3.

One Partner, from R&D to FID

R&D

FID

Screen (FEL-1)

Which projects pencil, and which do we cut before they cost study money?

AACE Class 5

For teams with more candidates than budget to study them.

Rank the whole slate on one basis; carry forward only what earns it.

Screen (FEL-1)

Which projects pencil, and which do we cut before they cost study money?

AACE Class 5

For teams with more candidates than budget to study them.

Rank the whole slate on one basis; carry forward only what earns it.

Select (FEL-2 / Pre-FEED)

Which route, capacity, and site do we commit to, and at what budget?

AACE Class 4

For teams converging on one configuration.

Explore process options to arrive at the lowest cost; compare business cases and their sensitivities; the model refines as vendor quotes come in.

Select (FEL-2 / Pre-FEED)

Which route, capacity, and site do we commit to, and at what budget?

AACE Class 4

For teams converging on one configuration.

Explore process options to arrive at the lowest cost; compare business cases and their sensitivities; the model refines as vendor quotes come in.

Select (FEL-2 / Pre-FEED)

Which route, capacity, and site do we commit to, and at what budget?

AACE Class 4

For teams converging on one configuration.

Explore process options to arrive at the lowest cost; compare business cases and their sensitivities; the model refines as vendor quotes come in.

Define (FEL-3)

Does this clear the capital committee, and what will it actually cost?

AACE Class 3

For teams heading into FID.

One configuration, carried on the same basis since the first screen, alongside the detailed engineering the stage demands.

Define (FEL-3)

Does this clear the capital committee, and what will it actually cost?

AACE Class 3

For teams heading into FID.

One configuration, carried on the same basis since the first screen, alongside the detailed engineering the stage demands.

Define (FEL-3)

Does this clear the capital committee, and what will it actually cost?

AACE Class 3

For teams heading into FID.

One configuration, carried on the same basis since the first screen, alongside the detailed engineering the stage demands.

Get Started

Typical deliverables

Scoped to the decision at hand. Any of:

Technical definition

Basis of Design
Custom unit-operation models where standard libraries stop
Heat and material balance
Process flow diagrams
Equipment list and arrangement
Utility load list
Major line sizing
P&IDs and equipment datasheets

Cost and economics

Capital cost estimate classed to the stage of study, with ISBL and OSBL split and its basis of estimate
Operating cost and cost per tonne
Capex per annual tonne
Vendor quotations
Site and financing comparison cases
Project schedule

What customers say about Roebling

“We look at two or three projects over six months, and at the end of it you're saying: none of them work. What we want is to look at ten projects in a month and make quicker decisions with fewer resources.”

Capital Projects Lead

global cement major

Capital Projects Lead

global cement major

“We can finalize pre-FEED studies at the same accuracy in two or three weeks, saving three to six months of time, resources and subcontractors. We're going to make faster and more educated decisions.”

Project Director

Fortune Global 500 materials company

Project Director

Fortune Global 500 materials company

“It's what I've dreamed about, and I've been asking people for months, an AI tool that can help us do our engineering design.”

Engineering Lead

global chemicals manufacturer

“It's what I've dreamed about, and I've been asking people for months, an AI tool that can help us do our engineering design.”

Engineering Lead

global chemicals manufacturer

“This is not a toy. This is a potentially very strong tool in the toolbox.”

Senior Director

global process technology leader

“This is not a toy. This is a potentially very strong tool in the toolbox.”

Senior Director

global process technology leader

Frequently Asked Questions about Roebling

Can you model a process step that isn't in a standard unit operation?

Yes, in most cases. Roebling engineers build the missing unit operation as its own block, for solids handling, unusual reactors, and first-of-a-kind process steps, with the assumptions behind each one open to inspection. Physical property data comes from established methods.

Can you model a process step that isn't in a standard unit operation?

How is this different from our simulation and estimating workflow?

In that workflow the model has to converge and the equipment has to be sized before a number comes out, so the cost arrives too late to steer the design. Roebling costs the process at whatever fidelity you have. A route and a capacity return an estimate on day one, and the same model tightens to Class 3 without being rebuilt. Change the process and installed cost, operating cost, and cost per tonne move with it, on a cost basis drawn from plants like the one you are building, with the source behind every number open to inspection.

How is this different from our simulation and estimating workflow?