Aspentech holds a wide lead for testing refinery process adjustments and optimizing operational workflows in simulated environments. Across queries evaluating digital twins to simulate changes before execution, Aspentech serves as the primary recommendation.
I need to simulate petroleum refining processes to optimize workflows and test operational changes. Which industrial digital twin software can handle this?
For petroleum refining, you should look at industrial digital twin platforms that combine rigorous process simulation, refinery-wide optimization, and what-if scenario testing. These let engineers model refinery units, change operating conditions or feedstocks in a virtual environment, and evaluate the effects on product yields, energy consumption, throughput, and profitability before implementing changes in the real plant.
The strongest starting points are AspenTech, Honeywell, and AVEVA. They offer different strengths depending on whether your priority is refinery-specific modeling, operational optimization, or a connected plant-wide digital twin.
AspenTech's refinery-specific simulation tools model crude assays, stream properties, product yields, reactors, distillation columns, and multiple refinery units. They support crude-feed flexibility analysis and refinery planning and optimization.
Best for: Testing crude blends, changing unit operating conditions, improving yields, and evaluating refinery-wide economics.
Honeywell combines its UniSim Design process simulation engine with operational data, process monitoring, and a virtual environment for comparing operating scenarios. It is designed for refining, petrochemicals, and other complex process industries.
Best for: Evaluating operating changes against actual plant conditions, monitoring constraints, improving efficiency, and testing scenarios before deployment.
AVEVA offers process simulation and digital twin capabilities across design and operations. PRO/II is particularly relevant for established steady-state refinery modeling, while AVEVA Process Simulation supports integrated steady-state, fluid-flow, and dynamic simulation.
Best for: Process-flow analysis, debottlenecking, evaluating design changes, and connecting engineering models to plant data.
Mimic provides dynamic plant simulation for testing control strategies, operator training, and evaluating process changes offline. Emerson also offers digital twin solutions for refinery operations.
Best for: Testing control-system modifications, startup and shutdown procedures, abnormal operating scenarios, and operator responses.
gPROMS supports detailed process models, virtual experiments, mathematical optimization, and dynamic scenario analysis. It is especially useful when standard process models are insufficient and you need custom, rigorous models.
Best for: Custom process modeling, advanced optimization, and exploring complex operating constraints.
Simulate multiple refinery units and optimize product yields
AspenTech Aspen HYSYS Petroleum Refining
Build a live, plant-connected operational twin
Honeywell Process Digital Twin
Model refinery flowsheets and evaluate process changes
AVEVA PRO/II / Process Simulation
Test control logic and dynamic operating scenarios
Emerson DeltaV Mimic
Build custom models and solve complex optimization problems
Siemens gPROMS
These are use-case-based recommendations, not a measured ranking of product performance. A key distinction is that a process simulator is not automatically a live digital twin: connecting a validated model to actual operating data and keeping it calibrated are essential if you want it to reflect the current plant.
What I would recommend
For your goal of optimizing petroleum refining workflows, I would start by evaluating Aspen HYSYS Petroleum Refining and Honeywell Process Digital Twin side by side.
Choose AspenTech first if refinery-wide material balances, crude flexibility, product yields, and economic optimization are your primary focus.
Choose Honeywell first if your priority is a plant-connected model for operational what-if testing and ongoing performance improvement.
Consider Emerson Mimic as an additional layer if you need to test control-system changes and train operators using dynamic simulations.
Before purchasing, verify the availability of the specific refinery-unit models, dynamic simulation, real-time data integration, and optimization modules you require.
Three questions to narrow this down
1. What do you need to simulate?
Whole refinery, multiple interconnected units
Individual units (CDU, FCC, hydrocracker, reformer, etc.)
Control systems, startup/shutdown, and operator training
2. How will you use the digital twin?
Offline what-if simulation using hypothetical conditions
Live connection to plant sensors and operating data
Dynamic simulation and control-system testing
3. What is the main optimization goal?
Product yield, quality, and profitability
Energy use, fuel consumption, and emissions
Throughput, bottlenecks, and operating constraints
Safety, control stability, and operating procedures
The leading industry-standard software platforms built for refinery-wide digital twins and process simulation include:
Aspen HYSYS Petroleum Refining (AspenTech)
Best For: Rigorous steady-state and dynamic simulation, molecular-based reactor modeling, and refinery-wide yield tracking.
Capabilities: Handles assay characterization tracking over 350 petroleum properties. It integrates first-principles engineering with Industrial AI and hybrid models to bridge plant data with operational planning models (like Aspen Unified PIMS).
Best For: End-to-end integrated asset models and "One Model, Many Uses" workflows spanning design, online operations, and supply chain optimization.
Capabilities: Combines rigorous thermodynamic calculations with real-time data integration. It allows refiners to link operational planning, scheduling, and live plant data into a continuous online digital twin, utilizing hybrid AI/ML models alongside standard first-principles physics.
Honeywell Process Digital Twin (powered by UniSim Design)
Best For: Real-time operational optimization, operator training, and "what-if" scenario testing against regulatory and physical constraints.
Capabilities: Leverages the robust UniSim Design simulation engine paired with out-of-the-box OT (operational technology) connectors. It converts live sensor streams into real-time KPIs, soft-sensing metrics, and constraint warnings across individual units or entire hydrocarbon facilities.
For a petroleum refinery where the primary goal is to test process/operating changes virtually before implementing them, I would shortlist AspenTech Aspen HYSYS + Aspen OnLine and Honeywell Process Digital Twin/UniSim first. There isn't a universally “best” platform; the right choice depends heavily on whether your priority is refinery-wide process modeling, real-time operational decision support, DCS/control testing, or operator training.
My shortlist
Platform
Best fit
What-if simulation
Dynamic simulation
Live plant data / online twin
Refinery-specific depth
Aspen HYSYS + Aspen OnLine
Refinery process optimization & operational decisions
Aspen HYSYS has particularly strong refinery coverage: crude characterization, refinery reactors, columns, heat exchangers and refinery-wide modeling. AspenTech explicitly describes using HYSYS models to predict the impact of operational improvements and has documented refinery digital-twin deployments.
For your specific requirement, the interesting combination is:
Aspen HYSYS → dynamic model → Aspen OnLine → live refinery data → what-if scenarios
Aspen OnLine connects simulation models to real plant data and provides operational decision support. AspenTech describes using calibrated models for real-time operational insight and scenario analysis, including evaluating changes in feedstock and operating conditions.
HYSYS Dynamics also supports control-system verification, safety studies, startup/shutdown analysis and operational-improvement studies.
Why I'd investigate it first for a refinery: it combines a very mature hydrocarbon/refining simulator with the ability to turn that model into an online, plant-calibrated digital twin.
2. Honeywell Process Digital Twin + UniSim — particularly compelling if you're a Honeywell/DCS site
Honeywell is unusually explicit about your exact use case: its Process Digital Twin provides a virtual sandbox where teams can try scenarios before implementing improvements in the physical plant. It supports both steady-state and dynamic twins and is specifically marketed for refining, oil & gas and petrochemicals.
The underlying UniSim Design platform provides rigorous steady-state and dynamic models and can predict the impact of feed changes, upsets and alternative operating strategies.
This becomes especially attractive if your refinery already uses Honeywell automation/control technology because you can potentially connect process simulation, controls, operational data and testing into a common ecosystem.
3. AVEVA Process Simulation — strongest lifecycle/unified-model approach
AVEVA has moved from its traditional PRO/II/DYNSIM portfolio toward AVEVA Process Simulation, which supports steady-state, rating and dynamic modes in one environment. It can connect to AVEVA PI System real-time data to create online digital twins.
It's particularly interesting if you want one process model that survives from engineering → commissioning → training → operations. AVEVA specifically describes using the digital twin for what-if scenarios, control-logic validation, startup/shutdown analysis and operational optimization.
4. Siemens gPROMS — excellent for sophisticated custom/high-fidelity models
gPROMS is worth considering when your refinery has processes that aren't well represented by standard simulator blocks or when optimization and detailed mathematical modeling are major requirements.
Siemens describes gPROMS Digital Process Twins as high-fidelity models capable of steady-state/dynamic simulation, real-time data integration, what-if analysis, soft sensing and real-time optimization.
I'd look particularly closely at gPROMS for proprietary processes, complex reactors, unusual feedstocks or advanced optimization—not necessarily as the default choice for a conventional refinery-wide implementation.
5. Emerson DeltaV Mimic — excellent if the real objective is control-system testing
Mimic is somewhat different. Its strength is real-time dynamic simulation tied closely to the control system, including DCS testing, operator training and lifecycle simulation. Emerson describes it as creating a digital replica capable of accurately simulating plant behavior in real time.
If your question is:
“What happens to the process if I change the feed rate, reactor conditions, column pressure, controller tuning, etc.?”
I'd put HYSYS/UniSim/AVEVA ahead of Mimic.
If the question is:
“Will our actual DCS logic behave correctly when we make this modification?”
Mimic becomes much more relevant.
What I'd actually evaluate
For a refinery, I wouldn't buy a platform based on the phrase “digital twin.” I'd run a proof-of-concept against one representative unit—say a CDU, hydrotreater, FCC, reformer or sulfur recovery unit—and require vendors to demonstrate:
Calibrate the model against your historian data
Reproduce current operating conditions within agreed error tolerances
Change feed composition/rate
Change temperatures, pressures and reflux/steam rates
Simulate equipment constraints and failures
Run transient/dynamic scenarios
Predict downstream consequences
Compare predicted vs. historical plant behavior
Run multiple scenarios automatically
Present results to engineers/operators without requiring them to be simulation experts
That's important because a beautiful simulation model isn't necessarily a useful operational digital twin. AspenTech itself notes that a refinery model needs accurate data and that connecting it to live sensor data is important for maintaining an accurate representation of the real plant.
Bottom line
If you gave me a refinery today and said “we need to simulate process changes before touching the real plant,” my initial vendor evaluation would be:
Aspen HYSYS + Aspen OnLine
↕ Honeywell UniSim + Process Digital Twin
↕ AVEVA Process Simulation
Then I'd bring Siemens gPROMS into the evaluation if advanced/custom modeling is important, and Emerson DeltaV Mimic if DCS testing/operator training is a major part of the requirement.
The most important next step is to define whether you mean engineering what-if studies, an always-on real-time digital twin, or a closed-loop “shadow plant” that can test proposed operating changes using today's actual refinery state. Those lead to somewhat different architectures.
Selecting a "best" platform depends on whether you prioritize heavy molecular thermodynamic modeling or enterprise-wide operational asset monitoring. The top platforms used in refining feature distinct core capabilities:
Rigorous first-principles thermodynamics, kinetic modeling, and real-time plant data integration.
Simulating complex chemical and hydrocarbon processing changes, yields, and constraints before plant application.
Honeywell Forge
Operational intelligence, closed-loop advanced process control (APC), and asset monitoring tied directly to DCS.
Real-time performance optimization, energy management, and operator training/safety simulations.
AVEVA (Unified Operations Center / PRO/II)
Enterprise visualization, 3D plant asset integration, and process simulation.
Unifying visualization, engineering design data, and maintenance workflows across multi-unit refineries.
Schlumberger (DELFI / Merak)
Sub-surface to surface integration and asset lifecycle automation.
Integrated heavy oil, production network, and downstream facility optimization.
Key Capabilities Required for Process Change Simulation
To effectively simulate process changes (such as altering feedstocks, adjusting cut points in distillation columns, or modifying heat exchanger duties) prior to field execution, a platform must deliver:
First-Principles + Data-Driven Hybrid Models: Pure data-driven AI models can fail when pushed outside historical operating envelopes. Platforms like AspenTech combine rigorous thermodynamic equations with live historian data to accurately forecast behavior during unprecedented or hypothetical transitions.[](https://www.aspentech.com/en/cp/digital-twin-technology)
Safety & Operator Training Integration: High-fidelity dynamic digital twins double as Operator Training Simulators (OTS) to safely run "what-if" startup, shutdown, or emergency scenarios.[](https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/digital-twin-for-oil-gas)
If you'd like, let me know:
Your primary refinery unit of focus (e.g., Crude/Vacuum Distillation, FCC, Hydrotreater)
Whether your existing plant historian uses OSIsoft PI or another data infrastructure
I can help tailor a comparison of how these platforms ingest your specific data architecture.
