While the standard peer groups included in your study results provide valuable insight into relative performance differences on a consistent study-wide basis, there are times when more narrowly defined peer groups—what you constitute as competition for each of your refineries—can help you better meet your benchmarking needs. Whether your need if for one or multiple peer groups, with this service, the selection criteria for these peer groups will reflect your tactical and strategic plans to improve refinery competitive performance.

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Solomon’s refinery studies provide standardized peer groupings for performance comparisons within major geographic areas, operating regions, size/complexity groups, and those of similar configuration within the operating region. While these standard peer groups provide valuable insight into relative performance differences on a consistent study-wide basis, individual participants often request more narrowly defined peer groups for each of their refineries.

Both studies offer the option of creating a customized peer group to meet your benchmarking needs. Participants define these unique peer groups using their own assessment of what groups of refineries constitutes their competition. Each customized peer group meets individual company and refinery specifications. The selection criteria reflect the company’s tactical and strategic plans to improve refinery competitive performance, consistent with their internal vision. These customized peer groups vary significantly from company to company and refinery to refinery, and thus cannot be effectively standardized for the Fuels Studies. For example, while some companies focus on cash operating cost, others focus on gross margin or net cash margin. Some request only one peer group, while others choose multiple peer groups to support their benchmarking and planning efforts.

In addition to providing standard results for custom peer groups, we also offer a more in-depth analysis of the refinery performance relative to better performers on both the refinery level and at the unit level for some process categories. The in-depth analysis is centered on maintenance, energy, and some of the non-energy costs such as catalysts. Please refer to Appendix D for more information.

The remainder of this section presents issues to be considered when determining which peer groups may be appropriate for your company and individual refineries.