Financial risk analysis in the synthesis and design of processing networks: Balancing risk and return

The construction of a processing network is a corporate investment, that processing companies make with the goal of creating the conditions to increase their value. In a previous work, a computer-aided framework supporting the design of processing network under uncertainty has been presented (Quaglia et al. 2013).

In this contribution, we study the implications of corporate finance concepts such as funding strategies and cost of the capital on the selection of an optimal processing network. To this end, the process synthesis framework is extended to include various project funding and financial risk models. Through the solution of a small benchmark problem, the impact of financial factors on the optimal network configuration is presented and discussed.