Optimization of the steady state economic efficiency of an industrial process is a specific task because the decision variables of the optimization (setpoints of the control system) affect the process through the control strategy. Thus, the effects of saturation of a control system must be taken into account when the gradient of the objective function is estimated and the necessary optimality conditions are checked. In particular, because the optimality conditions cannot be checked directly in the presence of active constraints on the manipulated variables, approximations of the steady state values of the manipulated variables as functions of the setpoints (static plant model) are needed in order to be able to evaluate the optimality conditions. In this paper an iterative method for optimization of the plant profit rate is proposed avoiding the control saturation and is applied to the Pulp Mill benchmark model optimization. Three different static models describing the steady state values of the manipulated variables are constructed and used in the optimization. The results of the optimization are presented and compared against the straightforward single-step optimization of the plant economic efficiency. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.