Oil & Gas Production Projects (DES, OTS)

Volve is a small field, located in the Norwegian Central North Sea, southwest of Stavanger. The field is expected to come on stream in the first quarter of 2007 and to continue producing for four years.The field operator is Statoil.
Recoverable reserves rise up 70 million barrels of oil and 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas, and plateau output should be 50,000 barrels per day.

Statoil has a 49.6% interest in the license, with ExxonMobil holding 30.4%, Total 10% and Norsk Hydro 10%. The oil from the Volve field will be produced from the jack-up facility Mærsk Inspirer, while Navion Saga will be used as a storage facility prior to further transport. The gas will be sent to the Sleipner A facility for processing and export.

First oil is planned in spring 2007.
The Volve OTS includes the following systems:

• 3 Oil productions wells
• 2 Water production wells
• 3 Water injection wells

• LP compressor 1st stage and 2nd stage compressor
• Export compressor, gas metering and export
• Re-injection / gas lift compressor, gas lift manifold

• HP separator, LP degasser, test separator and electrostatic coalescer
• Coolers, crude oil booster
• Crude oil export pumps and metering

• Produced water pumps
• Hydrocyclones
• Water injection pumps

• Heating Medium
• Fuel Gas

• The Model server includes INDISS dynamical simulation tool and ITS link driver
• Process signals from model server are exchanged with a simulator model using the OPC DA standard
• The ABB Soft Controller is used for execution of the ABB AC 800M control applications.

• DCS and ESD commissioning
• Investigate compressor start-up / shutdown sequences
• To check alarm settings and control scheme during upset/transient conditions and suggest the required modifications
• To check and validate operating procedures prior to start up and to recommend any change if necessary

Ethane treating and drying

• De-Bottle-Necking analysis
• Optimization of operating conditions for Units/Systems
• Optimization of Operating Procedures
• "What If scenario" analysis.

• Reception Facilities
• Gas Treating
• MEG Regeneration&Injection
• Condensate Stabilization
• Dehydration and Mercury Guard
• Ethane Recovery
• Export Gas Compression&Metering
• NGL Fractionation
• Sulfur recovery
• C3/C4 Caustic Regeneration
• Propane Treatment and Drying
• Butane Treatment and Drying
• Ethane Treating and Drying
• Propane Gas Refrigeration Cycle

The operators identify, get used to the specific behaviour of the South Pars 4&5 plant, and become familiar with the critical process values, the process limits and the ESD configuration. The training program provides them the opportunity to gain confidence in order to make a reliable and fast start up, and operate the plant in a safe and efficient manner. In addition, the OTS is used to check and validate operating procedures prior to start up and restart after an ESD.

• To verify the operating capability of the compression unit with the proposed control schemes, identify potential problems and suggest the required modifications.
• To check the proposed start-up and shut-down procedures and to recommend any change if necessary.
• To determine the adequacy of the equipment design, protection and safety system, as centrifugal compressor, anti-surge protection and HIPPS protection system.
• To verify and validate the capability of the control system configuration and tuning to react to upset/transient conditions, and suggest the required modifications.
• To verify the capability of the control system configuration and tuning to shorten the commissioning and troubleshooting time.

Source: patagoniaargentina.8m.net

Carina Overview

Carina Gas Wellhead

Carina Production Manifold

The Carina and Aries gas fields are located in the hostile seas offshore the Argentinian coast of Tierra del Fuego, close to Cape Horn. The process includes two wellhead platforms, Carina & Aries, located respectively at water depths of 60 and 80 metres. Both platforms are connected to the Rio Cullen plant, through one multiphase subsea pipeline system, where the new output is processed.

RSI SIMCON has delivered two simulators: Pipeline Management Simulator(PMS) which evolved into an Operator Training Simulator (Foxboro emulation).

The PMS is dedicated to:

• the study of pipeline phenomena such as liquid holdup calculations and MEG inventory management. To be able to serve this purpose, some additional graphic displays have been developed to visualize the pipeline results.
• the test and the validation of procedures for the initial start-up

The OTS is designed to train operators, for the first year of operation, to the operation with low flow in the pipeline and the necessity to use pigs at at regular intervals.

First oil happened in April, 2005.

SHELL Exploration and National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) have worked together to develop the Soroosh and Nowrooz fields in shallow waters, some 80 kilometers off Kharg Island in the Northern Persian Gulf in Iran.

The OTS is a YOKOGAWA CS3000 DCS Emulation. The OTS is designed to train operators on actual process behaviour and digital control system conception and on specific operations such as wells line-up to production trains, separation tests run, automatic start up of spare pumps, compressors operation (pressurized or depressurized start up shut down), etc. The application also allows the client to optimize the operation of the actual plant and anticipate upsets.

• Soroosh Success Story

TOTAL SOUTH PARS (TSP) is the operator of a consortium including TOTAL, OAO GAZPROM and PARSI INTERNATIONAL LTD, which is developing part of the giant SOUTH PARS field, located 100 km off the south-west coast in the Persian Gulf, under a Service Contract with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). The reservoir lies more than 3,000 metres under the seabed and in 65 metres of water. The onshore gas treatment plant is located about 100 kilometres further, nearby the village of Assaluyeh.

Operations on South Pars use technologies such as deviated drilling and especially multi-phase transport, allowing the gas to be piped untreated from the depths of the sea to the onshore facility at Assaluyeh.

South Pars is the largest project in the world to date using multi-phase transport over such a distance: the transport scheme involves two 32-inch pipelines stretching over 105 kilometres from the field to the onshore facilities. The scheme also includes a 4.5-inch line mounted on each of the main pipelines to carry the glycol (MEG) that is injected on the platform and then regenerated ashore for reuse. The role of the glycol is to prevent the formation of gas hydrates - which could block the pipeline at low flow-rates – and to reduce the acidity of the effluents so as to avoid corrosion and thus prolong pipeline life.

On South Pars, TOTAL opted for a wet scheme to transport the effluent to shore. This technique allows the effluents to be carried together in the same pipeline. Consequently, the effluents do not require any treatment on the production platform and thus still contain water (both production water and condensation). The key points of the project were the pipelines' length and the large capacity. Multi-phase transport is an innovative technique that allows operators to reduce both development and operating costs for oil and gas production, particularly in the case of satellite fields. If the effluent is not to be treated on the platform, there is no need to build and maintain complex and expensive equipment. So the production platforms on South Pars are simple unmanned structures.

Customer feedback

"Experience gained during the SP2&3start-up phase and later routine operation has shown that the software package is an indispensable tool for real-time prediction of the sea line liquid hold-up volume. Further it is used for planning of mechanical pigging frequencies, glycol inventory control, and for flow assurance, in order to ensure optimal and safe production."

Today the simulator is used to search the optimal scenario of the operation such as:

• Planning the sequences from on state to another
• Decide the pigging frequency
• Optimize the procedures for liquid slug reception
• Management of MEG inventory

RSI SIMCON has also developed an OTS (Yokogawa CS 3000 emulation) to cover the onshore facilities.

• Total South Pars Phases 2 &3 Success Story