Richards

Welcome to the second issue of the new online-only journal: SPE Projects, Facilities & Construction! It seems hard to believe that 3 months have passed since we launched this new journal. We are still very excited about this journal because it is the first one SPE has produced that is dedicated to the tens of thousands of professionals working in the design, construction, and optimization phases of production and processing facilities. The topics that this journal will cover are technical developments, case histories, and field reports for all aspects of surface-facilities design, project management, operations, and abandonment including onshore, offshore (subsea, platform-based, and floating-based systems), and pipelines for oil and gas developments. It will also cover topics such as liquefied natural gas (LNG),  compressed natural gas, and gas-to-liquid plants, terminals, and transportation concepts. We believe that SPEPFC will meet the needs of those people with an interest in improving their productivity, limiting their liabilities, and promoting innovative design. With this in mind, we hope to entice each and every one of you into becoming loyal readers and dedicated contributors.

In the same way as all other SPE journals, SPEPFC relies on the contribution of papers from its readers for its publication. We are constantly looking for suitable papers to publish, and we welcome and encourage your submissions. If you have recently written any papers or have ideas for topics of papers, please go to www.spe.org for information on how to submit a paper. Once a paper is submitted for publication consideration, it will go through the peer-review process. This discriminating process is one of the things at which SPE excels, and because of which we are able to produce top-quality publications. But remember, the checks and balances involved in the peer-review process do take time, so submit your paper now to be considered for publication sooner.

There are four issues of PFC each year: March, June, September, and December. Though there are only four papers in this second issue, we hope to increase this number as more papers work through the peer-review process.

At this point, I would like to introduce myself to you. I have a chemical engineering background and roughly 21 years of postgraduate experience. My early career outside the upstream oil industry gave me much valuable experience in the processing industries. I then moved into the upstream industry, mainly in the processengineering aspects of offshore facilities. Later, I joined SPE and headed off into field-development planning and conceptual engineering, where I have been working for the last 10 years.

This quarter’s journal contains a mixed bag of topics. The following paragraphs introduce each paper to you. Please read each paper carefully, because these summations do not do justice to the breadth and depth of each of this issue’s articles.

The first paper, Operating Experience With the Split MR Machinery Configuration of the C3MR LNG Process, considers a novel way to arrange the compressors and drivers for the propanemixed refrigerant technology that is commonly used in the LNG liquefaction process. This has been designed to improve economics and operational efficiency.

The second paper, Unified Modeling of Gas/Oil/Water-Pipe Flow—Basic Approaches and Preliminary Validation, proposes a new unified model for three-phase oil/water/gas flow in pipes. Previous modeling approaches have assumed either stratified or fully mixed liquid phases. This paper addresses the common situation in which the iquid-phase mixing is neither of these extremes.

The third paper, Automated Production Surveillance, describes one company’s experiences at providing real-time data to the engineer’s desk. The intelligent field is likely to be the next major technological advance in production and processing operations.

And finally, the last paper this quarter is Tougher Concrete Structures for LNG Facilities. This paper considers how enhancing the security of concrete structures can be built into the design of the facility as protection against sociopolitical and natural threats.

I am sure that you do not subscribe to this journal to read my ramblings, so I will leave you to read this new online-only journal—SPE Projects, Facilities & Construction—for yourself. I hope that