Features
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Processing of Sour Natural Gas Reaches New Highs
ExxonMobil is testing its Controlled Freeze Zone technology, a single-step cryogenic separation process that allows carbon dioxide (CO2) to freeze in a controlled method and then melts the CO2. After further distillation to recover the methane, the CO2 can be pumped for injection into dedicated wells, either for sequestering or for use in reinjection for enhanced oil recovery. The CFZ process discharges the CO2 as a high-pressure liquid, facilitating pumping to reinjection pressure and avoiding costly compression.
Trends in Facilities Design and Construction
Operators’ demands for structural designs are changing along with the need to produce from harsher environments, deeper waters, remote areas, and marginal fields. New-builds and modifications require different approaches in assessment of cost, design, and construction. Shortening time scales, higher levels of scrutiny, and the need to comply with standards contribute to the trend of larger and more complex engineering projects. Design, fabrication, assembly, construction, and installation are being modified in unique ways, offering efficiencies and versatility.
Human Factors Engineering: Getting to the Future Faster
As technology advances in facilities construction, SPE has formed a new technical section focusing on human factors engineering (HFE). Other industries, such as aviation and nuclear power, have made great strides by developing precise crew resource management plans, improving equipment design, and, looking at entire processes to construct systems that safeguard against inevitable human error and near misses. The HFE technical section is seeking to bring knowledge from these industries into the oil and gas sector, thereby ensuring safe operations and fostering a coordinated safety culture from top-level executives to workers on the ground.
Peer-Reviewed Papers
Jim Collins
ConocoPhillips
Peer Review Editor
Integrity Maintenance of Petroleum Pipelines
A.W. Dawotola, P.H.A.J.M. van Gelder, and J.K. Vrijling
This paper identifies a modeling methodology for integrity maintenance of pipelines and a case study to demonstrate its effectiveness. The cost of failure and the benefit-to-cost ratio are highlighted. The optimization modeling includes both of these aspects and demonstrates the effects of failures in pipeline systems.
Numerical Simulation of Transient Flow in a Gas Pipeline and Tank
K. Ling
Describes the need to include viscosity changes in transient modeling calculations. The effect of using viscosity in these calculations can be significant. The variables, appropriate for pipelines and pressure vessels, include pressure over time, flow rate, and flow through an orifice or hole.
Computational Fluid Dynamics-Based Study of an Oilfield Separator—Part I: A Realistic Simulation
A.P. Laleh, W.Y. Svrcek, and W.D. Monnery
Discusses the modeling of hydrate formation and transportability in the offshore environment. A case is presented for using this modeling in the design and optimization of subsea transport facilities and to aid in the development of safe operational procedures and prevention, management, and remediation of hydrates. The novel component in this work is prediction of hydrates in an oil-dominated system.
