Flare Reduction Through Aquathermolysis Process Control in Heavy Crude Oil Field

Abstract

Abstract Petroleum Development Oman LLC (PDO) is Oman's premier oil producer and operates several fields at "A". "A" East and "A" West are located on the eastern flank of the South Oman Salt Basin. As "A" Thermal fields contain heavy oil, PDO plans to significantly increase oil recovery by increasing the steam injection which is having high energy intensity. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the improvement in Flared Gas reduction resulted in reduction in Green House Gases (GHG) emissions. This work had been initiated after noticeable increase in Associate gas flaring in AP Flare system. High GOR wells has been surveyed and closed to control the flare resulted in oil deferment, however the flaring was still increasing. Many challenges faced including casing vent, PCV passing, increasing in steam injection (Aquathermolysis Process) and flare gas metering. In this project, lean practices were used to define the opportunities including A SIPOC (suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers) diagram, Process Mapping, Cause & Effect Diagram, Root causes analysis, and development of Visual Management Boards (VMB), standard operating procedures (SOP) to sustain Improvements. Practical Problem Solving (PPS) and Kaizen approaches were used, and several countermeasures had been completed leading to reduce in Associate gas flaring by an average of 50%, equivalent to (∼ 2 million USD/annum). This project had been completed with minimum spend on capex. By doing these modifications, it resulted in below benefits (confirmed): GHG Reduction of 30K TCo2e/yr due to reduction of Flared gas in and utilization for Boiler Fuel Gas. An oil secure of 10% of total "A" production due to maintaining the processing Gas in /out of the Facility. A cost saving of more than 2 mln$ / annum due to the utilization of gas for other process.