Optimised Chemical Management for Ichthys Offshore Gas Production

The Ichthys Field is located approximately 220 km north-west of the coast of mainland Western Australia and 820 km south-west of Darwin. Gas from the Ichthys Field undergoes processing on an offshore central processing facility (CPF) to dehydrate the gas and remove a Rich MEG phase and condensate. The dry gas is compressed and sent to Darwin via a gas export pipeline while the condensate and MEG are pumped to an interlinked floating production, storage, and offtake facility (FPSO) with hydrocarbon processing capabilities. The FPSO also features the world's largest offshore MEG regeneration system. An integrated chemical supply chain has been developed to deliver bulk chemicals from the vendor chemical supply base in Darwin to the offshore facilities. Delivery is facilitated by specially designed platform supply vessels (PSV) that carry bulk chemicals in dedicated storage tanks and transferred to the offshore facilities using bulk transfer hoses. This paper details aspects of the chemical supply chain and describes best practices that have been developed to manage the safe delivery of bulk chemicals from the chemical supplier to the operator.

https://medwinpublishers.com/PPEJ/using-bayesian-networks-for-quantifying-domino-effect-probability-in-a-hydrocarbon-processing-area.pdf

Hydrogenation technology has many advantages in light and clean oil products, and has become the most reasonable and effective key technology in the refining industry. However, the hydrogenation reaction process is high temperature, high pressure and hydrogen operation, which consumes a lot of fuel and power, and the energy consumption of the unit is high. Through pinch analysis, the violators of pinch points are identified, and the heat exchange process of the existing hydrogenation unit is optimized and adjusted. Reasonably distribute the heat exchange load of mixed hydrogen oil and low-content oil, improve the final heat exchange temperature of mixed hydrogen oil, reduce the heating load and fuel consumption of heating furnace, strengthen the recovery of inefficient low-temperature potential heat, advance to the design of maximum energy recovery (MER), realize the optimization of cold utility and hot utility, and effectively reduce the energy consumption of hydrogenation unit after optimization. The optimization of heat exchange network of hydrogenation unit significantly improves economic and social benefits.

Using Bayesian Networks for Quantifying Domino Effect Probability in a Hydrocarbon Processing Area

Accidents in process industries include fires, explosions, or toxic releases depending on the spilled material properties and ignition sources. One of the worst phenomena that may occur is the called domino effect. This triggers serious consequences on the people, the environment, and the economy. That is why the European Commission defined the domino effect prediction as a mandatory challenge for the years ahead. The quantification of the domino effect probability is a complex task due to the multiple and synergic effects among all accidents that should be included in the analysis. However, these techniques could be integrated with others in order to represent the domino effect occurrence reliably. In this matter, artificial intelligence plays a vital role. Bayesian networks, as one of the artificial intelligence nets, have been widely applied for domino effect likelihood determination. This research aims to provide a guide for quantifying domino effect probability using Bayesian networks in a hydrocarbon processing area. For this purpose, a four-step model is proposed integrating some classical risk analysis techniques with Bayesian networks. Moreover, this methodology is applied to an actual hydrocarbon storage and processing facility. After that, the joint probability can reach 9.37% for the process unit tank 703 which storages naphtha. Hence, safety management plans must be improved in this area for reducing this actual risk level. Finally, this research demonstrates how Artificial intelligence techniques should be integrated with classical ones in order to get more reliable results.

Effect of Sand Fines Concentration on the Erosion-Corrosion Mechanism of Carbon Steel 90° Elbow Pipe in Slug Flow

Erosion-corrosion of elbow configurations has recently been a momentous concern in hydrocarbon processing and transportation industries. The carbon steel 90° elbows are susceptible to the erosion-corrosion during the multiphase flow, peculiarly for erosive slug flows. This paper studies the erosion-corrosion performance of 90° elbows at slug flow conditions for impact with 2, 5, and 10 wt.% sand fines concentrations on AISI 1018 carbon steel exploiting quantitative and qualitative analyses. The worn surface analyses were effectuated by using laser confocal and scanning electron microscopy. The experiment was conducted under air and water slug flow containing sand fines of 50 µm average size circulated in the closed flow loop. The results manifest that with the increase of concentration level, the erosion-corrosion magnitude increases remarkably. Sand fines instigate the development of perforation sites in the form of circular, elongated, and coalescence pits at the elbow downstream and the corrosion attack is much more obvious with the increase of sand fines concentration. Another congruent finding is that cutting and pitting corrosion as the primitive causes of material degradation, the 10 wt.% sand fines concentration in carrier phase increases the erosion-corrosion rate of carbon steel up to 93% relative to the 2 wt.% sand fines concentration in slug flow.

Microwave-Assisted Pyrolysis of Fuel Oil for Hydrocarbons Upgrading

By-product upgrading is crucial in hydrocarbon processing industries as it can increase the competitiveness of the business. This research investigated opportunity to upgrade fuel oil by-product obtained from olefins production by using microwave pyrolysis. A lab-scale quartz reactor filled with placed inside a 1,200 watts household microwave oven was used for the experiments. Coconut-based activated carbon was used as a microwave receptor. Microwave powers were varied at 600 W, 840 W and 1,200 W to adjust cracking temperature between 800°C and 900°C. The effect of residence time was investigated by adjusting flow rate of N2 carrier gas. The chemical compositions and product yields were analyzed by using gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). It was revealed that hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon gaseous product (alkanes, naphthenics and alkenes) were produced as the main products. For liquid products, the main compositions were cycloalkenes and polycyclic aromatic groups.