Successful Implementation of Low-Pressure Operations LPO Projects: Delivering Low UTC Incremental Oil in Low Oil Price Market

Southern Oman has several high pressure (500-1000 bar), deep (3-5 km) and critically sour oil fields (H2S/CO2 up to ~10%/25%). Most of these reservoirs are carbonate stringers encapsulated in salt lacking any natural aquifer support. Field Development strategy for most of the reservoirs in the cluster is primary depletion followed by miscible gas injection. No artificial lift mechanism is installed in these fields, as gas flood is expected to provide the necessary energy later. Many of these fields are depleted and reached lift-die out conditions due to high backpressure from the station. To extend the depletion production life, the team came with Low-Pressure Operation (LPO) project for these fields. This concept was successfully implemented in various fields across the 3 production stations in the cluster. LPO concept is a novel, pragmatic and cost-effective solution to continue production from previous lift die-out wells which is first of its kind in the company. This approach helped to utilize the existing infrastructure and ullage available in the facilities and eliminate the need for installing expensive and complex artificial lifts (e.g. ESP) or depletion compressor systems. This resulted in incremental production at very low UTC and low CAPEX requirements during the low oil price period.

Organization and forms of remuneration at enterprises

Currently, amid the economic crisis associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, each enterprise, regardless of its structure and type of ownership, is in a continuous mode of choice: to reduce personnel costs and retain qualified personnel and jobs. At the same time, in order to preserve jobs and continue production activities, it is important not to preserve the employee’s contribution. The employee must be motivated to increase labor productivity and the quality of products, and this must be directly related to his salary.

Sustainability Strategies of Equipment Introduction and Overcapacity Risk Sharing in Mask Emergency Supply Chains during Pandemics

The sustainability of the mask emergency supply chain faces two problems during the current COVID-19 pandemic. First, mask manufacturers are mainly small and mid-size enterprises, resulting in a lack of funds and credit lines for the introduction of equipment. Second, the periodicity and uncertainty of pandemics create overcapacity risk for the mask emergency supply chain. To solve these problems, this study incorporates financial leasing institutions and the government into the mask emergency supply chain. Based on a questionnaire survey of practitioners of financial leasing institutions, the relationship between mask manufacturers, financial leasing institutions, and the government in the mask supply chain is analyzed through a game model, and the behavior of mask manufacturers to reduce the scale of mask production after the occurrence of overcapacity is investigated using the cusp catastrophe theory. We find that in the case of masks’ overcapacity, mask manufacturers tend to continue production. Finally, we propose that financial leasing institutions should lease mask production equipment to mask manufacturers under the guarantee of the government and develop a mechanism for the three parties to jointly share the risk of mask overcapacity, aiming at ensuring the sustainable manufacturing of masks during the pandemic.

Optimization of Local Commodity Distribution System: Case Study Seaweed Distribution from Kalimantan to Makassar

The existence of Presidential Regulation Number 33/2019 concerning the Roadmap for the Development of the National Seaweed Industry indicates that it is time for Indonesia to be more serious in developing the seaweed resource industry to meet domestic and international demands. In line with the volume of seaweed traffic in Indonesia of 36.942 tons per year, as well as the production capacity of Indonesian seaweed which controls more than 70% of the global seaweed market, this situation will have a very good impact on seaweed farmers to continue production of seaweed. However, behind the enormous amount of demands for seaweed, there are serious problems experienced by seaweed farmers, especially for seaweed farmers in Borneo. Majority of seaweed produced in Kalimantan cannot be distributed properly to importing areas due to the lack of seaweed transportation. This paper evaluates the current distribution system to find suitable payload for planning a new distribution system by operating either a non-propelled or a self-propelled barge. The non propelled barge will be operated by chartering a tugboat (time charter). Therefore, the manning cost and capital cost for tugboat construction will be the owner’s responsibility. Every options are calculated to find feasible dimension. Unit cost that may be charged to consumers also calculated to provide the comparison with the current unit cost paid by seaweed farmers at Rp 550.000/ton. Unit cost calculation result for the 1st option (Non-propelled barge) is at Rp 367.200/ton and for the 2nd option (Self-propelled barge) is at Rp 870.100/ton. Therefore, the most optimum solution is a non-propelled barge, around 27% cheaper than the current unit cost charged.

The Resource Base of Silica Glass Sand versus Glass Industry Development: The Case of Poland

The production of glass in Poland, especially of container and flat glass, has constantly risen for at least 30 years. New investments in this sector, which have recently been completed or are currently in progress, create optimistic prospects for further development of this industry, whose total annual production capacities in the next few years is expected to exceed 4 million tons. This will result in increasing demand for basic glass-making raw materials, especially high-quality silica sand (glass sand), which can be satisfied almost entirely from domestic sources. Poland as a country with a considerable resource base of these mineral raw materials, has noted a constantly growing production level that currently reaches approximately 2.8 million tons per year. This paper aims to characterize and interpret the development trends in the Polish glass industry in an international context, as well as the resulting increase in demand for glass sand. In this context, an attempt was made to answer questions concerning the sufficiency of the Polish domestic resource base for the production of glass sand. For this study, the leading recent international and Polish analyses, related to glass industry development, the resource base of glass silica sand, and the management of these types of sand, were taken into account, and were complemented by official statistical data and surveying of domestic glass producers. The performed analysis showed that when taking into account the available glass sand resources in developed deposits in Poland, it is possible to continue production at the existing or a slightly increasing level for another 20–25 years. Based on a more comprehensive perspective, however, it would be a good approach to continue providing access to those parts of currently extracted deposits of silica sand and sandstone that are now located outside of the existing exploitation licenses, as well as enabling the development of some satellite deposits in the Tomaszów Basin, which may prove difficult due to environmental factors.

Maximization of the profits through the optimal mix of products

When the plant of a company operates at its maximum capacity, or when the people who work in an entity that is dedicated to the provision of services are at the top in the amount of work; the administration of the company must establish priorities, analyzing the profitability by scarce resource of each one of the products and / or services; once the products and/or services have been identified in accordance with said meter, the service that provides the greatest profitability will be manufactured and/or provided, if the installed capacity is available to continue production, the second place will be elaborated, and so on until the scarce resource is exhausted. In the present study, several simulations were carried out, analyzing the results by applying the traditional model of allocation of indirect manufacturing expenses under one or more restrictions, the Theory of restrictions together with the Throughput Accounting; obtaining as a result in all cases that the cost based on activities with multiple restrictions is the one that provides the best possible result in contrast to the other models.

CONCEPTUAL DESIGN OF A ZERO CO2 EMISSIONS FOSSIL FUEL POWER PLANT

In this paper we examine a promising pathway involving the elimination of CO2 emissions by growing oil-containing algae which naturally absorb solar energy during the growth phase. The dry algae or algal oil can be used as a fuel in the power plant boilers or to make bio-diesel. The remaining biomass can also be used for producing thermal energy. If we use dry algae or algae oil as a fuel in the power plant boiler, then in the extreme one can envision the following process: 1. Use enough fossil fuel to produce sufficient amount of CO2 to produce as much algae oil as needed for electricity production and for algae processing. 2. Use algae oil as fuel in the boilers and grow again algae from CO2 in the flue gas. 3. Etc. (repeat from 2). Theoretically, if there is 100% capture of CO2 via algae and if there is efficient capture of solar energy in the growth of algae, we could continue production of electricity without consuming any fossil fuel (other than the initial “charge”). We present a preliminary process design for 1,000 MW plant using algae oil as fuel.

Is a Fish a Natural Asset?

Oil, copper, and all the other minerals can only be used once: they are intrinsically depleting natural assets. But nature is also a factory, able to continue production indefinitely. This natural process of production is, of course, reproduction: fish, trees, pandas are all capable of reproducing (although pandas do not seem to be very good at it). Such renewable natural assets are a double blessing. We did not create them and yet we can harvest them for eternity. The menace of plunder is even starker with renewable natural assets than it was with depletable natural assets. The peculiar vulnerability of reproduction compared to other processes of production is that the continued flow of consumable goods depends upon the maintenance of a massive stock of them. If cars were produced in the same way as wood, General Motors would need a stock of many times its annual production from which to cull its new cars. Instead, it just needs a factory. Plundering a factory is not nearly as enticing as plundering a huge stock of the output. The incentive for the plunder of reproduction is therefore acute. We are able to enjoy the harvest from reproducible natural assets because previous generations refrained from such plunder. They did not exhaust the stock and so infringe the rights of future generations. What was the man who shot the last dodo thinking at the time? Perhaps not very much more than “got it!”; perhaps that since it was the last one it could not breed; or perhaps he did not realize that it was the last one until it was too late. Instinctively we sense that plundering a renewable natural asset to extinction seems an appalling error. Can economics add anything useful to such sentiments? In the simplest economies everything is sustainable: the economy remains exactly the same from one year to the next. This is not a world that we should necessarily aspire to. If everything stays the same, that includes the desperate poverty of the bottom billion. Nor is it now feasible: those nonrenewable assets are gradually running out.

Temporary production at Xijiang field with a DP FPSO

The paper describes the successful mobilization of the FPSO Munin on the Xijiang field, offshore China, to continue production in the interval that the field’s permanent FPSO was in dry dock for maintenance. The project is unique in that the FPSO Munin relies solely on its Dynamic Positioning (DP) system for station keeping. The paper describes the background to the project and goes into detail on the challenges overcome in order to make it a success. By using the original riser system and by utilizing the FPSO Munin’s DP capability a fast and cost efficient mobilization was achieved that made the project worthwhile for all parties involved. The qualification of the DP system, the offshore installation and the production operation on Xijiang are described in detail. Other applications for DP production are addressed in order to demonstrate the potential of such operations.

Quinine and Quinidine Production in the Americas

Quinine, oldest of the anti-malarials still in use, and quinidine, an anti-arrythmic, have been extracted from Cinchona bark since about 1823. Exploitation of natural stands of Cinchona in the Andes led to several attempts at plantation production. Of these, the most successful were in Netherlands Indonesia (Java). Just before World War II, a cooperative effort to develop technologies for successful cultivation of Cinchona in the western hemisphere was undertaken by the governments of the United States and Guatemala, a major pharmaceutical firm, and four Guatemalan coffee planters. Cultural requirements of this cloud-forest genus were ascertained, and selection of clones for superior yield and disease resistance was achieved. Guatemalan plantings continue production despite the excessively cyclic nature of the market.