New, lower cost, gas development concepts using advanced subsea gas processing: the end of the surface gas giants?
Richard MooreFluor Australia Pty Ltd.
The APPEA Journal 54(2) 524-524 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ13097
Published: 2014
Abstract
Offshore gas developments in the 1980s and 1990s typically involved cooling, water removal and dehydration on a fixed platform. As the industry moved into deeper water, the flow assurance and processing challenges have greatly broadened; however, many highly preferred processing options, which have been available on topsides facilities, remain unavailable subsea. The result has been an over-reliance on glycol injection, with very significant, but often unrecognised, challenges and large cost implications. Despite being immersed in cool seawater, accurate control of hydrocarbon temperature subsea is not presently available. The dangers from excessive cooling, leading to wax and hydrate formation, mean that cooling without temperature control (passive cooling) is not acceptable. Accurate, temperature controlled, subsea cooling technology combined with separation opens up an entirely new category of flow assurance solutions and advanced subsea processing opportunities, with enormous potential benefits. FLNG pre-processing, deepwater hub developments and even dry single phase export are all possible. Combined with subsea compression, the requirement to bring gas to surface is eliminated completely. The avoidance of gas to surface and the huge facility sizes and cost this entails opens the way for dramatically lower cost gas developments, necessary for Australia to remain competitive in today’s world.
Richard has thirty years’ experience in the international oil and gas industry. He began his career in the mid-1980s with Esso-BHP on the Bass Strait Fields in Australia. After, he moved to the UK, where he worked for BP, BG, Brown & Root, and Granherne-KBR. Richard returned to Australia in 2001 where he commenced work with Woodside. In February 2011, Richard started his own consulting company, Rasmax Consultants, before joining Fluor in his present position as Front End Business Study Manager in September 2012. Richard has been heavily involved in flow assurance from its beginning, working on flow assurance designs for the Kerr-McGee Gryphon FPSO in the early 1990s, and subsequently on the BP Cyrus subsea pipeline bundle tie-back to the BP Andrew platform. Richard played a significant role in establishing and maturing the flow assurance discipline at Woodside, and in 2004, he was appointed Woodside’s first flow assurance discipline coordinator. Together with WA-ERA, he organized one of the first flow assurance courses in Perth in 2004. Richard has earned master degrees in chemical engineering and business. |
