Go deep
ABB has developed a new technology that reduces the time it takes to reach first oil, the industry term for a well that starts producing oil and earning revenue. It’s the critical measure for customers, who only earn a return on their investment once oil flows.
This new technology – which also increases reliability and availability – is called NuDeep, a patented ultra deep-water subsea processing system, which offers customers several significant advances in technology and operating efficiency.
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ABB is the world leader in ethylene technology, with around 40 percent market share. Ethylene production has certain undesirable by-products that are eliminated by conversion to olefins. Where this was once done in four reactor systems, ABB combined the process into one, eliminating about 40 pieces of equipment.
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Oil production in ultra-deep water, down to 3,000 meters, is extremely difficult and expensive. Significant amounts of water are mixed with oil in subsea reservoirs. Traditionally in deep-sea operations, water is only separated and discarded when it reaches the surface platform. This is inefficient because it reduces oil flow and increases the cost of lifting the mixture to the surface.
NuDeep is a modular system. New wellhead design and Christmas tree (an arrangement of pipes, valves and automated controls that regulate the flow of oil at the wellhead) systems make it possible to handle intense pressure barriers. NuDeep is easy to install and environmentally sound, meeting all safety regulations. And remote intervention is significantly cheaper and safer than today’s recovery systems.
As the total cost of a subsea oil and gas development directly relates to the capital cost of equipment and the operation and maintenance of the well itself, NuDeep can significantly reduce costs over a system’s lifecycle. Concentrating more functionality on the seabed and simplifying traditional designs is a paradigm shift in subsea production, which is now possible with ABB’s new design.
Licenced to save money
ABB has developed revolutionary design changes in olefins processing technology that will improve project economics by up to 30 percent.
By changing process chemistry and reconfiguring the way olefins are recovered, equipment requirements will be reduced by as much as 25 percent, greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption will be cut by up to 12 percent and investment costs will drop by 15 percent.
Olefins production is a major part of the global petrochemical industry. Olefin polymers are made by chemical reactions involving propylene and ethylene, and are used in apparel, home furnishings, automotive and industrial products. More than 105 million tons of ethylene and 45 million tons of propylene are produced worldwide each year.
More than 300 ethylene plants are now operating, and each year about six new plants are commissioned, each costing between US$ 400 million and US$ 800 million. ABB licenses the technology and provides engineering, procurement and construction services for these plants, primarily on a turnkey basis.
On the engineering side, ABB has redesigned the reactor which takes raw hydrocarbon feedstock and breaks the molecules apart. Using computational fluid dynamics, ABB’s new reactor is 15 percent smaller than before, but handles the same capacity.
A second engineering advance is in the compression/ separation area, where four compression systems have been reduced to two. The main gas compressor now operates at 15 atmospheres of pressure instead of 40 atmospheres and three refrigeration compression systems have been combined into one.
The net result is a 40 percent reduction in the number of compressors and turbines needed, from ten to six.
ABB has changed the process chemistry by using a chemical reaction instead of high energy refrigeration to remove hydrogen.
Ethylene production has certain undesirable by-products that are eliminated by conversion to olefins. Conventionally, this is accomplished using four separate reactor systems, but ABB has combined the process into a single reactor, eliminating about 40 pieces of equipment and saving energy while also removing 35 percent of the hydrogen in the gas without refrigeration.
A second ABB chemical advance converts “orphan” by-products that are valuable as fuel into ethylene, propylene or hexene 1, which can be sold for up to US$ 1,000 per ton – a five-fold increase in value.
ABB is the world leader in ethylene technology, with around a 40 percent market share. Realizing some time ago that China is expected to show the largest growth in olefin consumption in the coming years, the company formed a partnership with Sinopec, its leading petrochemical producer. The two companies are jointly working to commercialize the new olefin technology through several demonstration plants.
Listening to the sounds of silence
Earthquakes registering over six on the Richter scale can be highly destructive.
Yet micro-earthquakes – less than one ten-billionth the strength of a major quake and undetectable on the earth’s surface – can offer valuable information on the structure and performance of oil and gas fields.
ABB can install micro-sensors down boreholes to detect and measure micro-earthquakes, producing seismic data which shows where pressure and stress is concentrated, and how they change over the life of a reservoir. The data can also identify areas in a reservoir that can deliver – or not deliver – oil and/or gas.
A network of seismic sensors is created at various depths within several boreholes. The sensors listen to the reservoir and detect microseismic events induced by pressure and stress changes. The location of the micro-earthquakes and the type of signal indicate how the reservoir is operating.
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An ABB engineer tests and verifies borehole instrumentation strings in the Yibal oil and gas field – courtesy of PDO and the Oman Ministry of Oil and Gas.
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The PDO’s (Petroleum Development Oman) Yibal oil and gas field is the site of the first, large-scale, high-resolution, multi-borehole and multi-sensor micro-earthquake monitoring project in an operating oil and gas field. This collaboration between PDO, Shell and ABB is focused on how to use and interpret the high quality micro-seismic data taken from the reservoir.
Hydrocarbon reservoirs are often divided by geological faults into small sections. This can produce reservoir “compartments” that are not hydraulically linked – so a well drilled into one compartment will not produce any hydrocarbons from a neighboring compartment. Oil recovery from most reservoirs is around 35 percent of total reserves, and large sections of the field are unproductive.
ABB’s monitoring technique can identify where these faults are, and indicate barriers to hydrocarbon production. This information can be critical in the planning of new wells.
The micro-seismic technique is new to the oil and gas industry. The project brings together existing and innovative technologies in a new environment. The outcome will be new reservoir information, data processing techniques and computer simulation tools.