Gas Flare Design Debottlenecking Using Pinch Analysis

Gas flaring is concerned with the combustion of lighter ends of hydrocarbon mostly produced in association with crude oil. Flare networks are designed to handle the gas volume required to be flared. Most times, this flare networks are in close proximity but still have independent flare stacks, increasing risk to environment and cost on infrastructures. There is a need to integrate the flare networks in facilities within same area and through the application of Pinch Analysis concept, the resultant flare network can be optimized to give a system having optimal tail and header pipe sizes that will reduce cost and impact on environment. In the light of the foregoing, the concept of pinch analysis was used in debottlenecking integrated gas flare networks from a flow station and a refinery in close proximity. Both flare networks were integrated and the resultant gas flare network was optimized to obtain the optimum pipe header and tail pipe sizes with the capacity to withstand the inventory from both facilities and satisfy the set constraints such as Mach number, noise, RhoV2 and backpressure. Mach number was set at 0.7 for tail pipes and 0.5 for header pipes, noise limit was not to exceed 80 dB upstream and 115 dB downstream the sources, RhoV2 was limited to 6000 kg/m/s2 and the back pressure requirement was source dependent respectively. The fire case scenario was considered, as it is the worst-case scenario in the studies. When pinch analysis was applied in debottlenecking the combined gas flare network, it gave smaller tail and header pipe sizes which is more economical. A 20% decrease in pipe sizes was recorded at the end of the study.

Innovative Approach to Increase Name Plate Capacity of Oil and Gas Gathering Centre

Purpose： The oil and gas gathering and processing facility of Kuwait Oil Company is built with a nameplate capacity of X MBOPD （thousand barrels oil per day） with 50% water cut. However, the facility was operating with a water cut of 35%. This comprehensive technical study was conducted to evaluate possibility of increasing oil processing capacity of this facility in line with current lower water cut and other operational flexibilities available in the facility without utilizing its design margin. Topic： This paper shares an innovative approach to increase name plate capacity of oil and gas processing facility utilizing available operational flexibility and operational margins with minor modification. It shares a case study where facility capacity is increased by around 19% without utilizing design margins of equipment or pipeline. Method： The study includes theoretical verification and analysis of all major equipment and piping to identify available capacity and limitation, in order to utilize available additional margin and to propose debottleneck options to overcome limitations. Achievement： The study confirmed that, facility name plate capacity can be revised from X MBOPD （with 50% w.c （water cut）） to X ＋ 32 MBOPD （with： 45% w.c） minor modification in separator and utilizing margin available in feed specification ofdesalter trains.

Shanghai Huayi Group to Construct and Debottleneck Petrochemical Projects

The Shanghai Huayi Group Company plans during the 2006—2010 period to invest 25 billion RMB in Shanghai and otherregions to construct grassroots units or retrofit existing units.Approximately 6.25 billion RMB will be used to expand andrevamp the projects located in Shanghai Wusong base,in-