Abstract
United Petroleum Development Co., Ltd. constructed a sour gas injection platform, the project is called “Bunduq Gas Injection Project”, in El-Bunduq oil field situated on the offshore border between Abu Dhabi and Qatar. The project was implemented for the protection of environment by recovering 1 MM scf/d of acid gas otherwise being flared and for the enhancement of oil recovery by re-injecting 40 MM scf/d of associated sour gas (H2S 12%) into the oil reservoirs after the compression up to 6,000 psi.
Due to the hazardous nature of gas, the sour gas injection facilities are usually installed on the ground and it seems that there is no other example especially for such high pressure and high H2S compression at offshore platform. Thus I wish to introduce some valuable concepts to install sour gas injection facilities on offshore platform taking into account stable and safety operation based on the experience of the Bunduq's project as follows;
1) Install compact high speed reciprocating compressors in order to cut back the platform cost and decrease the vibration.
2) Secure safe sour gas compressor start-up operation by boosting small amount of sweet gas prior to full amount of sour gas.
3) Minimize number of personnel on the platform by utilizing automatic control for the operation.
4) Design the layout of facilities on the platform not to cause significant accumulation of flammable gas.
5) Optimize the layout of facilities and the operation philosophy to minimize the risk by repeating the safety analysis.
