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New contracts for advanced compressor studies

Billington Process Technology (BPT) has over the last couple of months been awarded several contracts for detailed studies of onshore and offshore compressor facilities for operators as well as for engineering houses in Europe.

“These contracts prove BPT as the trusted advisor in advanced compressor configuration optimization and revamp projects”, express a spokesperson at BPT HQ in Norway. “We combine industry-standard steady state and dynamic process simulators with specialized and integrated compressor design and rating tool (BPT-CODES). The ability to evaluate the machinery requirements as part of the asset operational limits, provides a unique world-class workflow. By this way we define reliable machinery protection requirements and optimize compressor stages using a life of field perspective. In addition to improve the communication between operators and compressor vendors, the workflow has proven to be a very efficient method to minimize energy consumption and emissions.”

Project Type #1 - Machine Protection and Design Validation

BPT executes transient simulations for plant capacity upgrade projects to validate the centrifugal compressor machinery protection and plant operability. The combined responses from plant controls (with load sharing between parallel compressor trains) and compressor machinery protection systems (anti-surge control as well as “hot gas bypass” are simulated dynamically for a wide range of scenarios. For electrically driven machinery, BPT often uses an advanced “inertia method” to define design requirements to avoid undesired surge conditions in “loss of power” and ESD scenario. BPT has developed a series of vendor specific anti-surge controller functionalities ensuring reliable results are obtained.

Project Type #2 - Process Optimization including Compressor Staging

For field development projects, steady state process simulations are carried out using detailed compressor rating predictions based on life of field simulations. One objective might be to optimize a robust gas treatment design, another to improve process robustness or simply, to minimize energy consumption and emissions. Using BPT-CODES, we define realistic compressor performance maps fulfilling the plant constraints whether they are capacity needs and/or large gas property variations. Conceptual designs can be optimized for number of drives and stages. Solutions prepared both for parallel and serial operations can easily be evaluated. On one project alone, increased reservoir productivity combined with the BPT compressor selection unlocked additional values of around 3 billion USD for the first 5 years of operation.

Project Type #3 - Compressor Modifications and Re-Bundling

For mature plants, BPT carries out steady state process simulations using detailed compressor rating predictions. The objective is in most cases to optimize the energy consumption versus updated life of field production profiles. BPT-CODES is used to define optimal compressor bundle designs within the existing machinery constraints (compressor casing, number of impellers and impeller diameters, drives etc.). A new way of working has been enabled whereby multiple process simulation sensitivities, compressor rating calculations, can be simulated fast and accurate before the need to involve compressor vendors.

Billington Process Technology (BPT) is an independent digital solution, simulation and service company with Headquarter outside Oslo, Norway. BPT has unique domain knowledge within production and process facilities. We are world-class users of process simulators, and among the specialties are compressor design as well as process safety. The BPT Digital Production Twin includes an unmatched solution for holistic sensor-correction providing invaluable data fundament for a number of advanced digital applications (ala machine learning) as well as calibrated steady-state and dynamic simulators for efficient production optimization. BPT is a frontrunner in modernizing field development approach together with innovating oil companies. A BPT specialty is to apply integrated multiphase flow and dynamic process simulators throughout the field development, commissioning, and life of field to validate and improve design as well as troubleshoot and perform production optimization.

For more information about this press note, please contact Knut Erik Spilling, BPTs Vice President for Sales & Marketing (phone: +47 90 08 79 76 or e-mail: kes@bpt.no).