Monetisation of Associated Gas from Offshore Flares

Associated petroleum gas (APG) or associated gas (AG) is a form of natural gas produced as a by-product of crude oil production. At majority of oil facilities, the AG is monetised or utilised for petroleum operations and any excess is exported as sales gas or re-injected to achieve zero continuous (routine) flaring. In offshore mature fields and older facilities, excess hydrocarbon gas is flared since economics of scale cannot be achieved.

 

Recent advances in technology has enabled economic deployment of Gas to Liquid (GTL), Gas to Power (GTP), Gas to Chemicals (GTC) and Gas to Solid (GTS) in onshore environments. A large challenge remains, to undertake the same in offshore environments specially for matured fields.

 

 

 

The goal of this challenge was to discover the best economic solutions to monetise Associated Gas (AG) from offshore flaring facilities which has neither existing gas utilisation nor evacuation infrastructure. The objective is to beneficially utilise the hydrocarbon resource and reduce the carbon footprint and its intensity.

 

Although recent advances in technology have enabled economic deployment of various gas monetisation systems in onshore environments, the challenge to bring these solutions offshore still remains.

 

We received 34 proposals from 10 countries for this challenge. The diverse range of promising solutions include Gas Processing, Gas to Liquids, Gas to Power, Gas to Solids, and even Gas to Food. These proposals were subjected to an evaluation based on the criteria developed by our team of techno-commercial experts.