Processing, April 2018
Cover Series Oil Gas Gas processing data analysis from afar Advanced analytics and data collection system help an energy company monitor and evaluate gas processing equipment at remote well sites By Andy Young Pioneer Energy nmanned well sites in remote locations present operational challenges Data must not only be collected but it also must be monitored to uncover any discrepancies U and ideally to predict problems before they occur Advanced analytics software coupled with a sophisticated data collection system can address these issues and also provide additional benefits Pioneer Energy in Lakewood Colorado is a service provider and original equipment manufacturer solving gas processing challenges in the oil field with a range of standard gas capture and processing units for tank vapors and flare gas Pioneer Energys VaporCatcher line of units captures hydrocarbon vapors from crude oil tank batteries and extracts natural gas liquids NGLs at high yields instead of sending these commodities to combustion or venting to the atmosphere This dramatically cuts emissions meets U S Environmental Protection Agency Quad O compliance standards and provides a significant economic return Its FlareCatcher line of equipment see Figure 1 provides flare gas capture and processing at the well site producing NGLs and pipeline quality lean methane and enabling producers to achieve regulatory compliance Oil and gas fields in North Dakota Montana and Colorado use the vapor and flare gas capture equipment at production well sites to capture methane and natural gas liquid streams Pioneer Energy operates and monitors these geographically dispersed units from its headquarters in Colorado Pioneers operations and design teams monitor the equipment and analyze the results to deliver continuous improvement The flare gas capture and processing equipment is powered with a natural gas generator which is inside the white enclosure on the front of the trailer as shown in Figure 1 The fuel gas for this generator is provided by any of the refined energy products made by the system and this usage represents only about 5 percent of the total energy of the gas processed by the equipment The system has auxiliary backup batteries which are charged with a conventional battery tender powered by the primary generator or a solar panel The auxiliary power system is required to keep communications alive during periods when the system is not running due to maintenance a component level failure or insufficient gas flow from the site Once the shutdown condition has been remedied having communications available with headquarters allows remote startup 22 Processing APRIL 2018
You must have JavaScript enabled to view digital editions.
