Abstract
The residents of Basrah, Iraq, suffer from a significant lack of power and at times can have as little as only a couple of hours of electricity per day. Utilising one of Iraq’s most abundant natural resources is a key value driver as Shell works closely with the Iraqi Government, the National Oil and Gas Company (SOC & SGC), and several other significant stakeholders, to deliver more gas to the domestic grid, faster than previously thought possible.
The Tigris First Commercial Production (FCP) Gas project scope involves gathering sweet associated gas produced from the Majnoon field, before sending it to a newly built 1.2 GW power station at North Rumaila. In addition to major improvements to the current energy infrastructure, impacted by decades of wars and sanctions, the project will reduce emissions associated with flaring by putting the gas to use.
Traditional methods for building a gas plant would not deliver on the needs of our major stakeholders - to have access to gas on the shortest possible timeline for local power. The project demanded a radical approach. An answer was found in a novel, fully modularised marine barge concept which had potential to deliver on the tight timeline required.
The final concept for Tigris (FCP Gas) involved building a fully modularised 140 MMSCFD gas plant with our partners, Solar in Houston. The plant was equipped with compression and dehydration capability. The system was built, tested and dismantled into smaller structures. In addition to a fully modularised gas plant, a fully-modular, six-finger slug catcher was manufactured in Kansas for installation at the power station in North Rumaila. All these modular pieces, assembled in two separate locations across the United States, had to be made for easy re-assembly and to fit within the space and payload restrictions of the Antonov aircraft. The Antonov made 40+ round trips between the U.S. and Iraq to transport all the equipment for final installation and commissioning.
Innovating to a novel, modularised concept that would be fabricated in America and airlifted to Iraq by multiple Antonov roundtrips, proved to be extremely successful and has allowed the team to work towards an achievable timeline, about half the original duration, to domestic gas delivery.
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