Abstract
TM Platform is a mature oil producing facility located in East Malaysia. It has been producing since 1979. Being an aging field, production with higher gas/oil ratio (GOR) and wider pressure range at remote platform which is flowing into single pipeline to the processing platform, encountered bottlenecking which restricts the flow from lower pressure wells. This paper outlines the concept of technology and operational intervention to minimise surface bottlenecking at one of TM remote platforms, TM-X.
As an effort to boost production from lower pressure (LP) wells at TM-X, a multiphase booster pump (MBP) was commissioned. It was designed to create low suction pressure to enable maximum drawdown from the wells. Selected LP wells were diverted into a dedicated line header, flown into the multiphase pump, and discharged into the main line header to commingle with the higher pressure (HP) wells. Further optimisation of pump capacity was achieved by lowering down the gas throughput. This is done by using routine well testing to select optimum well candidates with lower totat output gas (formation gas plus injected gas) and flowing tubing head pressure (FTHP).
Currently, MBP with optimum well selection is enabling oil gain of approximately 1500–2000 BOPD. Multiphase booster pumps (MBP) is a gas engine driven, plunger type pump. Some of the low FTHP wells which were unable to flow because of backpressure from the higher pressure wells in the pipeline are now able to flow via MBP. MBP is not a common equipment and has never been installed at any offshore location in Malaysia before. Therefore, operating and maintaining it was challenging. Operational intervention such as increasing frontline spares, improving operator competency, and daily parameter logging played a crucial role in ensuring the optimum performance of MBP.
This booster pump and optimisation process can be further replicated at other oil platforms to increase the production, especially in a remote platform which wells have higher GOR or formation gas rate and lower FTHP, but no dedicated pipeline and infrastructure to flow the crude according to its pressure setting range for each higher and lower pressure wells, respectively.
MBP with its nature as a multiphase pump is suitable for remote platform with unmanned philosophy at which continuous local gas venting or emission shall be kept to minimum. With complete unit shutdown system tied-in to TM-X shutdown system, and electronic Unit Control Panel (UCP) enables recording of trip history for ease of troubleshooting and eliminate unsafe conditions, MBP is applicable at unmanned remote platforms with minimum daily man-hour visit.
