Condensate Optimization Through Digital Tools

Khazzan, the gas giant in Oman, and its new gas processing facility were started up in 2017 delivering a daily contractual volume of gas o the local grid. The wells had high gas deliverability potential, and yet they were constrained to deliver the contractual volume specified by the commercial agreement with the government. To maximize the value of this excess gas potential, a new digital tool was utilized to optimize our condensate production – increasing production by 2-3% with no additional cost. The first step was to create a digital twin of the asset, including the structure of the asset and the fluid dynamics of the flow regimes, temperatures and pressures. Historical data was used to populate the digital twin, and sensors in the asset were set up to send real time data to the functioning twin of the physical asset. Any constraints in the production system were built into the digital twin to provide the most accurate simulation. The tool was then used to monitor, simulate and optimize production, by testing multiple variables until an optimal solution was found for the entire production system from wells, through facilities, to export. Significant value was obtained by utilizing the digital toolkit, delivering not only economic value but progressing innovation as well. Traditional production management requires considerable time to manually integrate the complex infrastructure and fluid dynamics. This digital twin of Khazzan enabled the work to be automated and completed much faster than conventional methods–allowing petroleum engineers to focus on evaluating well performance rather than running time-consuming scenarios of anticipated or likely events. The response time to any changes in gas nomination was also reduced significantly, by running simulations with a few clicks on the screen and updating them in the live streaming Wells Overview sheet. Condensate optimization was not only achieved through maximizing condensate production, but there an opportunity was realized to minimize condensate flared volumes during plant upsets which ultimately impact recovered condensate. This was completed in conjunction with the live streaming Wells Overview – to capitalize on utilizing a digital workflow to reduce flaring volumes. Overall, this digital twin benefited BP Oman by indicating where efficiencies can be improved and potential problems in the production system, leading to significant business value being added to the company.