System of Comprehensive Energy-Efficient Utilization of Associated Petroleum Gas with Reduced Carbon Footprint in the Field Conditions

• Main Authors: Valentin Morenov, Ekaterina Leusheva, George Buslaev, Ove T. Gudmestad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-09-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: associated petroleum gas; binary cycle; combined heat and power; petroleum production; GTL; synthetic liquid hydrocarbons
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4921

This paper considers the issue of associated petroleum gas utilization during hydrocarbon production in remote petroleum fields. Due to the depletion of conventional oil and gas deposits around the globe, production shifts to hard-to-recover resources, such as heavy and high-viscosity oil that requires a greater amount of energy to be recovered. At the same time, large quantities of associated petroleum gas are extracted along with the oil. The gas can be utilized as a fuel for power generation. However, even the application of combined power modes (combined heat and power and combined cooling heat and power) cannot guarantee full utilization of the associated petroleum gas. Analysis of the electrical and heat loads’ graphs of several oil fields revealed that the generated thermal energy could not always be fully used. To improve the efficiency of the fuel’s energy potential conversion, an energy system with a binary power generation cycle was developed, consisting of two power installations—a main gas microturbine and an auxiliary steam turbine unit designed to power the technological objects in accordance with the enterprise’s power load charts. To provide for the most complete utilization of associated petroleum gas, a gas-to-liquid system is introduced, which converts the rest of the gas into synthetic liquid hydrocarbons that are used at the field. Processing of gas into various products also lowers the carbon footprint of the petroleum production. Application of an energy system with a binary power generation cycle makes it possible to achieve an electrical efficiency up to 55%, at the same time maintaining high efficiency of consumers’ energy supply during the year. The utilization of the associated petroleum gas in the developed system can reach 100%.