Energy efficiency improvement: a strong driver for Total operations and R&D

Frdric Garnaud 1, Anne Rocher

1. Total Exploration and Production - RD program manager surface technologies 2. Total Exploration and Production Energy Efficiency Coordinator

Keywords: 1. energy assessments; 2. performance improvement; 3. consumptions reduction.

Introduction/Background

Based on the International Energy Agency reference Scenario, primary energy demand will increase by 1.5% per year between 2008 and 2030, involving oil and gas for 0.9 and 1.5%. Fossil fuels will remain dominant accounting for 77% of the overall increase in the energy demand in this period.

Fig. 1: World primary energy demand by fuel in EIA reference scenario

[1] In such a context, climate change and emission management present big challenges for all industrial sectors. Demands for action to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions are stronger and when looking at different options for their mitigation, energy efficiency will have a major role to play.

Fig. 2: ETP chart from Meeting the Challenge report [2] The IEA World Energy Outlook 2008 (WEO 2008) estimates that the energy efficiency recommendations could deliver over 8.2 Gton/year of CO2 emission reduction by 2030. In the near future energy efficiency is potentially the most important and cost-effective means for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from industry. For the specific case of oil and gas industry, improving energy efficiency at any stage of the process from raw products production, processing and refining, transport and distribution, to final products consumption has a direct impact on world resources management and preservation. TOTAL is an energy provider supplying almost 2% of world energy demand, and as such also a energy consumer with over 600MGJ of primary energy consumption for its activities in 2007. Based on the international scientific community conclusions, the Group made a commitment to control its greenhouse gases emissions with a program of dedicated actions involving all parts of activity from Exploration and Production to Refining and Marketing. This commitment allowed TOTAL to limit to less than 8% its emissions increase between 1990 and 2007 while E&P activity growth was over 100% and refining activity growth was almost 30%. TOTAL E&P branch has been involved for several years in the minimization of greenhouse gas emissions. The primary actions focussed on the flaring/venting reduction. A zero continuous flaring policy has been applied to all new developments since 2000. Even if access to gas market is not available, alternative solutions, such as gas re-injection either in the same reservoir or other disposal reservoir, must be implemented. For all other operated assets, TOTALs commitment is to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions, and specifically continuous flaring, as announced by corporate communication. Beyond flaring reduction, TOTAL is now working on improving energy efficiency of both existing operated assets and new developments as well as dedicating specific R&D actions. Within the Oil & Gas Industry, approximately 2/3 of todays greenhouse gases emissions are due to flaring/venting, but in the next 10 to 15 years this tendency will be reversed and about 2/3 of emissions will be related to combustion of fuels (fuel gas, oil/condensates or diesel) required to generate the necessary energy for Oil & Gas Plants.

Objectives of the paper

The objectives of this paper are to describe the methodologies and tools developed internally by TOTAL E&P to minimize energy consumptions firstly on existing assets, and through studies of new developments as well as to present examples from our R&D program.

TOTAL action plan for energy efficiency improvements 3.1.Energy assessments on existing assets

Review of energy consumption forecast for producing assets tends to show a constant increase. This increase could be explained by a number of reasons: a) Increasing maturity of both oil and gas fields. For gas fields, the effect of depletion results in an increasing need for compression, and for oil fields, increasing water cut and water re-injection policy results in an increase of energy requirements. b) Similarly, the flaring/venting reduction objectives lead to reinjection of associated gas resulting in higher energy requirements for gas compression. c) The future issues are deep and ultra deep offshore developments, acid gas fields, LNG, oil sands and oil and gas shales. In all cases, energy needs are higher due to water depth, H2S and CO2 treatment of acid gas with high levels of acid contaminants, liquefaction of gas for transportation to markets, development of oil sands and oil and gas shales all of which are requiring energy intensive processes. This will be discussed in the second part of this paper through actions developed to improve performances of new developments. TOTAL has formally been working on energy efficiency activities since 2006, under the responsibility of one energy efficiency coordinator. Alongside the coordinator, a transverse multidisciplinary team has been created with specialists from headquarter and from affiliates deeply involved in the day to day activities. As part of the energy efficiency plan implementation, it was decided to carry-out an evaluation of each operated asset within all TOTALs affiliates around the world and to establish a performance improvement plan. Prioritization of existing assets to be assessed was based on internal reporting, giving data in term of GHG emissions and fuel consumptions. A specific internal methodology has been developed and its implementation tested within two affiliate's pilots: o one dealing with mature oil assets with no gas market for valorisation of associated gas, o one dealing with gas and condensate fields operated under the European legislation in term of combustion emissions. As the methodology demonstrated positive results for these two pilots, it has been decided to deploy it on all operated assets of TOTAL Exploration and Production, with prioritisation as described later. Methodology and associated results. The objectives of the energy assessment are to: o quantify the use of energy and identify the main energy consuming processes

o establish reliable values of consumptions and losses on assets which give a reliable baseline for the considered asset at the time of energy assessment, o define opportunities to reduce the consumptions and losses and when possible opportunities to increase oil and gas production o propose short, medium and long term actions with a preliminary technical and economical evaluation to allow a prioritisation of these actions. The first action to be implemented is a site visit by two experts, one in rotating machineries and one in process/operations. During this site visit, from few days up to 2 weeks according to the complexity of the asset, all relevant data such as Piping and Instrument Diagrams (PID), electrical schemes, equipments data sheet, GHG emissions reporting, recent daily production reports, collected before the site visit, are discussed with the site crew as well as operational issues. During this phase it is crucial that all specialists of the affiliate and the site are involved in the discussion and in the elaboration of a first list of opportunities that could lead to energy consumptions improvement. First because they perfectly know their equipments and operation issues and secondly because a high involvement of the site and affiliate team at this stage of the process will lead to a better involvement in the implementation of proposed actions. At the end of the site visit, the final debriefing with all concerned persons in the affiliate shall cover the energy baseline results, with description of main consumers and all opportunities identified to improve the energy consumptions, and/or optimization of production. Systematically all these opportunities of improvement identified during the site survey are collected by the energy efficiency coordinator under a standard file as presented in figure 3. This allows to standardize the opportunities identified during all energy assessments on various assets, with a detailed technical description, a preliminary evaluation of benefits in term of fuel gas/electricity/vapour/diesel consumptions reduction, production increase if any, flaring/venting reduction, CO2 emissions reduction and maintenance costs reduction. Each opportunity is also preliminarily evaluated regarding pay back and economical benefits.

Fig. 3: standard file for opportunity description and actions decided

After preliminary technical and economical evaluation of all identified opportunities of one asset, each of them are reviewed and classified by a multidisciplinary team of specialists from both affiliate and headquarters (process, rotating equipments, environment, field operations, and petroleum architects). Subsequently, for all actions presenting high interest, a leader is nominated to schedule and implement the required actions. It should be noted that some actions considered as non feasible (economic and/or technical reasons) are shelved for further re-assessment. A global evaluation of the benefits of the actions to be implemented either immediately or after additional studies is done. Specific energy indicators are calculated which allow to define the baseline of the energy performance of each asset and show the improvements expected by the implementation of decided actions. For each asset, the compilation of all proposed actions together with associated schedule, leads to the elaboration of an Energy Efficiency Plan. Consolidation of all assets of an affiliate, leads to the definition of consolidated Energy Efficiency Plan for this affiliate.

The overall process is described on Figure 4.

Fig. 5: Methodology and deliverables of energy assessments

For the time being, 23 major operated assets of TOTAL Exploration & Production have been assessed and energy efficiency plans defined, covering about 50% of the operated energy consumptions of the Exploration & Production branch. The full deployment of these energy assessments will continue in the next years. Applying the same methodology for all assets is a guarantee that all surveys are conducted under the same scope of work and same level of details of investigation. At the same time, reporting is identical, and the calculation of same energy indicators allows comparing sites which are comparable in their characteristics and challenges. This will in a short term lead to a reliable internal benchmark of comparable assets. About 10 to 20 opportunities are identified on each site, depending of the complexity and the age of the site, of which about 2 to 5 are rejected for economical reasons. Among the 10-15 others, some are implemented quite rapidly, directly by the site, as they are not requiring heavy engineering and modification (quick win but generally low benefit opportunities). For the majority, opportunities need more detailed studies before final decision of implementation, due to major modifications on the installation (re-routing of piping, addition of flow meters, etc). And their implementation need at least a partial shut down of the installation and thus must be planned with other modifications.

Example of energy assessment on a gas field with condensate production: Total loss calculated during site survey: 1.8% (top quartile of its peers as shown by figure 5)

FIELD A

FIELD A

Figure 6: Field A Ranking in the evaluation of total losses

In order to provide a comparison of energy consumption across the different types of equipment, all energy consumptions are re-calculated and expressed in thermal value. For electrical power, this corresponds to the thermal energy used to generate the electrical power (not the electrical power itself). The thermal energy of a stream is calculated using the Lower Heating Value (LHV) of this stream. An alternative method of representing this data is the Sankey diagram:

Field A Energy usage

Analysis of Field A case Greenhouse gas emission Fuel gas consumption for compression and power generation represent about 78% of greenhouse gas emissions on this site where gas and condensates are exported by pipeline.
Vent gas 12,3% Fuel gas Power generation 21,0%

Flare gaz 9,3%

Diesel fuel 0,4% Fuel gas Export compression 37,3%

Fuel gas Booster compression 19,7%

Figure 7: Field A - Sources of greenhouse gas emissions

Energy Efficiency

Figure 8: energy distribution as per survey

Figure 9: breakdown of electrical load by consumer

o The energy distribution shows that about 60% of energy needs are related to gas export compression through a pipeline network directly to final gas market; Both booster and export compressors are turbine driven. o Electric power is provided through 2 turbines driven generators. The analysis of electrical load shows that the main consumers are the condensate export pumps and seawater pumps. It is worth mentioning that for this gas Field A, the overall electrical load is relatively small (about 50MW), thus there are limited opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions reducing the electrical load Lesson learnt Several good points of design have been highlighted during the site survey: o the use of high efficiency turbines with waste heat recovery to cover the heat requirements of the installation, o multiple fuel gas meters allowing an accurate follow-up and reporting of fuel gas consumptions,

o fuel chromatograph (on the export gas line), giving an excellent follow up of fuel gas composition, o variable speed pump drive o control simulators. The site survey team also reported that the installation was well operated and maintained.

Opportunities for Energy Efficiency Improvement

18 energy saving opportunities have been identified ranging from quick wins through to more capital intensive modifications. These energy savings opportunities are classified into 5 main categories: operations, equipment performance, awareness / energy monitoring, business / planning and reporting. It is estimated that 7 quick win opportunities will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by almost 5% of total. One of the most beneficial opportunities involves control loop tuning of the plan in order to improve its overall stability and so reduce the number of shutdowns. The other 11 opportunities require more studies and technical and financial efforts and are estimated to allow a further 5% reduction in CO2 emissions. Finally, it is very important to ensure that the proposed recommendations are taken into account into budgets and annual plans to guarantee their implementation.

Energy Efficiency Improvement Good Practice From numerous Energy Efficiency assessments on existing assets, it is possible to identify recurrent energy saving opportunities that can be easily implemented on other assets. This consolidation work is done by the Energy Efficiency Coordinator. These recurrent energy saving opportunities can be classified in various categories: o optimization of operating conditions, including improvement of rotating machines operations o re-routing of flows actually sent to vent or flare, o recovery of some flows such as blanketing gas on some equipments or flash drums vapours, o better metering among the installation for a better follow up of consumptions, o re-design of some equipment. The energy coordinator is in charge to issue a guide of good practices for energy efficiency improvement. On the other hand, the energy assessments systematically report good practices (both on operation and on design side) which can be also easily implemented. Among them, one can note for instance: o use of energy efficient turbines (aero-derivatives with higher efficiency than heavy duty turbines) o installation of Waste Heat Recovery Units on turbine exhaust gas that will increase the overall efficiency of the turbine by allowing the use of this waste energy for heating purposes on the process,

o fuel gas meters on main consumers, and as far as possible on individual consumers of fuel gas (this point is also valid for diesel consumptions), o use of ultra sonic flow meters on flares o process heat integration during design o energy efficient procedures for start-up after shut down, o dry gas seals on compressors, Overall consolidation of the information collected during the energy assessments is vital to ensure i) the success of the methodology i.e. reduction of fuel consumption, ii) an efficient transfer of operational experiences to the design principle for the future projects. One challenge is to improve the energy management on our existing assets but another challenge for the future is to design today the new development that will sustain our production in the years to come. This is the aim of the next section presenting methodology for new developments.

3.2.Energy Efficiency in new developments As already mentioned, the new developments currently under studies will sustain our production of tomorrow but also our energy efficiency of tomorrow. It is therefore of great importance to take into account the energy efficiency aspects at early stage of the design, considering the earliest energy efficiency aspects are integrated, the easiest the integration is possible, and the more cost effective it will be. The cost benefit of designing energy efficient development should not be directly measured against capex but taking into account the overall benefit of energy savings over the entire life of the project. In order to assess the overall benefit of energy efficiency improvement actions, TOTAL has launched, in parallel of energy assessments on existing assets, actions to be implemented during the design of new developments as early as the conceptual study level. It is now mandatory within TOTALs development study process to assess the energy efficiency of each process scheme proposed for a new development. This allows management to decide and choose the more appropriated scheme to match TOTALs commitment in term of consumptions and energy efficiency. The main advantage of this approach is a project with an energy architecture carefully studied, with a more accurate evaluation of consumptions, optimized choice of number of turbines, type of turbines, redundancy policy. Similarly, all electric schemes, with or without variable speed on compressors and pumps are compared to mix schemes with turbines and turbo-compressors or turbo-pumps In order to provide a methodology to assess and compare energy efficiency of different concepts, as well as for the optimization of the final definition of new development, TOTAL has developed 4 energy indicators to cover all the specificities of new developments of green fields and redevelopments of brown fields. These 4 indicators are designed to measure, for a given development: o the self consumption compared to the production or the overall products that could be valorised, o the overall consumptions and losses compared to the production or the overall products that could be valorised immediately or in a near future,

o the efficiency, comparing the energy entering the system to the energy valuable immediately or in a near future, o the energy intensity comparing all consumed energy (auto-consumed and purchased) to the products sold. These indicators take at different levels and under various configurations the following information into account: o valorised production: oil, gas, LNG, condensates, GPL, etc. o production that could be valorised later: gas re-injected in an adequate reservoir where a blow down production is later feasible, o auto consumptions: fuel gas (or oil or condensates or steam) produced on the field and auto consumed, o imported utilities: energy purchased, produced outside the perimeter of the study but necessary for the production (electricity, diesel, steam, purchased gas, purchased crude oil, etc) o losses, both process losses, flaring and venting o exported utilities: energy produced inside the perimeter of the study and sold to consumers (electricity, steam), o gas-lift: gas injected for activation purposes, which comes back together with well production in a closed loop The definition of these key performance indicators provides a common basis for quantification of a fields energy performance. The indicators are complementary and provide a characterisation of the projects performance on different aspects. The use of these 4 different indicators helps to compare schemes that are comparable. Each field has specific characteristics such as its size, the reservoir pressure and performance along the life of the field, the quality of oil and gas, the pressure maintenance strategy (depletion, water injection, gas injection) and also the specifications and specificities of exportation. Obviously a gas field development with LNG production needs much more energy, than a gas field development with direct exportation by pipeline to a local market. Similarly, acid gas field developments are also energy intensive projects with the need to deal with CO2 and H2S removal. As an example, figure 8 gives comparison of self consumption indicator for various kinds of projects, varying from about 1 to 2% for oil and gas developments up to 20% in heavy oil developments under Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage scheme, through 8 to 12% of auto consumption for LNG projects. In case of redevelopment of mature fields, the comparison is done between the re development scheme proposed and the do nothing case.

% of production

Oil / Gas

Mature Field

LNG

Mine

Heavy Oil SAGD

Figure 10: Energy needs (expressed in % of production)

In the evaluation of the performances of a new development, the perimeter of the study has to be defined very carefully, to be sure to compare subjects that are comparable.

Flared/Vented gas Production of utilities

ELECTRICITY SOLD FUEL GAS OTHER UTILITIES

Outlet flows
REINJECTED GAS OTHER PRODUCTS

Inlet flows
OIL GAS GAS LIFT

FIELD
Satellites, export pump Subsea and surface equipments Utility production

EXPORTED OIL EXPORTED GAS GAS LIFT

DIESEL ELECTRICITY OTHER UTILITIES

FUEL GAS

Energy vectors

An internal Excel tool has been developed with the description of the methodology and objectives. This methodology has been applied systematically for all development studies for the past 2 years allowing the development of a significant data base for comparison purposes. The Excel tool is now fed with the feed-back from all studies, giving the mean value and best value for each kind of TOTAL new development project, classified in oil field (with associated gas), gas field, acid gas field, LNG, etc Definitively, this tool helps the users to rank their project regarding energy performances among other TOTALs projects and to adapt their choices in order to reach the best compromise. This is illustrated by the figure 11 where for an on-going study of a new project of Floating Production Storage and Offloading unit (FPSO 1) the energy efficiency indicator values are compared to the mean value and best value of TOTAL E&P similar FPSO projects. One important issue in these calculations is to take into account the life of field indicators. Equipments are often sized and optimised for a plateau rate or peak rate. But looking at profiles during the entire life of the field, oil (and associated gas) or gas production is decreasing, water production is increasing; pressure maintenance is also changing in large proportions. Thus power generation, compressors and pumps are generally efficient during the production plateau and rather inefficient during the remaining period of production decline. A view at the life of field level, taking into account the forecasted profiles of oil, gas, water, enables to make better choices.

Some examples: o the number of trains working in parallel, o the use of variable speed drives, o the selection and sizing of equipments, all these enabling better adaptation of equipments to the evolution of the real production profiles.

4,0% 3,0% 2,0% 1,0% 0,0% Years 1-2 Years 3-9 FPSO 1 Years 10-19 best FPSO Life of field

mean FPSO

Figure 11: auto consumptions calculated for FPSO1 with energy efficiency tool

Finally, a Project Energy Review is organized at an adequate time within the schedule of the development studies, early enough to keep the opportunity to modify the selected concept in order to improve the overall performance of the project, but not too early as this energy review needs to be done based on relatively accurate material balances, utilities and power requirements. The Process team is obviously the leader in the discussion to explain their choices, but other specialities are involved such as rotating equipment or environment senior specialists, and operation team. The objective is to check, with regards to the list of good practices, what has been implemented and what has been rejected with associated technical explanation. The list of good practices has been established internally using the results of previous energy assessments on existing assets. This list is also improved with results from R&D when innovative technologies can be implemented in our future projects. The objective of this methodology is to take into account as early as possible energy efficiency criteria in our new development studies. Today, energy efficiency is one of the key criteria reviewed to finalize the concept and technology selection within our development studies, just as capital cost, operating costs and GHG emissions. This will impact positively our performance indicators in the future.

3.3.R&D Energy Efficiency examples This strategy on existing and future assets would not be able to meet E&P needs in the future without corresponding R&D actions. Two examples are presented below. The first belongs to the traditional sphere of R&D efforts in improving energy efficiency and concerns gas-sweetening processes, while the second concerns petroleum architecture and seeks to assess production schemes in the Deep offshore based on their energy performance.

Acid gas treatment: Gas sweetening is a highly intensive process. Total has develop a strong in-house know-how since the late fifties, with Lacq sour gas field development and operations. Ever since 1958 when the DEA1 (Di-Ethanol Amine ) process was implemented at the Lacq plant, the Company has been constantly seeking to improve this step in the treatment of raw sour gases, with the dual aim of reducing the CAPEX outlaid for this type of unit and the OPEX, essentially comprising the energy consumed in re-boiling the amine solution. As an upshot, the amine concentration in the DEA solution was gradually increased, from the 20% weight of the original process in 1958 to 40% weight at present, halving the flowrate of the solution needed to treat the gas. Improved understanding of degradation of the amine solutions, and corrosion, both mastered by means of specific design and operating criteria (circulation velocity in the rich amine piping, nitrogen blanketing of the tanks in which the solution is stored, limitation of the temperature of the reboiler tube walls) also enabled the process to be run with a higher richamine solution load factor. The load factor on the Lacq units has thus been increased to 0.80 mole/mole from the value of 0.50 commonly accepted by the other licensors and operators. Thanks to research and optimisation of new solvent formulations (MDEA (Di-Ethanol Amine) in 1977, amine mixes or EnergizedMDEA in 1987, HySWEET process in 2008) for the processes, the energy consumed on the amine-based sweetening units has been further reduced, among other advantages.
Solvent Process Reboil energy consumption (MW)

30 wt.% DEA 48 wt.% EnergizedMDEA

Original (1970 design) Thermal regeneration

100 67 34

48 wt.% EnergizedMDEA Flash-procured regeneration

Figure 12: energy gains achieved.

Deep Offshore production schemes

So far, Deep Offshore development schemes have effectively optimised energy fairly well in the surface equipment installed on the FPSO (Floating Production and Storage vessel). From Totals first FPSO started up in 2001, to on-going FPSO development studies a whole series of energy improvements have gradually been incorporated: aeroderivative turbines, all-electric energy architecture, variable speed drive, WHRU (waste heat recovery unit) on gas turbine exhaust, VGRU (vent gas recovery unit) on wash tanks and boilers and, lastly, FGRU (flare gas recovery unit).

However, artificially lifting our deep offshore wells has always relied on gas injection at the base of the riser to lessen the weight of the production volume. The gas-lift concept is old, straightforward and flexible in use but extremely energy-consuming because it involves compressing gas at the surface before reinjecting it at the riser base. Dozens of MW are devoted to this activation function on each FPSO.

With the development of subsea processing, the installation of high-power booster pumps (several MW) on the sea floor is becoming increasingly conceivable technically as well as offering significant advantages in terms of operability and ultimate recovery. Serious thought is now being given to the idea of abandoning riser base gas-lift in order to enhance the energy efficiency of deepwater developments. In opting for gas-liquid separation at the mud line, combined with liquid pumping, an on-going project development study is based on an activation system more energyefficient than gas-lift. The result is a 13-MW energy saving, which also translates into a gain of around 6% in the weight of the topsides equipment, hence ultimately in Capex and Opex. For long tie-backs, energy requirements will be even greater as the fluids will have to be transported over long distances. Efficiently managing the energy issue then becomes crucial for project economics, the more so that the FPSOs have not, or will not have, been sized to cater for future satellites developed as tie-backs. Curbing energy requirements means using high-efficiency pumping systems and, whenever possible, separating the effluent components at the mud line so as to further enhance performance. The point to bear in mind here is that a liquid pump is 75% efficient whereas a multiphase pump achieves an efficiency of only 45%.

4. Conclusions and Perspectives Most of exploration and production emissions come from combustion of fuel gas or diesel to provide our projects with their energy requirements. Therefore improving energy efficiency must be at the core of our programmes to maximise sales products and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in parallel to our actions in reducing and stopping continuous flaring. Optimizing operation conditions, sharing best practices, taking the energy factor into account right from the beginning of any new project and implementation of new technologies or process schemes are the key action levers to improve the performances of our production industry. Performance management, both of existing assets and future projects, needs a multidisciplinary involvement and at all levels of the organization: operations, process, rotating equipment, environment teams are the keys of the success. Finally, our future consumptions are at studies level today: it is the more cost effective way of improving our future emissions levels compared to the modifications of existing installations. Energy efficient architectures and processes need to be implemented and competitive results from research need to be included as soon as possible in these new developments. Some ways of improvements are to be more largely developed in the future: sub sea processing allowing direct re-injection of fluids (water or associated gas) rather than bringing them to the surface before re-injection, long multiphase tie-back to centralize process centres and thus energy needs, larger use of alternative energies in addition of overall needs, all electric architecture with variable speed drives and cogeneration for big projects with high amount of energy requirements. Finally, the global energy efficiency action plan implemented by Total not only leads to savings in energy consumptions, and reduction of emissions but also provide business opportunities through better products monetization. In parallel to improvements on existing operations, a best in class design on new developments will ensure a global improvement of energy use in a near future.

References
[1] World Energy Outlook 2009 (International Energy Agency) [2]Energy Technology Perspectives 2008 (International Energy Agency) [3] CAPP (Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers) Module 4 - Efficient Use of Fuel Gas in flaring operations [4] API 521, p 141-145