REPORT

Compressor is one of the essential equipment used in oil and gas industry. It is mostly
located at the topside facilities of a platform during the processing of hydrocarbon product
extracted from the reservoir through the well drilled. It is mainly used to provide mechanical
energy for the transportation of gas product resulted from the separation process of
hydrocarbon fluid to the sales point. Specifically, compressor is used to transport the gas from
a low pressure region to a high pressure region. However, there are many types of compressor
used in the industry which are depends on their operating requirement such as reciprocating,
centrifugal, sliding vane and rotation. These types of compressor are different with each other
in terms of their mechanical operations, horsepower requirements, operating speeds and
pressures, and applications.

First and foremost, there are different operating mechanism used in various types of
compressor to give the same output which is the compression. Reciprocating compressor, also
known as piston compressor, use positive displacement mechanism in which the gas enter the
cylinder through suction valve when the piston is moving away from the cylinder head and as
the piston moves toward the cylinder head, the gas is compressed until its pressure is high
enough to discharge out through discharge valve. Centrifugal compressor is different compared
to reciprocating as it definitely uses different mechanism which is kinetic mechanism. It use a
series of rotating impellers to drawn in the gas make it flow with a significant kinetic energy
and it is pushed to the edge of compressor casing due to the centrifugal force acting upon it.
The kinetic energy is converted into pressure energy as the flow speed is reduced in the
compressor case. Both sliding vane and rotary compressor uses the same principle as
reciprocating which is positive displacement principle. The sliding vane is fit with a number of
vanes into the slot located in a rotating shaft. The vanes slide in to allow an amount of gas enter
the space between the two adjacent vanes and slide out as the shaft rotates. Due to the shaft
rotation, the volume between the two vanes and the wall of compressor cylinder decreases. For
rotary compressor or screw compressor, it consists of two helical rotor located next to each
other whereby they revolve to allow gas drawn in through the inlet port to fill in space between
the lobes. The gas trapped between the lobes is forced towards each other as the rotor revolve
to an increasingly small space which then causes compression. As it reach certain position, the
compressed gas is allowed to discharge through the outlet port. All these types of compressor
have a similar output which is the gas is compressed and lead to increase in pressure.
 The next part is the horsepower requirement in order to operate those compressors. The
horsepower requirement depends on the size of the compressor. There is two types of
reciprocating compressor which is high-speed and low speed. High-speed typically have
numerous sizes from 50 hp to 3,000 hp while low-speed from 2,000 hp to 4,000 hp. Large size
of low-speed compressor may operate at 2,000 hp to over 12,000 hp. However, centrifugal
compressor are driven by either turbine or electric motor which may starts to operate at 500 hp
and normally size ranging begin from 1,000 hp increase to 20,000 hp. Also, sliding vane
compressor comes in sizes to 500 bhp and the typical sizes up to 250 bhp, but the commonly
used for application under 125 bhp. For the rotary compressor, the most common used is below
800 hp but the air service uses up to 6,000 hp and hydrocarbon service uses up to 400 hp.

In order for the compressor to run smoothly, it should operate within its specifications
such as operating speed and pressure. High-speed or separable reciprocating compressor are
normally operate at the speed between 900 and 1,800 rpm while low-speed or integral
reciprocating compressor are normally run between 200 and 600 rpm. Its operating pressure is
depends on the cylinder material used which means that the stronger the material, the higher
operating pressure could be applied. Centrifugal compressor depends on flow volume whereby
high volume will operate at speeds as low as 3,000 rpm while low volume may operate at
speeds up to 30,000 rpm. Its flow and pressure are normally determined by its inlet and outlet.
Sliding vane compressor are commonly rotational speed at about of 1,750 rpm while rotary
compressor operate at speed between 2,500 and 9,000 rpm. Also, the sliding vane compressor
only require operating pressure at around the range of 100 to 125 psig but the rotary compressor
require high pressure to operate as it suits with large horsepower.

Last but not least, all these compressors is widely used not only in oil and gas industry
but also other industries as well. For example, reciprocating compressor are well known to be
used in oil refinery for hydrogen gas and also being used in automotive industries such as
powering tools in workshop or body shop. Furthermore, centrifugal compressor have been used
in petrochemical plant and natural gas processing plants as well as snowmaking operations
such as ski resorts. Besides that, sliding vane compressor is widely used to provide compressed
gas for farm equipment operation, drying of chemical products and many more. As for rotary
compressor, it is also used in general industrial applications such as trailer-mounted diesel-
powered and also to power air-operated construction machinery.
 In a nut shell, compressor consists of different types depending on the situation.
Although the end product is the same which is compressed gas, their mechanism and operating
specifications are different from each other. However, these compressors are being used not
only in oil and gas industry, but also other industries which required compressed gas as a part
of their operations to create their product.

REFERENCES

Centrifugal compressor. (n.d.). Retrieved July 25, 2017, from

http://petrowiki.org/Centrifugal_compressor

Gas compressor. (2017, July 12). Retrieved July 25, 2017, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_compressor

Reciprocating compressor. (n.d.). Retrieved July 25, 2017, from

http://petrowiki.org/Reciprocating_compressor

Stewart, M. (2014). Surface production operations. Oxford: Gulf Professional.

APPENDICES

FIGURE 1: Mechanism of reciprocating compressor

 FIGURE 2: Components of centrifugal compressor

FIGURE 3: Mechanism of sliding vane compressor

FIGURE 4: Mechanism of rotary compressor