SPE 86604
Improving Energy Efficiency in E&P Operations
John Edwards, BP
Copyright 2004, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.
This paper was prepared for presentation at The Seventh SPE International Conference on
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Abstract
BP has been striving to minimise the greenhouse gas
emissions from its operations for several years. Since most
emissions come from the combustion of fuel in processing
operations, improving energy efficiency is the key to better
emissions performance. The paper describes the tools and
processes that have been developed to improve energy
management and shares lessons from practical experiences of
performance improvement in new projects and existing E&P
operations. In all cases, improving energy efficiency has
delivered significant business benefits.
Introduction
In 2001 BP achieved the commitment it made 4 years earlier
to reduce its GHG emissions by 10% by 2010. Its goal now is
to stabilise emissions at this level by minimising the emissions
associated with growth , continuing to reduce emissions from
its operations and participating in the development and use of
flexible mechanisms such as emissions trading.
Within E&P operations the early successes in emissions
reduction were largely associated with reducing hydrocarbon
loss through flaring and venting. Now the focus is moving
increasingly towards improving energy efficiency in
E&P operations.
This paper describes BP’s experiences in generating value
by exploiting technology, developing energy management
processes and engaging people to drive improved energy and
emissions performance in new and existing E&P operations.
Energy Team
An important first step was to set up a dedicated team in order
to provide focus on energy efficiency and to develop and co-
ordinate the improvement programme. Specialists from
various parts of the company were established in the new
group to provide a range of expertise and experience.
Establishing The Baseline
The starting point in any performance improvement
programme is to understand the current situation, have a
means to quantify the baseline and measure any changes from
that position.
Within BP, an internal protocol had already been
established to estimate and report CO2 emissions and
therefore it was a relatively simple matter to collate data on
combustion sources and report energy and hydrocarbons
consumed, flared and vented. Since that time there has been
great progress in establishing a consistent methodology for
greenhouse gas emissions estimation for the petroleum
industry 1
A robust baseline of energy consumed, flared and vented
was established in 2001 and is broadly aligned with this
methodology. This indicated that in BP operated assets the
gross energy consumed and hydrocarbon loss from flaring and
venting was over 320,000 boe per day of which 83% was
energy consumed in processes.
Measuring Energy Efficiency
The measure of energy performance was defined in the form
of “specific energy consumption”, energy per unit of
production. By expressing production in units of energy, this
performance indicator can be expressed as a simple
percentage, energy consumed as a percentage of exported
production. Wherever possible true energy units such as GJ
are used, however in most existing operations available data is
in barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
The indicator is unsatisfactory in a number of respects, in
particular because it cannot be used fairly to compare
performance between different assets since the measure takes
no account of the work required to deliver production.
This is illustrated in Appendix A which lists the energy,
flaring and venting loss for the Business Units in the 2001
baseline. The most energy intensive asset is the Greater
Prudoe Bay operation in Alaska which re-injects around 9
billion scfd at up 4,000psi using 2GW of fully loaded gas
turbine driven compressors. By the standards of our industry
this is a relatively efficient operation but its high
thermodynamic efficiency is not reflected in the value of the
performance indicator of 16% energy consumed as a
percentage of production when compared with the Group
average of 5.6%.
Table 1 gives the summary 2001 baseline data for energy
consumed, flared and vented in operated facilities.
2 SPE 86604
Energy Flaring Venting
Consumed
% Exported
5.6 0.9 0.25
production
boe / day
(gross operated)
268,000 42 12
% Total
83 13 4
Table 1
These figures do, however, demonstrate the great value of
expressing energy performance in these terms. It immediately
communicates the scale and significance of energy
performance to anyone and it is far more engaging than any
other performance indicator.
Sources of Value
Organisations may embark on programmes to improve energy
efficiency for a variety of reasons:- because it makes sense
commercially or to demonstrate corporate social responsibility
by reducing emissions and conserving finite resources.
Whatever the motivation, progress is much quicker when the
projects and programme deliver commercially as well as in
energy and emissions terms.
Since making its commitments on climate change in 1998
BP’s E&P segment has reduced emissions by 18% in absolute
terms and this has been achieved at no net cost to the business.
The focus remains on improving energy efficiency with
actions which make good business sense.
The most obvious source of value is selling the fuel gas
saved as a result of improved energy efficiency. However,
frequently the way energy is managed and reported does not
engage people to appreciate its significance. Historically an
attitude that “fuel is free” irrespective of the operation’s
circumstances, has lead to poor energy efficiency in design
and operating practice across our industry. During a recent
energy survey on a North Sea platform, significant re-cycling
was observed in the gas re-injection compressors. A quick
calculation showed that reverting to the previous practice of
employing suction throttling to control surge with reduced re-
cycling would increase sales revenues by at least $100,000 per
year. This insight caused the simple change to be made
almost immediately.
In a survey in a gas plant in the USA in a declining field, 3
nitrogen rejection units were being operated when production
could be satisfied by one. Shutting down one of these units
saved $5m a year in imported electricity. However even in
this case where the saving opportunity was fairly obvious,
there was great reluctance to make the change because of the
perceived increased risk to production.
Half of our fuel gas is consumed in assets where fuel gas
appears to have little or no value because of absence of a gas
export route, commercial terms or pipelines being at capacity
so gas saved will not be monetised until some uncertain time
in the future.
BP’s experience has been that there are several sources of
value that can be derived from applying the processes we have
employed to improve energy performance. Therefore limiting
work to areas where fuel gas has value may not be
appropriate.
A more focussed approach to improve energy efficiency
can generate value by:-
Reducing operating costs. The practice of running excessive
spare capacity to minimize production risk, as in the nitrogen
rejection example above, is not only wasteful in energy terms
but will generally increase maintenance costs. This is
particularly evident in the common practice of running
excessive spinning reserve for electricity generation where
there is a strong link between gas turbine and reciprocating
engine maintenance cost and running hours.
Increasing production The most significant source of value
has been from increased production with many options
identified eg achieving higher availability using motor driven
machines, improved controls stability, higher throughput from
centrifugal machines after resetting surge control lines,
reducing production impact of high ambient temperatures by
improving aerial coolers.
Increasing product value In several cases controls
modification have enabled improved liquids recovery in gas
plants, producing additional value in excess of 1 million
dollars per year. Automated compensation for day: night
temperature variation is a frequently encountered opportunity.
Furthermore in future carbon is likely to have a cost or
value in most operations, as emissions trading, other flexible
mechanisms and emissions regulations become more
widespread.
Engaging People
Having established a baseline and some understanding of the
value of energy consumed in each operation, the challenge is
to engage everyone whose actions can influence performance
to give an appropriate degree of prioritisation to energy
performance.
Within BP’s programme, the key elements here were:
- the setting of clear targets
- consistent leadership behaviours
- provision of tools, processes and support to enable
identification of opportunity and implementation of good
practice in a consistent manner
Energy targets supplemented the GHG emissions targets :
- a 15% improvement in energy efficiency over 10 years
- a requirement for the new project portfolio to consume no
more than 2% of production over field life.
The importance of climate change and the role of energy
efficiency in BP’s contribution to stabilising global emissions
is given continuous support by the highest levels of leadership
in presentations to shareholders, staff and in wider academic
and public meetings. Without such support it would have
been very difficult to develop the level of interest needed to
make progress.
Within BP’s operations the HSE community were the most
receptive to the challenge. Generally it was they who
facilitated the face to face meetings between those developing
the programme at the centre and the major projects and
operations management in the regions. These meetings were
essential to achieve personal commitment and leadership
within the assets and major projects teams.
The level of activity and achievement in pursuit of energy
performance improvement in individual operations has been
SPE 86604
directly proportional to the success in developing personal
commitment by key leaders in each operation.
This was well demonstrated in our North Sea operations
where an engineer took responsibility for the local GHG
programme. Having achieved some initial successes through
energy assessments on platforms, a series of one day
workshops were held with operations staff from most of the
individual facilities. The consultant and local leader shared
our vision for emissions improvement and the opportunities
identified in the surveys. This set the scene to brainstorm
opportunities for the facility and in every case generated both
good business opportunities and a commitment to be more
active. Since that time almost every large facility has
undertaken an energy assessment or has one scheduled for
2004.
Energy Management
Once a commitment to improve has been achieved those
managing the programmes tend to react in one of two ways:
those whose priority is to develop a sustaining process of
energy management, and those who want to find and do
projects..
As a consequence there is a tendency to start work on
identifying opportunities and energy projects before
developing the people, resources, processes and understanding
to properly manage and implement the right opportunities.
In 1999 all segments started to use a proprietary software
package to support the development of a consistent approach
to energy management and to benchmark the standard of their
energy management processes.
The software is used in a workshop attended by a cross
section of people who influence energy performance:
leadership, operations engineers and technicians, maintenance,
purchasing, HSE.
The workshop considers a number of elements of any
management system: leadership, performance monitoring and
reporting, planning, people and competence, financial aspects,
procedures etc together with some more directly energy
related areas such as O&M, plant and equipment etc. For each
element good practices are considered, starting at high level
and becoming increasingly more demanding until a practice is
reached which is not used in the operation.
At the end of the session the software uses the responses to
provide an overall score and “star rating”, an example is given
in Appendix B. It also provides scores for each element and a
list of the five actions which are likely to have most impact in
improving energy management in that operation. The
intention is that a manageable programme of actions is
initiated and, when implemented, a follow up workshop is
held to generate the next phase of the programme.
The action programmes are generally self evident,
however the value of the process is that it is a good vehicle for
- stimulating active discussion and sharing of information
across all those with an involvement,
- generating confidence that developing an effective energy
management system over time is achievable
- developing ownership by a site wide team over the action
programme because it was generated from the assets
discussion and not imposed by an external expert.
3
It is interesting to note that despite five years of active
effort to reduce GHG most E&P assets score in the one to two
star range, whilst refineries and petrochemicals tend to be
three star and above.
Energy Metrics
A key early action from the workshop is to implement a
performance monitoring system having more detail than
required by the six monthly energy / production report
submitted to monitor the segment performance.
This is done in cascading stages
Level 1: Energy as % exported production. Flaring as % of
production, Venting as % of production. Ideally this will be
reported in real energy units ie GJ energy consumed / GJ
production exported, however in many cases it is necessary to
aggregate this in terms of boe.
Level 2: At this level the total energy is apportioned to the four
main areas of consumption :
- gas compression: kW/mmscfd/ compression ratio
- oil pumping: kW/bbl/bar
- water injection: kW/bbl/bar
- power generation: %
These metrics usually cover the majority of the energy
consumed and start to enable more rigorous target setting and
performance management.. They are also expressed in units
which makes performance benchmarking between operations
more realistic than the level 1 metric, albeit issue such as gas
composition may distort the gas compression comparison to
some extent.
Level 3 At this level the metrics in Level 2 are cascaded to
individual large machines or trains and other unit operations
such as dehydration, gas sweetening, fractionation etc may be
included.
An issue for many E&P operations is the lack of fuel gas
metering which significantly restricts the ability to manage
energy in this way.
Where it exists and an operation is prepared to make the
investment in time and training to set up an energy monitoring
system good energy management can then be implemented.
Energy Management Tools
Performance Monitoring. Proprietary monitoring and
targeting software is being used in other segments in BP to
monitor energy performance. However these systems do not
cope well with indicating performance against technical limit
for a particular configuration of turbines, compressors and
pumps as loading on the equipment varies.
BP is therefore developing a system with consulting
partners in Aberdeen to enable energy performance
management in typical E&P operations. This takes
information from existing instrumentation, via the data
historian, and compares actual performance against the design
performance curves which are configured when the system is
commissioned.
The system also reports the key performance indicators
discussed above and can be configured to report consumptions
and deviations from target not only in energy and production
based units but also money in a choice of currencies.
4 SPE 86604
The pilot installation is on the point of being commissioned in
our ETAP operation in the North Sea.
Knowledge Management. As more people become involved
in energy efficiency and the level of awareness grows it
becomes increasingly difficult to manage our corporate
knowledge and to identify the best practice and best person to
advise on an issue.
We have therefore produced a sophisticated web site that
allows anyone to input information or to search the website for
information. It is the repository for all energy reports, good
practice guidelines, energy performance, technology reports,
success stories etc. It also contains the results of all of the
energy management benchmarking workshops which enables
assets with development plans in one area to contact sites who
have performed most highly in that element.
More recently a Q&A forum has also been linked to the
energy website which allows all involved in energy to join a
community which enables anyone with a problem to ask
questions of the whole community to access all available
expertise on the issue.
Identifying Opportunity
When an asset follows the energy management route to
improving energy performance they will almost certainly
unlock significant opportunity in their operation from ideas
generated within their team.
Just as importantly, the opportunity identified tends to be
the lowest cost and most easy to implement from the whole
spectrum of opportunity.
People generally know when they are running excessive
generation or spare capacity, low loaded plant, or are
operating with fouled turbines, coolers, compressors, air filters
or employing excessive comfort factors eg on their
dehydration or gas sweetening set points versus contractual
limits. They tend not to know the cost associated with these
historical practices and that they are no longer as acceptable.
If they don’t, then good energy management practice
would identify these opportunities without it having to be
identified by a third party and its far more sustaining and
motivating to generate the success and ownership within the
team.
However in depth specialist energy surveys certainly have
a place.
When BP came to commission its first survey in early
2000 there appeared to several oil and gas consultancies who
would undertake a survey. However few had actually
undertaken one in an offshore facility or could clearly
demonstrate any real understanding of how it should be done
or what could be expected in the way that a conventional
energy consultancy would for the rest of industry.
It was therefore decided that we would put together a good
oil and gas consultant with a good conventional energy
consultant to produce an E&P energy survey protocol which
was then tested on a survey by these consultants, Performance
Improvements and Enviros March, on the Magnus platform in
the North Sea.
This ensured that future surveys would be undertaken in a
common manner, both in the scope and level of investigation
that was expected and in the style and content of the report.
As an example the level 2 energy metrics discussed above are
reported so that the underlying efficiency of different
operations can be compared.
Over the past four years 20 surveys have been undertaken
throughout the North Sea, USA, Canada, Alaska, Colombia,
Argentina, and Pakistan.
Most of the surveys have been undertaken by the same
company which has had significant benefit. Their knowledge
and experience of previous surveys and understanding of what
we are trying to achieve has enabled them to establish
themselves quickly with the operating teams and develop the
trust and openness that is essential to develop an accurate view
of what is happening in the operation.
The surveys consist of:
- a pre-visit review of process flow diagrams and selected
P&IDs by a cross section of expertise in the consultancy
- typically a rotating equipment specialist and controls
specialist visit to the operation for 5-7 working days
accompanied by a member of BP’s central energy team.
- immediate feedback of key findings to the local operations
team
- a report providing a breakdown of energy consumption by
operation, CO2 emissions profile, key performance indicators,
energy & CO2 savings opportunities with budget proposals
categorised in low, medium and high capital requirement.The
typical survey cost is around $40,000 and is almost always
recovered very quickly by simple no cost operational changes.
The expectation was that some pattern would emerge in
the scale of typical energy saving, value of savings and
generic areas of opportunity so that in time a quicker, cheaper
and more focussed type of survey would evolve. However
this is only partly true.
The energy saving potential from good commercially
sound projects tends to be in the range 5-15% across 20 to 40
projects or actions. Very often the payback is derived more
from production or other benefits rather than from the value of
energy saved. This seems to be due to plant that appears to be
working reliably and satisfactorily rarely attracting the level of
engineering expertise and challenge that is applied in the
energy survey.
Despite the level of savings identified, it has proved
difficult to realise the full savings potential in practice.
Generally the opportunities identified need further work to
confirm feasibility and to work the opportunity into a
sanctionable project and the asset tend not have the resources
available to undertake this work. Therefore the quick and
simple things tend to be done quickly whilst more significant
opportunities are either progressed very slowly or postponed
indefinitely.
For this reason the central energy team has now obtained
central funding to follow up the first tranche of surveys to
either provide the resource or expertise to implement a project
eg controls changes, or to develop the opportunities into well
considered, detailed project proposals. However these
projects will still have to compete for available capital and it
may prove necessary to provide additional support to ensure
that good projects attract funding.
SPE 86604
New Projects
The great challenge to BP holding its emissions flat is caused
by the significant growth in new production over the period
covered by the commitment and the emissions that will
inevitably accompany these new projects.
These projects therefore need to define a new standard in
energy efficiency and to that end a target was set to limit the
new producing operations energy consumption to the
equivalent of 2% of exported production over the life of the
operation. This compares with our 2001 average loss of over
5%.
Best in Class Tool. It is recognised that an “energy as a
percentage of production” measure is a crude device for
determining the standard of performance of an individual
operation, since it takes no account of the work required in the
operation to deliver production. We therefore developed a
tool which we have termed a “best in class” tool which gives a
far better impression of how good performance will be
compared to how good it could be.
This tool considers the flowrate and pressure requirements
and life of field profiles of the key operations: gas
compression, oil pumping and water injection together with
ancillary loads and thermal requirements. It compares the
projects estimate of total energy requirement with the energy
requirement predicted by using technical limit and “best in
class” performance indicators for these operations. The tool
allows a project team to identify the significant areas where
performance does not compare well with the performance
indicators and other projects. The project should then identify
the options that would raise the performance to best and class
and either implement the options or justify why the options are
not feasible in this application.2
Early Engagement and Options Generation. The same
principles for achieving success applied as they did with
existing operations: engaging people, having appropriate
processes and tools to support the projects and selecting the
right technologies.
The big difference is that there is a very short window of
opportunity when a project’s design can be influenced and
there is very little time to evaluate all the implications of
implementing new technology.
From the experience of our dozen or more major projects
in Gulf of Mexico, Azerbaijan, Angola, Trinidad, Algeria,
Indonesia the key success factors are engaging a project at an
early stage and having a senior champion in the project with
the determination and enthusiasm to ensure the pursuit of best
in class performance.
The technology options with the greatest impact are
relatively straightforward. The challenge is to enable the
project team to consider them with an open mind before the
traditional way of designing facilities takes hold.
At the very earliest stages in a new area there is the
greatest opportunity to make a difference, which is to explore
the development of common infrastructure shared by all
operators in an area. Only when a large development is into
construction is the opportunity so apparent. Obviously there
are big obstacles, particularly in aligning the approach
between operators and in investing heavily in the early stages
5
of a project for later stages about which there is no certainty of
ultimate development, however in technical limit terms this is
the major opportunity. It could have enabled, for instance,
power from shore for developments such as deepwater Guld of
Mexico or the Caspian with the potential not only to minimize
energy requirements but also improve capital efficiency,
reduce space and weight or allow future tie backs, improve
plant availability and production.
The second consideration is more within the control of an
individual operator but shares some of the obstacles. That is to
what extent do the choices made for the first stages of a
project limit the total opportunity or limit opportunity in
subsequent phases of the same project. Again a power from
shore project may achieve the critical mass it requires to be the
best technical and commercial option for the combined phases
but the opportunity is likely to disappear if the initial phase
generates its power on the platform.
Allied to this opportunity, there may be the possibility of
establishing some gas monetisation by oversizing the power
station and exporting power to the local electricity grid or
starting the first phase of a power complex that may expand to
provide power for future LNG facilities.
Considering developments in project silos dominated by
cost and schedule issues therefore has the potential to both
inhibit the value of the overall development with very
significant implications for energy consumption and GHG
emissions.
Value Improving Practice Workshop. Once the project is at
a stage where it is clearly committed to its own provision of
power and energy it is encouraged to undertake a one day
facilitated workshop to consider its energy options.
This examines four areas: provision of power, life of field
profiles and implications for equipment selection,
consideration of losses and other technologies which may
have relevance.
The most significant is the provision of power. Converting
fuel gas to shaft horsepower is by far the largest consumer of
energy in any facility. The choices are:
- power from shore or an adjacent facility or central power
facility;
- distributed turbine or engine drives for the large machinery
- centralised power generation and electric motor drives for all
rotating machinery
Most of our new projects have opted for large aero derived
gas turbine driven centralised power generation. This accesses
the far higher efficiency available from these machines and,
with N+1 turbines and electric motor drives, higher plant
availability and production.3
The second area of consideration is looking at the profile
of the major loads oil, gas and water flowrates together with
the associated pressure profiles. Too often equipment is sized
and optimised for a short duration peak condition resulting in
long periods operating inefficiently at low load or with
excessive re-cycle. A proper consideration of these issues
enables better choices to made over: number of trains,
equipment selection and sizing, provision of variable speed
drives, load shedding opportunities to maintain high gas
turbine generator loading etc.
6 SPE 86604
The third area of consideration is understanding losses.
The most obvious is gas turbine exhaust heat, which may be
re-usable to satisfy thermal loads or be used to provide
additional power generation. Examples are the Norsk Hydro
Snorre B platform in Norway which uses a steam cycle to
generate electricity and the Trans Canada Pipeline facility at
Grande Prairie in Canada which uses an organic Rankine cycle
to provide an additional 6MWe from a Rolls Royce RB211
gas turbine.
There are other opportunities that can be accessed by
identifying and reducing losses. For example more flexible
gas compression using variable speed drives may avoid the
need to operate on recycle for phases of the field life. Even
examining the influence of pipe size or interstage cooling on
multistage gas compressors can show worthwhile savings
opportunities.
Finally there is a discussion on technology developments.
There are a number of developments which will increasingly
have to be considered and are starting to find application in the
industry: very large electric motors, very high voltage electric
motors such as the ABB machines being installed in the
Statoil development in Troll, or once through steam generators
which may make combined cycle offshore a much more
feasible option.
New Project Case Study
This section describes a current BP project which
demonstrates what can be achieved. It will be a 220,000b/d
development in deepwater employing an FPSO. The total
power requirement is between 80 and 100MW, of which gas
compression is 44MW and water injection is 32MW.
The initial design case would have produced emissions at
plateau of 1.2million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. The
project now being executed will be less than 700,000 tonnes
per year. Over field life the energy requirement is equivalent
to just over 1.7% of production.
The energy related reductions are attributable to
- using large, ~30MW, aero derived gas turbines to meet all
power demands as electricity. Full load efficiency ~ 38%
versus 28% for heavy industrial engines
- optimising turbine loading since all loads are electrical and
not running standby capacity.
- supplying all the process heating requirements with heat
recovered from the turbine exhaust, This will be between 40
and 55MW
- achieving flexible and high efficiency gas compression by
employing motor driven variable speed gearboxes.
This enables separator pressure to be staged over field life at
31bar, 26 bar and finally at16 bar. In the first stage of
operation with 380mmscfd gas, operating conventionally at 16
bar instead of 31 bar would have increased gas compression
requirement from 40MW to 60MW.
Appendix C shows the breakdown of CO2(e) savings from
the initial case. This also includes the other savings from
employing a valved flare system enabling zero continuous
flaring and FPSO hydrocarbon gas blanketing of cargo tanks
with 100% vapour recovery.
Appendix D shows the benchmarked “best in class” score.
Whilst reasonably good, the area at the top of the “heat and
power” column indicates a substantial difference between the
forecast consumption and what might be possible. The option
to close the gap is to use the turbine heat that is not required
for process heating to generate steam for power generation i.e
combined cycle.
This option was studied in detail and was judged to be
technically feasible, however with no value attributable to the
gas saved it was not possible to make a business case for the
option. It did demonstrate however, that even a low value for
gas or modest future cost for carbon could make this
technology commercially viable.
Our conclusion from this work is that for the larger high
power requirement operations, which now characterises most
new developments, the centralized all electric facilities model
employed in our Gulf of Mexico projects and elsewhere will
become the standard for BP.
The Next Generation Of Opportunity
The technology employed in these projects comes close to
defining what is feasible in undertaking the work identified in
a project most efficiently. The only significant breakthrough
that can be predicted will be in making offshore combined
cycle generation commercially viable.
The next phase in improving energy performance lies in
reducing the work to be done to deliver oil and gas.
Opportunities lie in areas such as:
- smarter water injection to place smaller volumes of water
into waterfloods where it has most production benefit i.e.
avoiding short circuiting through a low resistance path to the
producing well with no benefit to production and waste of
pumping energy.
- subsurface separation and processing. We are close to
piloting downhole technology to separate and re-inject part of
the associated gas in high GOR fields rather than bring it to
the surface before re-injection.
- multiphase flow to shore where operations can take place
more efficiently on a larger scale.
- drag reducing agents to reduce pumping losses.
Holistic Energy Performance. An associated area is work on
what we term “holistic energy performance” or HEP.
This seeks to make better use of the available pressure and
temperature in reservoir fluids to reduce external energy input
in the whole chain from reservoir to customer. It uses exergy
analysis, ie considering theoretically how much work could be
extracted from a system at a given temperature and pressure.
The HEP concept embraces the following process
principles:
- Capture and use the alternative energies of thermal
(temperature) and potential (pressure) or indeed renewable
energy sources such as solar, wind etc. rather than the fluid
chemical (combustion) energy.
- Pump liquid rather than compress gas.
- Where required and practicable, compress gases from their
highest pressure and lowest temperature.
- Stabilise using heat rather than pressure.
- Use largest practicable export line sizes with the lowest
possible back-pressures.
Technologies are available that can be used to take
advantage of all these areas of opportunity. Bi-phase and tri-
phase turbines can be used instead of chokes to reduce
SPE 86604 7

flowline pressures prior to the slugcatcher or first separator

and will extract energy. More conventionally turbo expanders
can be used to reduce pipeline pressures prior to gas
processing as is done at our CATS terminal in NE England,
and providing 50% of the terminal’s electrical requirement.
Using variable speed drives to provide greater flexibility in
gas compression allows higher separator pressures to be used
for a the earlier phases of the development to reduce
compression loads as described in the case study.
This project also exploits the use of temperature to assist
stabilisation by adding heat in the HP separator, and thereby
increasing gas separation in this vessel. This reduced LP
compression duty by 8% compared with the conventional
practice of raising temperature in the LP separator to assist
with water separation..

Conclusions
There are increasing pressures on our industry to demonstrate
a more responsible response to our impact on the environment
and to climate change.
Most of our emissions come from combustion of fuel gas
in our operating processes and therefore improving energy
efficiency must be at the core of any programme to reduce our
greenhouse gas emissions.
The experience of BP in trying to improve energy
efficiency in E&P operations is that there are cost effective
measures that can be taken to improve performance and that it
is worth the effort to try to access the several sources of value
that can be identified by applying appropriate resources to
challenge operations that were considered to be performing
well.
However accessing the value is limited more by resource
than opportunity. Getting the right level of priority to seek
and capitalise on opportunity requires strong leadership, good
energy management systems within each operating asset, a
local champion for energy and GHG emissions and in all
likelihood provision of “earmarked funded” for energy
projects.
Most existing operations are inefficient by design and the
significant gap to approach best in class performance cannot
be bridged economically. For the overall standard of the
industry to change it is necessary for all new developments to
strive to be best in class. Only by designing facilities well is it
possible to have good emissions performance at an affordable
cost.

References
1. Nordrum .S et al: “Development of a Consistent Approach
to Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the Petroleum
Industry” paper SPE 86609 presented at 2004 SPE HSE
Conference, Calgary , 29-31 March 2004
2. Svalheim S et al: “Life of Field Energy Performance” paper
SPE 83993 presented at Offshore Europe 2003, Aberdeen,
2-5 September 2003
3. Voltz D.A et al: “Are All Electric Platforms Viable in the
Gulf of Mexico.?” paper PCIC-2002-15 presented at the
IEEE Petroleum and Chemical Industries Conference, 23-
25 September 2002
SPE 86604 8

Appendix A
2001 Business Unit Baseline

2001 Business Unit Baseline

Egypt

Vietnam
Primary Energy
GoM Deepw ater Production Direct Use Energy
Central North Sea Flaring
China Upstream
Venting
Southern Business Unit

GoM Shelf
Northern Business Unit

Norw ay
Indonesia Upstream

Mid North Sea

Trinidad

Gulf States Pakistan 2001 Business Unit Baseline

Azerbaijan

Onshore USA
Venezuela
Southern Cone

Canada
Colombia

Alaska
Algeria Upstream

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

Energy v Exported Production

Appendix B
Energy Management Benchmark Summary Report

One to Five Star Energy Benchmarking

Element Level of Development User Critical

Yet to Qualify Bronze Silver Gold Platinum Priority Action Items
1.1 Demonstrated corporate commitment - Bronze High Critical
2.1 Understanding of performance and opportunities - Bronze High Critical
3.1 Targets, performance indicators (KPI) and motivation Yet to qualify High Critical
3.2 Plans Yet to qualify High Critical
4.1 Accountabilities - - Silver Medium
4.2 Awareness and training - Bronze Medium
4.3 Resourcing - Bronze Medium
5.1 Criteria/Budgets for capital expenditure (CAPEX) - Bronze Low
5.2 Energy operating budgets - - Silver Low
6.1 Purchasing procedures and alternative energy options - - - - Platinum Low
6.2 Quality and reliability of supply - Bronze Low
6.3 Optimising purchasing within supply agreement - - Silver Low
7.1 Operating procedures - Bronze Medium
7.2 Maintenance procedures Yet to qualify High
8.1 Efficiency of existing plant design Yet to qualify Medium
8.2 Procedures- plant design/retrofit, purchasing/replacement - - Silver Low
8.3 Innovation and new technology Yet to qualify Medium
9.1 Metering and monitoring - - Silver High
9.2 Reporting, feedback and control systems - Bronze High Critical
9.3 Documentation and records - Bronze Medium
10.1 Energy cost performance in the past 12 months - Bronze Medium
10.2 Auditing progress Yet to qualify Medium

Overall Ranking: 2 Stars % Achievement: 25 % % required to reach next star + 21 %

SPE 86604 9

Appendix C
GHG Savings Case Study

Case Study :- GHG Emissions in a Plateau Year.

1.1 million reduced to 0.7 million tonnes CO2 equivalent

Valved Flared
System
1,200,000 Fuel Gas
Blanketting
1,000,000
Emissions (ton nes CO2-e)

All Electric flexible

800,000
Compression

Waste Heat
600,000 Recovery

400,000 Aero-derivative
Gas Turbines
200,000
TOTAL Final
Design
0
Initial Worst Case Design

Appendix D
Best in Class Benchmarking Example

Case Study:- “Best in Class” Benchmarking

120
Energy consumed /
Project Index production
Values in 1e6 GJ Energy GJ
100 Total BIC 78.18 Energy Consumed ***
Life of Field Energy Consumption (PJ)

Total Project 95.69 Oil + Gas Export ***

Project Forecast Proj. Index 122% metric 1.77%
80
“Best in Class”
Technical Limit
60

40

20

0
Total Hydrocarbon Gas CO2 Compression Water injection Oil Export (Heat+Power) Gen. Loss
Compression

-20