TRANSPORTATION OF OIL AND GAS
Transportation challenges
- Pipeline
- Tankers (ships and trucks)
- LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) carriers
- CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) carriers
- NGH or Natural Gas Hydrate
- ANG (Adsorbed Natural Gas)
- Conversion technologies , e.g. gas to electricity, or gas to chemicals, etc.
As the demand for oil and gas increases, the demand for technologies to transport oil and gas from remote areas to consumption centers increases. United States, Europe, Japan, China and India are the major energy markets in the world. Almost 2/3 of the known conventional oil and gas reserves are located in the Russian confederation and the Middle East region where the long distance between the reservoirs and final consumption markets is the major obstacle in efficient exploitation of the resources.
There are of course transportation challenges which should be fulfilled especially for remote and offshore reserves. While the option for transporting oil is limited to pipeline and tanker transportation,
there are four basic options to utilize offshore and remote natural gas production and transport it to markets or to another location for further processing or utilization: 1) gathering and transmission to shore
by pipeline; 2) Gas volume reduction through either liquefaction or compression (LNG, CNG) followed by marine vessel Transportation; 3) Conversion to other products, by changing the gas molecule
(methanol, synthetic crude), followed by marine vessel transportation to markets; 4) Conversion to other energy forms such as electric power and transmission by a subsea cable to shore.
The current established technologies for long distance transportation of oil and gas are pipeline and ship or truck carriers; pipeline would normally be considered first. However, for some locations, the distances
to shore accompanied with relatively small oil or gas volumes may be cost prohibitive if a new system has to be considered. In absence of an existing gathering and transmission system the other utilization
options would then economically make more sense. The challenge for gas transportation is more serious. Volume reduction options as an alternative to pipeline then have to be considered next, followed
by true conversion alternatives where the “methane” molecule is chemically converted into another product such as ammonia, methanol or synthetic hydrocarbon liquid. It should, however, be noted that
these technologies have not seen to date any offshore applications.
While pipelines are more economical for distances below 2000-3000 km., there are of course emerging technologies such as marine CNG, hydrate and adsorbed natural gas (ANG) with their own
advantages and constraints each of which requiring a separate discussion. Another choice to transport gas to consumption markets is to convert (chemically) it to liquid products including middle distillates, methanol, DME, etc. These technologies are called gas-to-liquids or GTL. Although GTL is used more for conversion of gas to middle distillates such as naphtha, kerosene, diesel and gasoline, it is alternatively used for other gas conversion technologies such as methanol and dimethyl ether (DME)
production
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks