DEVELOPMENT OF A STATE-OF-THE-ART PLANT PRODUCTIONPERFORMANCE MODEL FOR EUROPE’S LARGEST NGL PLANT

摘要

K?rst? gas processing plant is an integrated part of the Norwegian gas transport infrastructure,owned by the Gassled Joint Venture. A plant expansion project (KEP 2005) is underway to increasethe design rich gas processing capacity from 74.5 MSm 3 /d (Million Standard cubic meter pr day) to 88MSm 3 /d by October 2005. This will strengthen the gas processing plant at K?rst? as the largest NGLplant in Europe. Rich gas is transported to K?rst? in two separate pipelines. In addition, condensateenters the plant in a separate pipeline. Sales gas is exported in two pipelines.The plant capacity has been expanded in several stages since start up of the Statpipe gasprocessing trains in 1985. With completion of KEP 2005, the plant will exhibit a relative high degreeof integration of the processing trains. This will allow for routing to the various trains for processing.Main objectives for the operations in the years to come will be maximum capacity utilization and CO2removal to comply with the sales gas obligations.Gassco and Statoil, on behalf of Gassled, have launched a project to develop a real timeoptimisation model, which is called Plant Production Performance Model (3PM).The paper describes the gas processing facilities, operational characteristics, productionobjectives and the business drivers for installing the 3PM. It is emphasized how the 3PM will beemployed to generate added value at the K?rst? gas processing plant.Invensys was awarded the contract to develop the 3PM. In order to meet the performancecriteria they employ an equation oriented approach to describe the plant operations adequately. Tosolve the large set of equations to determine set points to support the production objectives theInvensys SimSci ROMeo? program application is used.