24th World Gas Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 5-9 October 2009

SHTOKMAN: THE MANAGEMENT OF FLOW ASSURANCE CONSTRAINTS IN REMOTE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT

Erich Zakarian 1, Henning Holm 1, Pratik Saha 1, Victoria Lisitskaya 1, Vladimir Suleymanov 2 1. Shtokman Development A.G., Russia 2. Gazprom VNIIGAZ, Russia

Keywords: 1. Artic; 2. New reserves; 3. Offshore; 4. Flow Assurance; 5. Multiphase transport.

Background

The Shtokman Field was discovered in 1988. It is one of the biggest offshore gas field in the world, with estimated reserves of approximately 3.8 trillion standard cubic meters of natural gas and about 37 million tons of gas condensate. The field is located in the central part of the Russian sector of the Barents Sea, 600 km to the Northeast of Murmansk and well above the polar circle: cf. Figure 1. The environmental conditions on site are characterized by harsh metocean conditions, with the possible presence of packed ice and icebergs. The water depth is between 320 m and 340 m. The field will be developed in several phases. Under their initial Agreements, the shareholders Gazprom (51%), Total (25%) and StatoilHydro (24%) have established a special-purpose company, Shtokman Development AG (SDAG) for the integrated development of the Shtokman gas-condensate field - Phase 1. SDAG is responsible for engineering, financing, construction and operation of the Phase 1 installations and will own the infrastructures for 25 years from start of commercial production. This includes offshore facilities, trunklines to shore and onshore processing plant near the city of Murmansk for natural gas liquefaction and gas treatment. Subsequent development phases are under the responsibility of Gazprom. The annual production of Phase 1 is 23.7 billions of standard cubic meters of gas per year which corresponds approximately to 70 millions of standard cubic meters of gas per day (MSm3/d).

Shtokman

280 km

650 km

Murmansk

Figure 1: Location of the Shtokman field 2 Introduction

Gas production and transmission from offshore Artic remote resources is a new challenge brought to Flow Assurance engineers. This paper will introduce the foreseen design for the integrated development of the Shtokman gas-condensate field - Phase 1. A focus will be put on Flow Assurance constraints such as hydrate and ice management in the subsea production system or gas-condensate transport in long pipeline. Shtokman is characterized by the unusual combination of challenging conditions or requirements: harsh metocean conditions, relatively deep waters (340 m), emergency disconnection of the floating production facilities, long-distance gas-condensate transport on rough seabed, etc. First, the paper will present the foreseen design of the offshore facilities. Then a detailed review of the Flow Assurance constraints and their management will be elaborated.

Offshore facilities

This section presents a brief overview of the offshore facilities. The infield development is based on full dehydration processing and pressure boosting of the gas and condensate to allow export to shore in two 36" ND trunklines (ND = nominal diameter). An artistic generic overview of the facilities is given in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Integrated development of the Shtokman gas-condensate field - Phase 1 - Artistic overview of the offshore production facilities Subsea production system (SPS) The Shtokman gas reservoir is a big dome-shaped anticline spread over a very large area (4835 km2), about 2000 m below mud line. More than 90% of the gas-in-place is present in two distinct sandstone pay formations J0 and J1. The main reservoir drive mechanism is pressure depletion; aquifer support is expected to be very limited. Approximately 2km away from the FPU, three drill centers made up of 2 x 4-slot templates supply an overall gas production of about 71.2 MSm3/d at wellhead (targeted production for Phase 1). An equal production of J0 and J1 gases is targeted on a yearly basis with sixteen J0 & J1 production wells (9 5/8" outer diameter), plus four back-up J1 wells. Two 16" ND flowlines and two 14 ID flexible risers provide the connection between each drill center and the FPU. Pigging operation for cleaning and inspection is performed from topsides to topsides, via a pig loop installed at each drill center. From the FPU, three multi-bore umbilicals supply the necessary chemical injection, electrical power, hydraulic control and fiber-optic communication to the subsea production system. Floating Production Unit (FPU) The FPU is a floating ice-resistant ship-shaped floating support hosting the living quarters, the gas and condensate processing, the water treatment, the power generation and other utilities. A disconnectable internal turret mooring system allows the connection of the process facilities to the infield subsea production system and to the trunklines to shore. The turret system is designed to allow the FPU to remain moored on station during severe weather conditions and to allow quick disconnection from moorings and risers in case of risk of collision with large icebergs. The FPU is winterized to withstand harsh winter conditions.

Process facilities The primary purpose of the floating production facility is to dehydrate and boost the pressure of the gas and condensate to allow export to shore in trunklines. The topside facilities also provide hydrate inhibitor (monoethylene glycol), other chemicals and services to the subsea systems. The incoming lines from the turret are segregated for connection to three gas treatment trains. Two incoming risers from different drill centers are connected to each gas train. Three two-phase inlet separators collect the fluids from the infield network. To ensure efficient gas dehydration with a triethylene glycol (TEG) contactor, a scrubber is installed at the contactor inlet to minimize liquid carryover into the column. To achieve high water dew point depression, a DRIZO dehydration unit is implemented for the regeneration of TEG to very high concentrations. To ensure efficient condensate dehydration, an electrostatic coalescer and a stripping column complete the 2-stage separation (inlet separator, medium pressure separator); the stripping column is considered necessary to compensate any upset in the electrostatic coalescer. The topside facilities also provide other key elements like gas compression and condensate pumping, produced water treatment, monoethylene glycol (MEG) regeneration and reclamation, MEG storage and pumping. Gas and condensate transport Gas and condensate are commingled after dehydration and exported together to shore in dry two-phase flow. The export system includes 4 x 14" ID smooth bore flexible risers connecting the floating support to a trunkline riser base (TRB). Then 4 x 16" ND spools provide the connection between the TRB and the two pipeline end manifolds (PLEM). Two 36" ND trunklines provide the link between the PLEM's and the onshore receiving facilities. 4 Identification of Flow Assurance constraints

To guarantee a smooth transfer from wells to process facilities, the Flow Assurance discipline is particularly responsible for the identification and the management of potential risks such as hydrate and ice formation, flow instabilities, mineral and organic solid deposits, corrosion and erosion, etc. In our case, these potential risks are strongly connected to reservoir data, fluid composition, environmental conditions and seabed topography: The Phase 1 of the Shtokman field development will produce sweet and lean gas from two distinct sandstone formations J0 and J1. These two superimposed gas-bearing zones differ from their pressure, temperature, and composition. The virgin pressure is around 200 bara in J0 and 240 bara in J1. The reservoir temperature ranges between 50C and 55C in J0 and between 59C and 65C in J1. Both J0 and J1 formations are assumed to be saturated with water at reservoir conditions. According to very conservative estimate, the breakthrough of formation water is not expected during the first 10 years of production. More likely, formation water is expected to appear after 15 - 20 years on stream. Assuming an appropriate formation water monitoring and control strategy, a maximum rate of 50 Sm3/d is considered as design value for the whole field. Conservatively, this maximum rate could be produced from one well only. From metocean data, the field area is characterized by harsh metocean conditions; sea ice occurring once every 2.6 years and lasting 3.3 weeks in average; icebergs in open water and embedded in sea ice; long periods of darkness in winter. Water temperature at seabed can be negative, ranging from -1.8C in winter to +1C in summer, with a mean value at -0.7C. At sea surface, water temperature can vary between -1.9C and +10C (100-year return period), with a mean value at 2.7C. Minimum and maximum infield air temperature is -33C and +15C respectively. Air temperature over the onshore plant area ranges from -31C to +35C with a mean value at -8.5C. With an estimated wax appearance temperature (WAT) at -30C, a condensate pour point below 60C and very low wax content (less than 0.1 wt% paraffin), no risk of wax deposit or condensate thickening is expected despite very low ambient temperatures. Asphaltene precipitation is also nonexistent since no asphaltenic component is present in the gas phase at reservoir conditions. The seabed of the Barents Sea is characterized by iceberg scours and ridges, depressions and (mostly elongated) pockmarks. This parameter is a key issue for the mechanical design and the

layout of pipelines. It is also important for the definition of the operating envelope of multiphase pipelines [1]. These constraints are obviously severe but it is worth mentioning that some of them have been met and managed in other harsh field developments like Hibernia, White Rose and Terra Nova in the Grand Banks, offshore Canada [2]. Ormen Lange and Snhvit are two other good examples in the Norwegian continental shelf [3][4]. From the previous list, we can identify the following Flow Assurance risks in the production system: hydrate and ice formation; salt precipitations; corrosion; scaling; sand production; erosion; flow instability and liquid accumulation. 5 Infield subsea production system

This section describes the management of Flow Assurance risks in the infield subsea production system (SPS). Hydrate and ice management The operating envelope of the SPS overlaps the hydrate stability zone with a significant subcooling, up to 25C. To avoid the formation and growth of hydrate crystals within the production flowlines, the injection of hydrate inhibitor into the SPS is required. Monoethylene glycol (MEG) was selected for this duty. MEG is continuously injected to avoid hydrate and ice formation during normal operation and most of all in case of emergency disconnection of the FPU. The inhibitor is injected upstream each subsea choke valve to inhibit the downstream network of the Christmas trees, up to the topside inlet separators. The maximum required MEG concentration in free water (from vapor condensation and formation water) was derived from the worst conditions in terms of high pressure and low temperature. It occurs at shut-in conditions where the fluid is left pressurized at the wellhead shut-in pressure (WHSIP) and cooled down to the lowest ambient temperature. The maximum WHSIP is about 180 bara from J0 wells and 210 bara from J1 wells at initial field start-up. For the determination of the required MEG concentration in free water (rich MEG), a design margin of 5C is subtracted to the lowest temperature at seabed (-1.8C) to allow for gas expansion in the flowline during restart and to allow for uncertainties in thermodynamic calculations. Finally, a rich MEG concentration of 60 wt% is required to preserve the SPS from hydrate formation at these worst conditions. To achieve the required rich MEG concentration, the produced aqueous phase is diverted to a MEG regeneration system where MEG is regenerated up to 90 wt%. This lean MEG is then re-injected into the SPS. In the calculation of the required MEG injection rate, several margins were applied to take account of uncertainties in reservoir temperature, water saturation, MEG quality, flow measurement and MEG distribution control. The lean MEG concentration is normally 90 wt%. However a design concentration of 85 wt% was considered for the sizing of umbicals, injection pumps and chemical dosage valves (CDV) to take account of MEG regeneration difficulties. The potential for salt precipitation in the MEG loop was also thoroughly evaluated and incorporated in the design (appropriate MEG pre-treatment, partial reclamation for salt removal). Temperatures lower than -6.8C may occur during the production start-up of a flowline. To minimize gas expansion through the subsea chokes, the wellhead branches and the flowline are first pressurized to 120 bara. Before well start-up, a sufficient volume of MEG is also injected upstream and downstream the subsea chokes. During well start-up, MEG injection is maintained upstream the subsea chokes. Corrosion and scale management The presence of free water and corrosive agents (CO2, organic acids) in carbon steel flowlines will induce a risk of internal corrosion. To minimize this risk, film forming corrosion inhibitor is commingled with the regenerated MEG at topsides, prior to injection at wellhead. Partial pH stabilization is also possible for adjustment of the inhibition strategy. As stratified flow is the main flow regime in the flowlines, water condensation will occur in the upper cross section of the pipeline internal surface where corrosion inhibitors will not be present. The risk of top of line corrosion was evaluated and found to be remote: the organic acid content in the condensed water is small (below the 2 mmole per liter); and the overall heat resistance of the pipe wall is sufficient to maintain the water condensation rate at top of line below the critical limit of 0.25 g/cm2/s [5].

Injection of scale inhibitor is primarily required during the start-up of new wells where back-produced fluids from drilling and completion operations may lead to scale formation. Scale inhibitor is also required in case of production of formation water when residual concentrations of pH stabilizer might lead to scaling risk at wellhead. Sand management The risk of sand production is minimized by the use of open-hole gravel pack screens at the bottom hole of well completions. However, it will not prevent the production of fines. A maximum sand production rate of 2.5 kg per MSm3 of gas (or 3.5 ppm wt sand in gas) is assumed. This sand production rate is consistent with the detection limit of current acoustic sand detector and a minimum sand content of 1 ppm wt in gas. Wells and downstream piping/equipments are not designed to withstand high and continuous sand production rates. A careful monitoring of sand production and erosion is therefore mandatory for the sustainable integrity of the SPS. Erosion management A maximum velocity was specified for each material to manage the risk of erosion. The maximum allowable velocity is 50 m/s for stainless steel, duplex and corrosion resistant alloys (CRA), i.e. in well tubings, well branches, subsea manifold headers and flexible risers. For the flowlines made with carbon steel, the fluid velocity is limited to the lowest value between 30 m/s and the erosion velocity derived from the API criterion: Verosion = C/mix where mix refers to the mixture density and C is a constant set at 130 in US units [6]. Liquid management Liquid accumulation in a wet gas pipeline is mainly driven by the liquid loading of the gas, the geometry of the pipeline and the velocity of the gas. To avoid condensate and water accumulation by gravity in the uphill sections of a pipeline, the gas flow rate must be maintained above a critical limit, so called turndown rate. Otherwise, high liquid surges can be suffered in the separation units during transient operations such as ramp-up, restart or pigging. As mentioned previously, the seabed of the Barents Sea is very rough, making the profile of pipelines quite hilly. However, the liquid holdup in the production flowlines is minimized by the low liquid loading of the gas and the short length of the infield flowlines (about 2 km). At the average flow rate from one well during the production plateau, the maximum liquid accumulation is less than 10 m3 in the combined flowline and riser. Should production at very low flow rate be required for more than several hours in one flowline, an adequate liquid surge capacity is still available in each inlet separator when production resumes to normal conditions. 6 Trunklines to shore

After separation and dehydration, gas and condensate are commingled for common transfer to shore in dry two-phase flow via two 558km-long 36" ND trunklines. The nominal production rate is 70 MSm3 per stream day. This section describes the management of Flow Assurance risks in this system. Pipeline profile A pipeline profile from the Shtokman field to the onshore plant was derived from detailed surveys, taking account of free span analysis and seabed intervention: see Figure 3. The result was a set of 108,785 points providing a detailed description of the pipeline profile. Profile details are useful to assess the roughness of pipeline geometry but far too excessive to be directly implemented in a dynamic simulator. The expected trunkline geometry must be discretized into a simplified profile, roughly few thousand points only, to allow reasonable computation time. The transformation is therefore significant and must be handled with great care for two mains reasons: The seabed of the Barents Sea is extremely rough due to the presence of iceberg scours and ridges, depressions and (mostly elongated) pockmarks: see Figure 3. Liquid accumulation in gas-condensate flow is known to be very sensitive to pipe inclination [7]. A simulation of the Shtokman case is given in Figure 4.

200 100

Elevation [m]

0 -100 -200 -300 -400 0 100 200 300 400 500

Distance [km]

Ice scours & depressions

Elongated pockmarks

Ridges & ice scours

Pockmarks

Figure 3: Trunklines to shore: pipeline profile

Liquid holdup vs. pipe inclination and gas superficial velocity (OLGAS 5.3)
Liquid superficial velocity (USL) = 0.003 m/s
0.70

0.60
USG = 1.00 m/s

Liquid holdup [-]

0.50

USG = 1.50 m/s USG = 2.00 m/s

0.40

USG = 2.50 m/s USG = 3.00 m/s

0.30
USG = 3.50 m/s USG = 4.00 m/s USG = 4.50 m/s

0.20

0.10

0.00 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Pipe inclination [deg]

Figure 4: Shtokman 36" ND trunkline: liquid holdup vs. pipe inclination and gas superficial velocity (USG) Two generic discretization methods were specially conceived during the design stage of the project to overcome the challenging problem of profile discretization of ultra-long gas-condensate pipelines. Through both methods, essential characteristics of the detailed pipeline profile are accurately conserved through the simplification process: total length, large/small scale undulations, pipe angle distribution and total climb (cumulative length of uphill pipes). A comparative study confirmed the ability of these two discretization methods to preserve the hydrodynamic behavior of the original Shtokman trunkline profile despite a significant data compression. It was also confirmed that profile discretization is key issue at the design stage of a project. Otherwise, the onset of liquid accumulation in the pipeline (with respect to gas export flow rate) can be well under-predicted with significant consequences: wrong operating envelope, incorrect design of receiving facilities, higher risk of continuous flaring, etc. For more details, see [1]. Liquid management In dry two-phase gas-condensate pipelines, gas throughput must be kept above a minimum flow rate (or turndown rate) to avoid the accumulation of large liquid volumes. A pipeline can be operated below the turndown rate as long as the overall liquid accumulation remains below a reasonable threshold. To prevent production shut-down triggered by the fast production of large liquid volumes, a buffer capacity so called slug catcher is installed at the outlet of gas-condensate pipelines. In our case, a finger-type slug catcher with a total capacity of 2500 m3 was selected to accommodate a wide range of operating conditions, liquid loadings, and transient scenarios (ramp-up, restart, pigging).

The slug catcher is one key element of the liquid management strategy. Another key element is the operating philosophy. As the two 36" trunklines share the same facilities at their ends, a specific operating philosophy was developed to minimize the liquid holdup in the lines. Basically, the produced condensate is preferably allocated to the trunkline with the maximum throughput. After first gas, operating procedures will be adjusted with the support from multiphase dynamic simulation in a so called pipeline management system (PMS) [3]. Hydrate and corrosion management The management of hydrate and corrosion risks is strongly dependent on the fluid temperature along the export route. As already mentioned, water temperature at seabed can be negative, ranging from -1.8C in winter to +1C in summer, with a mean value at -0.7C. Ambient air temperature over the plant area varies between -31C to +35C with a mean value at -8.5C. From this reminder, two important observations can be made: Along the offshore section of the trunklines, sea water can help to maintain the gas temperature close to the ambient temperature, thus preventing the gas to cool down to very low temperatures by expansion (compensation of the Joule-Thomson effect with the heat gain from sea water). Therefore, trenching, burial or covering with rock dumping must be avoided as much as possible to minimize the heat resistance between the fluid and the surroundings. Along the onshore section, the trunkline must be insulated to prevent exposure to very low temperatures and potential risk of hydrate formation.

Along the offshore section, no burial is required except at special locations for buckling control and crossings, and at shore approach in the Opasova bay to ensure on-bottom stability and protection. Along the onshore section, the burial option was selected to provide robust insulation and protection. The management of hydrate and corrosion risks is based on fluid dehydration to avoid the presence of free water and to minimize the use of chemicals. A dehydration specification of 6 ppm mol water in the fluid at the outlet of dehydration is specified. This water concentration is equivalent to the following specifications for gas and condensate: Gas: 5 ppm vol water. Condensate: 100 ppm vol water.

From simulations, this specification will cover both hydrate/corrosion risks and potential upset in the condensate dehydration process. Adequate operating procedures will be also implemented to manage degraded situations. To achieve high water dew point depression in the gas, a DRIZO dehydration unit is implemented for the regeneration of TEG to very high concentrations. Regarding condensate dehydration, an electrostatic coalescer and a stripping column complete the 2-stage separation (inlet separator, medium pressure separator). Regarding top of line corrosion, no risk is anticipated despite the significant thermal contrast between the operating temperature at the inlet of the export risers (60C) and the low ambient temperature at seabed (1.8C). Indeed, as long as the gas is not fully saturated with water, the water condensation rate at top of line is too small to reach the critical limit of 0.25 g/cm2/s [5]. 7 Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank SDAG shareholders (Gazprom, Total and StatoilHydro) for their support in the preparation of this paper as well as Gazprom VNIIGAZ and DORIS Engineering for their technical assistance. 8 References [1] E. Zakarian, H. Holm and D. Larrey (2009), Discretization Methods for Multiphase Flow Simulation of Ultra-Long Gas-Condensate Pipelines, 14th International Conference on Multiphase Production Technology, Cannes, France, 16-19 June 2009. D. Hawkins et al. (2008), Small Field Development - Offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, paper OTC 19270, Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, Texas, U.S.A., 5-8 May 2008.

[2]

[3]

C. Burns et al. (2008), Start-up and Operation of the Ormen Lange Flowlines, paper No. ISOPE2008-TPC-689, 18th International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, Vancouver, Canada, 6-11 July 2008. G. S. Landswerk et al. (2009), Multiphase Flow Behaviour at Snhvit, 14th International Conference on Multiphase Production Technology, Cannes, France, 16-19 June 2009. F. Vitse et al. (2002), Semi-empirical model for prediction of the Top-Of-the-Line corrosion risk, paper No. 02245, CORROSION 2002, NACE, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A., 7-11 April 2002. American Petroleum Institute (1991), Recommended Practice for Design and Installation of Offshore Production Platform Piping Systems, API RP 14E, 5th edition, 1 October 1991. M. Langsholt and H. Holm (2001), Oil-water-gas flow in steeply inclined pipes, BHR Group, 10th International Conference on Multiphase Technology, Cannes, France, 13-15 June 2001.

[4] [5] [6] [7]