The Oil and Gas Process

Photo: Norsk Hydro ASA

The oil and gas process is the process equipment that takes the product from the wellhead manifolds and delivers stabilized marketable products, in the form of Crude Oil, Condensate or Gas. Components of the process also exist to test products and clean waste products such as produced water.

Our example process, for the Norsk Hydro Njord floater is shown on the next page. This is a medium size platform with one production train and a production of 40- 45.000 barrels per day (bpd). This is actual production, after separation of water and gas. The associated gas and is used for on board power generation and gas reinjection. There is only one separation and gas compression train. The water is treated and released (it could also have been reinjected). This process is quite representative for hundreds of similar size installations, and only more complete gas treatment and gas export is missing to form a complete gas production facility, Njord sends the oil via a short pipeline to a nearby storage floater. On gravity base platforms, FPSO (Floating Production and Storage Operations) and onshore plants this storage will be a part of the main installation if the oil is not piped out directly.