Publications

Oil and gas fields often operate two or more compressor trains in parallel instead of one big compressor train to optimize reliability and capital investment. These compressor trains are usually designed to be loaded equally in order to avoid excessive design margin, to operate at highest efficiency point, and to prevent any compressor from operating too close to its surge region (McMillan, 1983). However, this configuration means the lowest train’s capacity dictates overall system’s capacity. This paper shares Banyu Urip Central Processing Facility (BU CPF)’s successful strategy to compensate capacity decrease in one of its gas injection train using unbalanced load distribution. Upon implementation of the strategy, BU CPF managed to maintain operations at 100% gas injection capacity even though the capacity of one of the train was limited to 70%, therefore eliminating unplanned downtime or production curtailment.