Publications

At a time when new economic reserves are extremely difficult to find in Indonesia, it is very important to ensure existing known resources are not wasted. This paper discusses one method to curtail waste and improve profits at a generic processing facility in Sumatra. The associated gas rate at the Oil Gathering Station (OGS) is approximately 1.5 MMSCFD and before this Lean Sigma effort, it was released to the flare stack. OGS has existing connection line for distributing the associated gas to the gas plant, but the operations team couldn’t distribute the associated gas because of H2S contamination. With Chevron’s Lean Sigma production philosophy we were able to solve the H2S issue and increase gas production at the Gas Plant. The project deliverables of this Lean Sigma application are to increase gas rate from OGS to gas plant and to eliminate associated gas flare. DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) roadmap methodology has been adopted to minimize H2S content of the associated gas. We installed Flash Vessel upstream of Liquids Collection Tank to prevent gas blow-by. This Flash Vessel is not a new one, we were able to utilize an unused vessel from another facility. We conducted Process Hazard Analysis on OGS to identify specifics of the hazard – process location event – maybe occurring during the change of operation. We also developed SOP and communication protocols to ensure the operations team were trained in operating the new system. On 5 February 2014, we eliminated all flare gas, successfully transferring the associated gas from OGS to Gas Plant. Until December 2014, Accrued Financial Benefit (AFB) from this project totals more than US$ 5.5 million. This project successfully mitigated an environmental issue with an attractive economic benefit.