Publications

In supporting Net Zero Carbon Emissions aspiration by 2050, flaring reduction and sustainability efforts should be continuously performed. One of the factors that caused flaring to occur in our operation was the excess of flash-gas produced from the Vapor Recovery Unit (VRU) Compressor. As the gas contained heavy hydrocarbon components with a high gross heating value ranging from 1330 to 1390 BTU/SCF, it was also identified as the root cause of some reliability issues in the processing equipment, particularly the gas turbine compressor at Ratu Nusantara FPSO. An idea to re-route the VRU compressor was conceptualized with the purpose of addressing pain points such as hydrocarbon gas loss due to the high flaring and consequently contributing to a higher carbon footprint; and low reliability of the gas turbine compressors causing the reoccurrence of T5 control mode activation (T5 control mode signifies the maximum temperature of the combustion chamber, in which the performance of the compressors will be limited and thus unable to process more gas) as a result of solid deposition. The rerouting of the VRU flash-gas to the export gas compressors was partially executed in October 2020, with the final commissioning being completed in mid-February 2021. The project has successfully reduced the flaring from 0.55 MMSCFD in 2020 to 0.14 MMSCFD as of October 2021, thus reducing GHG emissions to greater than 12,000 tons of CO2e per year. Additionally, the modification has also resulted in a reliability improvement in the gas turbine compressors as the occurrence of T5 control mode was effectively reduced, thus minimizing the carbon footprint from abnormal operations. The additional gas recovery of 0.4 MMSCFD will deliver revenue greater than RM 5 million/year (at gas price basis of US$ 7.1/MMBTU). On top of this, the high GHV VRU flash-gas that is being processed has now contributed to higher condensate production at the ORF by an addition of more than 150 barrels.