Presented with BP, Inc. 2006 National GPA Meeting, 2006 European GPA Meeting
Mark E. Roop and James Jones eSimulation, Inc. Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
Jan Estal Maberry, Ralph Eguren, Mark Johnson, and Andy Dial BPAmerica Production Company Crane, Texas, U.S.A.
ABSTRACT
BP America Production Company (BP) commissioned eSimulationSM ’s eSimOptimizerSM web-based process optimization system on the Crane Gathering and Processing System in Upton and Midland Counties, TX, in February 2005. This technology has been applied previously by eSimulation to several gas processing facilities. Though the processing capacity at Crane is only 30 MMSCFD, smaller than any previous eSimulation optimizer application, BP chose the Crane Plant because it was well instrumented and staffed to support the project implementation. Although the initial project pay-out was projected to be small, it was still adequate for this pilot application.
As the scope of the application was developed, BP and eSimulation identified a key tradeoff in coordinating delivery of unprocessed gas from the Midland compressor station to the Crane gas plant, approximately 20 miles away. BP’s typical mode of operation was to bring as much gas from Midland to Crane as possible, rather than utilizing other processing options. BP and eSimulation agreed that expanding the optimizer system to manage the gathering and processing options was feasible and would increase the value of the application to BP. This application would become a first for the optimizer to extend the scope outside the plant fence.
This paper will report how the eSimulation optimizer guided BP’s plant operators to effectively process more gas at the Crane Plant. The resulting increase in residue gas and NGL production will be discussed.