The future of the distributed generation

In these turbulent days the energy market points to an increasing need of smart, slim and quick networks and grids that can cope with all the changing requirements of cogeneration, power, heat and a combination of all these ones.
The answer is a Distributed Generation system based on a fully integrated network of gas turbines, gas fired reciprocating engines and micro turbines, also coupled with waste heat recovery.
All these prime movers can generate power in the 2 to 50 MW range and due to many significant technologies improvements, their efficiency is making them highly competitive even with the big and complex combined cycle powerplants.
In the close future industries will buy a host of these engines to look for ways to improve reliability, reduce costs, simplify operation, reduce environmental impact, and increase earnings.

NEW CONTRACT IN THE BARENTS SEA

Statoil renews interest in the Barents Sea (Norwegian sector) issuing two new contracts.
Subject of the business is the Askeladd gas field development program that will be tied in to the existing Snøhvit infrastructure.
The project schedule fixes this significant milestone for summer 2019, when Subsea 7 will lay a 44-km (27-mi), 20-in. pipeline with operations mainly based at Hammerferst.
Another partner Ocean Installer will install in 2020 a 42-km (26-mi) umbilical, a 35-km (22-mi) MEG (mono-ethylene glycol) pipeline and two manifolds. The support activities will be based in Hammerfest, already a site for a LNG plant.
Future developments also involve Aker Solutions with other three wells and two new subsea templates, reinstating Norway as the crucible of subsea development.

What will bring the future to us?

Recent years told us that nothing is settled down in the Oil & Gas industry world.
However, 2017 pointed out some clear trends:

– OPEC and USA maintain their roles in the market
– Digital revolution increases its dominant role in innovation
– Natural gas steps up in its rise to become the dominant fuel of the future
– Technology advancements will take a major role in companies’ competitiveness

Deloitte forecasted interesting scenarios in a recent webcast and underlined that OPEC remains the major player in the field with a quote close to 30 million barrels per day.
On the other side of the world, USA is increasing its role in the global oil market, courtesy of significant improvements in the efficiency of the shale oil extraction and treatment processes.
These lowered the breakeven point to less than $50/bbl, compared to about $68/bbl in early 2015, a significant improvement made possible by a big injection of technology and efficiency in this new market.

Coming now to the digital revolution the picture is clearer and its role encompasses all the sectors, from field development to maintenance. Advanced software must be tightly integrated with robotic engineering, in order to increase the automation process also in the drilling activities. Moreover, operation will be significantly improved in efficiency by the wide integration of digital tools for monitoring and preventing the health of all the crucial equipment. The benefits of predictive modeling, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and intelligent nonconformity tracking will bring unprecedented gains in profitability and availability of the plants and equipment.

2018 will see the fast growth of natural gas in a deep climb to become the dominant fuel of the future because of the production costs fall and consumption rise. This trend is widening ever and ever not only in the power generation world, but in the transportation market too with positive effect for the environment.

The Eastern Med hot case: the Saipem 12000 drillship

Eastern Med. climate starts to heat as on Feb. 23rd the Italian Saipem 12000 drillship has been constrained to leave its position offshore the Cyprus coasts by a “show of force” of Turkish Navy warships.
The huge wells of the area are generating political and economy tensions among the many countries interested in this basin and Turkey seems to be quite determined to conquer a dominating position in this contest.
Now Europe must answer in a clear way and affirms the rules and laws of international trade and navigations over the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), even including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
ENI headquarters chose to use rationality and protect the security of their crew and ship, but they also stressed that the re-routing of the sixth generation ultra-deepwater drillship to Moroccan waters is a temporary solution only and that the Italian oil company wants to re-affirm its rights in the Cypriot waters.
It has to be recalled that this incident originated as soon as the ENI drillship discovered a large gas well just in that brace of sea: was it all for chance?

On the brink of a new “Cold War”?

The UK-Russia “spies war” arisen by the murdering on March 4th of the Russian citizens Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia by nerve gas is opening new scenarios on the energy sources too.
British Prime Minister Theresa May directly accused the Kremlin and Russian leader Vladimir Putin is preparing countermeasures to this.
One the strongest weapons in the hands of Mr. Putin is the huge quantity of gas exported to UK and European countries, a political and strategical affair that has been influencing Europe for more than 50 years.
USA and many European joined the British position, but the point is another: how long can Europe withstand Russian menace on energy? How long we as European citizens must wait for a true European Treaty on energy?
All over Europe there are tens of companies fully qualified as global players in the power generation market both as service providers and OEMs, so it seems quite feasible and logic to join forces as a whole entity to counter Russia hegemony in the gas market.
How long we must wait for this?

Nightmare in the North Sea: the off-shore platforms decommissioning

In short time UK shall face a hard task in the North Sea: decommissioning and de-mobilizing a lot of offshore platforms, quickly reaching obsolescence.
The OSPAR committee convention rules that the old platforms and infrastructures must be disassembled and transported on-shore.
This task is quite demanding and it shows by the numbers: No. 470 oil fields, 10,000 sq. km of oil pipelines and 5,000 oil wells are reaching the end of their expected life.
Another crucial number identifies the real dimension of the issue: 53 billion UK £ is the estimated budget for the decommissioning plan (24 billion are refundable to the UK’s taxpayers – Wood Mackenzie source) and the oil industry is already shaken by planning high investments that do not produce a direct income but only losses.
Prof. Tom Baxter of the Aberdeen University identifies this decom. plan as a major feat of the future, “A colossal engineering work” in his words, but an alternative plan is possible. In the GoM many oil companies chose a different solution: hundreds of platforms have been moved in shallow waters in order to transform them in a reef habitat for the sea life.
Tom Baxter suggests a “rig-to-reef” plan but with a crucial difference: the platforms will be cleaned, de-contaminated and put in a safe condition, but kept at their positions. This will induce huge savings in the British and oil companies economies.

Reinventing the Oil & Gas world: “Digital” is the keyword.

The New Millennium has brought us a true revolution, the digital one that changed both people and business minds.
The Oil & Gas market is also involved in this revolution and all the players are changing their models of business, investment, operation, procurement and design.
One sure thing is that all main sub suppliers and vendors of the hugely expensive and complex O&G offshore projects must be linked to the prime movers of the market, becoming risk sharing partners since the beginning. This attitude is quite usual in other markets (e.g: Aerospace, Chemical Plants, Power Generation) and implies a “Wonder team” approach to all the phases of the Project.
A highly beneficial side effect is also a reduced time for the RoI due to the optimization and better detailed picture of the Project that all players have with the digitalization process. This makes real the unreal indeed, through virtual mock ups: digital copies of the real plant and the components can be created to identify and solve the main issues at once.
Furthermore, data gathering, strategic management and analysis can be significantly improved by a digital network that can transform “blind & dumb” systems in smart ones.
Communication between all the main section and components of an offshore production system give huge benefits on the service burdens and unplanned downtime too, evolving from a scheduled maintenance philosophy to an “on condition” one that monitors the health of the main components and warns if key parameters are going out of the “yellow line”.
Operators can promptly act before breakdowns or malfunctions occur, saving time and money and averting incidents or accidents.
In a nutshell, digital will be the solution of the future: be ready!

Live from the deep: new inspection techniques.

The offshore market has many challenges and one of the most critical is monitoring the health of pipelines and all critical equipment that lie below sea level.
The digital revolution and Internet of Things are bringing huge benefits in this field. A “smart grid” fully integrated with a widespread communication and sensor network can transmit video footage “live from the deep” courtesy of camera-equipped ROVs. The real-time video streaming is downloadable on the cloud and in this way is retrievable after months and compared to the “live” streaming filmed now. Comparison of the two different situations allows to forecast the effect of corrosion or other phenomena (fouling) and track the pipeline sections affected by issues.
This opens interesting new Overhaul & Maintenance scenarios with proactive and on condition maintenance based on the real condition of the equipment and no more scheduled interventions, optimizing operation cost and time.
Many times, the traditional scheduling of maintenance reveals asynchronous with the necessities of the real plant and systems, affecting their availability and profitability.
Furthermore, this technology is crucial to the fact finding of potential catastrophic issues, a real game changer for assuring the safety of the plant.

Oil vs. Gas: the big fighting.

The role of oil in the industry is still dominant, but this situation will quickly change in a matter of years.
Gas in its wider term and multiple forms (LNG, CNG, NGL) embraces a huge variety of tasks and above all in a cleaner way compared to oil. Let’s see the transportation industry: since the ‘20s many vehicles have been designed and produced with traditional piston engine (Otto / Beau De Rochas cycle) running with gas and nowadays near all city buses are fueled by LNG or gasification byproducts.
Millions of cars, vans and light trucks in the world have hi-tech derivatives of those primordial engines and being available at very affordable prices in addition with ecology bonuses are selling more and more every year.
Another crucial advantage of the gas is its incredible versatility: thinking about district heating and waste heat recovery, the gas is strictly linked to the renewables, ever and ever more important and in the future crucial to afford a life style compatible with Planet Earth.
Fuel cells, another big player of the energy world in the future, can be fueled by Natural Gas and the electricity they produce can be directly used in a vehicle or on site, promoting micro power station and totally changing the traditional energy distribution market.
Furthermore, there are the well-recognized points of minor pollution and significantly easier treatment of the emissions produced by the gas combustion compared to the exhausts of other fossil fuels.
All these game changer factors coalize to a fall in the oil production and a comparable quick rise of gas in the next years.

A Brave New World: How drones change the Oil & Gas Industry.

Drones (UAV – Unmanned Air Vehicle – is the more appropriate definition) are becoming ever more popular: they are widespread in many different markets and in the Oil & Gas industry are exploring ever new and challenging frontiers.
Since 2013 small drones like Insitu (a company incorporated by the huge aerospace giant Boeing) “ScanEagle” are scanning the Alaskan chilling water to track icebergs or are loitering in the warmer skies of the Gulf to monitor the safety of the off-shore platforms. Another Oil & Gas related mission is deploying these technology marvels as “hurricane hunters” in order to sense the first advices of devastating hurricanes. The US DoC NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – is employing in this role the Raytheon “Coyote”, another small UAV with a wing span shorter than 2 meters but contained (with wings folded) in a tube smaller than 30 cm in diameter and less than 5 kg in weight.
These UAVs are invaluable assets for the Oil & Gas platforms because can warn of the dangers involved in weather events and assure safety and security of hugely expensive equipment: they have advanced sensors able to detect night and day the tiniest suspect vessel and due to the sophisticated communication network are able to immediately launch an alarm.
Only imagination is the limit to this “brave new world” revolution.