Operations Excellence Begins in Design

Abstract

Abstract This article will explore operational concerns common to the LNG industry and provide insight into analysis, methods and techniques to employ throughout the design process to help ensure trouble free life-cycle operation. Achieving production and availability targets is paramount to the ultimate success of any LNG project. Both are important factors in any life-cycle economic analysis. Clearly, meeting these targets is in both the owner's and operator's best interest. For that reason, most major projects conduct detailed Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) studies during design, both to gain comfort with the design and to satisfy project financiers. However, certain assumptions are implicit in any RAM study with some examples provided below. All contaminants have been identified and addressed to avoid foaming, degradation, accelerated or unexpected corrosion, freezing, or a failure to meet product specifications.Equipment and piping are sized to operate over the full range of feed and ambient conditions.Control valve sizes, trim selections and instrument ranges are adequate for the full range of conditions without resulting in process instabilities.Piping sizes, routing and supports are selected to eliminate or address transient conditions and unstable flow regimes.Storage and inventory requirements are sufficient to support initial startup and routine maintenance operations. A general industry observation is that several key assumptions necessary to achieve the expected life-cycle RAM results are often incorrect. Since the expectations remain in place, operating companies are sometimes forced to address and correct design deficiencies. While some may be addressed through alternate controls, operational strategies, or otherwise simple fixes, others may require much more effort. The focus on true operational excellence must begin early in the design phase and remain endemic throughout. This paper will focus on common design pitfalls and oversights within the LNG industry and present several methods or techniques to avoid. While the techniques/methods presented are not new or novel to the oil and gas industry as a whole, they are often not utilized within the LNG industry. In fact, in some cases, very well established techniques pioneered by previous engineering generations could be utilized to avoid design pitfalls are omitted entirely from the design process. This paper will focus on a few key methods and techniques to achieve design expectations and operational excellence.