Abstract
Well Testing is the single largest contributor of carbon emissions during well operations and the industry's aspiration to reduce carbon emissions inspired the bp Oman team to identify innovative ways to reduce emissions from activities in the Khazzan field.
Khazzan is characterized by tight reservoirs which requires hydraulic fracturing to release gas from the rock. After fracturing, the wells are tested/cleaned-up by flowing the well fluids and flaring the produced gas and condensate to the atmosphere. The testing removes contaminants – proppant, frac fluid, hydrogen sulphide – that could damage the downstream Central Processing Facility (CPF). ‘Green Completion’ was one of the opportunities that was identified by the bp's Oman team to remove these contaminants in an environmentally friendly manner.
A Green Completion is a zero flaring concept – hydrocarbons produced during well test operations are ‘cleaned’ and then routed to processing facilities for export rather than being flared. This concept has been successfully utilized in bp's onshore US operations for over a decade. The team leveraged the experience from the USA, applying this technology to suit the conditions in Oman, but it was not simple nor straight forward. In the last two years, this process has been modified and reinvented for the operations in Oman as the company seeks to strategically reduce its global carbon footprint.
In first half of 2018, the bp Wells team initiated a pilot project with the objective of developing Green Completion capability in the Khazzan field. This was the start of the journey to demonstrate bp's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas (CHG) emissions in a sustainable manner. Furthermore, bp's collaborative cross-functional aptitude allowed for expanding the use of Green Completions into the Ghazeer development, which enabled zero-emission well testing of newly drilled wells even before commissioning of the new pipeline infrastructure. Through this initiative, the region has reduced emissions and generated cash by selling the recovered hydrocarbons instead of flaring into the atmosphere during well testing operations. Since Q1 2019, the total reduction of CO2 emissions exceeded 240,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, which equates to taking circa 52,000 vehicles off the road for one year.
The implementation of this environmentally friendly operation also adhered to strict safety standards. The rigid bp safety process guidelines ensured that all challenges and optimization opportunities were fulfilled in a safe manner.
The purpose of this paper is to detail how the team pushed the technical envelope to introduce this technology and share the journey entailing extensive cross-disciplinary cooperation amongst operations, subsurface and wells teams to fulfill the zero emissions objective.