A natural gas development platform in the Gulf of Thailand, operated by Carigali-PTTEPI Operating Company Sdn. Bhd. (CPOC), has saved $52 million per year and significantly reduced water usage and chemical consumption with help from General Electric’s advanced cooling and chemical treatment technology.

GE helped CPOC reduce its chemical consumption by 9.5 tons and decrease shutdown time and production loss.

CPOC’s platform in the Muda Field is located about 150 km northeast of Kota Bharu in Malaysia, 250 km east of the Songkhla province in Thailand and 350 km north of the Kemaman Supply Base in water with depths ranging between 55-65 meters. It had been using a cooling medium to cool off gas from compressors for gas processing and gas export, but the system failed to run as designed and was being shut down frequently for cleaning to maintain safe operation and sustainable production.

On average the facility was shut down for six unplanned days per year for cleaning, causing CPOC a production loss of approximately $52.2 million. CPOC’s gas processing platform has the ability to produce 369 million square feet per day and the capacity to generate gross production worth $8.7 million per day.

To ensure the system would run smoothly, CPOC called on GE for situational mapping, an investigation of the cooling system and for a chemical treatment change out and make-up water quality improvement. GE also was able to conduct enhanced monitoring and service support for CPOC’s natural gas development platform.

Last month GE announced that Compañia Española de Petróleos (CEPSA), a Spanish petrochemical companies, has adopted GE gas turbine technology at its Gibraltar-San Roque refinery to meet environmental emissions restrictions without reducing efficiency or increasing operational cost.

Anh Tuan