“Challenging times

trigger us to look at

innovations.”

Jacques Melman, Managing Director, with Frames since 1991

R&D

“Current challenging market circumstances in the upstream oil and

gas, as well as the energy market as a whole, are triggering the

industry to take a closer look at key developments and innovations.

At Frames we invest heavily in R&D and develop cutting-edge

technology that maximizes production from the assets currently left

undeveloped or producing at low efficiency. We have successfully

developed and implemented new technology for phase separation, oil

and gas processing and flow control & safeguarding. Examples of

innovation which address the challenges faced by the industry are

highlighted in this white paper.”

Jacques Melman, Managing Director Frames

Table of Contents

The Situation and the Challenge

• Solutions by Subject

• Environmental Emissions

• Waste Streams

• Zero Flaring

• Size of Treatment Facilities

• Sour Gas

• Logistics Issues

• Operational Costs

Technology and innovation to face market challenges

The Situation and the Challenge

It is not unusual for R&D investments to decline significantly in

challenging times. However, the current mature oil industry shows

technology and innovation are business enablers that – challenging

times or not – need to be pursued in the sector’s own interest. These

innovative technologies can be used to reduce costs, increase

production, improve access to reserves and to deal with other

restrictions which the industry is facing.

The typical building blocks of production facilities,

either on individual or integrated basis, are likely

candidates for which innovative technologies can be

deployed such that these market challenges can

be faced. Lower energy consumption for gas

sweetening, smaller separation equipment,

enhanced water treatment facilities, or novel

desalination technologies are examples of solutions

to the challenges faced.

Gasunie, Gas Dehydration

2 A Family of Oil & Gas Solutions

SolutionsEnvironmental Emissions

The focus on environmental emissions has increased in the previous

decades, and the oil and gas market is continuously working

diligently to become a cleaner industry. This has resulted in stricter

specifications, with the Best Available Technology (BAT) becoming

standard practice. For companies in the oil and gas sector the focus

on environmental aspects requires them to not only keep up with

competition, but also to develop technologies that improve the limits

of the BAT’s to gain a competitive advantage.

By selecting a suitable technology, waste management and

environmental concerns can even go hand in hand with cost reduction.

Using innovative processes, emissions reduction can be combined with

operational savings.

Waste StreamsWaste streams, which usually contain some form of energy that is

often not utilized, may require extra valuable primary energy input for

disposal, which is questionable indeed. In case innovative technologies

like the Overhead Vapour Combustion (OVC) or energy efficient re-

compression are applied, such streams can be utilized locally. This

utilization can either provide heat or power to on-site processes or

alternatively can be added to the product flow creating extra income.

This allows for saving on primary energy use and minimizes emissions

to the atmosphere.

Zero FlaringThe widespread flaring of waste gas in the upstream market is often

related to economics, as it may initially seem infeasible to use these

streams purposefully. Innovative solutions allow for elimination of

flaring, leading to a decreased use of primary energy sources and

elimination of unnecessary emissions. Compact facilities with low cost

solutions for treatment and/or conversion, such as small-scale gas-to-

liquids or liquefaction are the way forward.

The Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), Gas Plant

4 A Family of Oil & Gas Solutions

Kraken FPSO, Produced Water Treatment Skid 3-D rendition of WISETM

Kraken FPSO: Optimize performance,

while minimizing the plot space and

both CAPEX and OPEX

Produced Water Treatment (PWT) is an example of a waste

management process in which savings are required. Produced water

treatment is often done using large settling tanks, which are expensive

and require a lot of plot space, a feature not abundant on offshore

platforms. Preferably the treated water is reused instead of discharged.

To optimize performance of the complete PWT system, while

minimizing the plot space and reducing both CAPEX and OPEX, a

combination of technologies needs to be selected.

For the Bumi Armada Kraken FPSO, Frames provided the produced

water treatment skids, slop water treatment skid, electrostatic

coalescers and heat exchangers. At Kraken part of the treated

produced water is injected in the well to maintain reservoir pressure

while the remainder is used to power the hydraulic

submergable pumps stimulating the well. We

optimized the produced water treatment skid in a

number of ways. For instance, we designed and

supplied the hydrocyclone and compact flotation

unit (CFU) packages. Our detailed understanding of

both technologies resulted in a flexible and

customer-specific design, which allowed us to

combine the hydro-cyclones and CFU’s into a single

skid. This solution reduced plot space by 15% and

minimized the number of interfaces.

Find out more about our separation solutions.

Case WISETM: Operations become more

reliable with lower OPEX and

maintenance costs

To reduce huge quantities of waste dehydrate inhibitors, salt removal

is required to allow for reuse of the hydrate inhibitors. Salt removal

from hydrate inhibitors often requires the use of expensive chemicals

and/or complex rotating equipment that requires regular maintenance,

both of which adds to the operational costs. The waste-free inhibitor

salt extraction technology, or WISETM, was jointly developed by Frames

and Novasep for the removal of salts that are dissolved in the

production water and tend to accumulate in hydrate inhibitors (e.g.

Mono-Ethylene Glycol).

WISETM is based on continuous chromatography, and extracts salts

from the glycol stream to deliver a clean lean MEG stream and a salty

water effluent. By removing mono- and divalent salts in one step,

without complex rotating equipment or addition of

chemicals, operations become more reliable while

having lower OPEX and lower maintenance costs.

Doing so, this innovative WISETM process saves on

waste disposal of spent, contaminated glycol and of

divalent salts in solid form. Furthermore, WISETM

requires smaller equipment, leading to a reduction

in weight and plot space.

Find out more about our

oil & gas processing solutions.

Case

6 A Family of Oil & Gas Solutions

Size of Treating Facilities

In today’s oil and gas market compact construction is important. Not

just for offshore and floater applications where physical plot space and

weight are limited by default, but also for onshore applications at

remote locations. Being able to design a plant consisting of road-

transportable modules, allows for shorter project times and better

quality control. Selecting the right technology can drastically reduce

the size of a unit. For brownfield applications, where there is also

limited space, or for temporary well-testing activities, a small unit can

make the difference between feasible and impossible. Compactness of

the technology is, thus, an important criteria in technology

development.

3-D rendition of the Swirlsep

Bumi Armada Apache Balnaves, Electrostatic Coalescer

SwirlSep: Compact well cleaning

solution

Especially for temporary activities, like well cleaning, compact

equipment designed for mobility, flexibility and ease of logistics is

key. The preparation of all the equipment for a well cleaning process

may take up to two weeks and includes connecting many pipes,

vessels, valves and other equipment, making it a complex operation.

Furthermore, it is known that every additional process connection

leads to an increased risk of environmental or safety incidents.

The SwirlSep is our new inline separation technology and has been

tested as an alternative well cleaning facility in 2014 with the

Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (50% Shell, 50% ExxonMobil). In

this case the preparation time was less than a day and involved the

placement of only one skid. The environmental and safety risks were

thereby greatly reduced while saving time, space and costs.

Over the previous decade, inline separators have

seen emergence. These are very promising for

decreasing the size of large applications, but

generally suffer from limited turndown ratios. The

SwirlSep technology offers very high turndown

ratios at constant high performance. SwirlSep was

initially developed by Twister and is now being

further developed by Frames. Applications range

from well cleaning and desanding to multi-phase

flow metering and low temperature separation for

dew-pointing.

Find out more about our separation solutions.

Case

An example where proper technology selection can

aid in compactness are membranes for gas or water

treatment. In addition to being more compact,

membranes can be more cost-effective in both OPEX

and CAPEX, for example for gas streams containing

high amounts of CO2 in comparison to amine

processes.

3900 mm

25

00 m

m

8 A Family of Oil & Gas Solutions

Sour Gas

Many parties have recognized that gas reserves are becoming more

difficult to exploit. Smaller fields, remote locations, and high

concentrations of contaminants such as H2S, CO2 and organic sulfur

are becoming common, and the associated costs of production are

increasing accordingly. The traditional technologies for processing

sour and acid gases, such as amines, modified Claus processes and

the related tail gas treatment have a large benefit of scale. However,

for small sour fields in remote locations this becomes a disadvantage

and, even if technically feasible, this very much increases both CAPEX

and OPEX.

Thiopaq O&G: Decrease OPEX and

logistics

Many sour gas opportunities that we have encountered are of a scale

at which traditional Claus processes are not cost-effective, or at which

the low concentration of H2S requires expensive acid gas enrichment

and/or tail gas treatment processes. Frames is an authorized licenser

for the Thiopaq O&G process, a next-generation small to mid-scale

sulfur recovery technology, which has lower CAPEX and OPEX than

alternative technologies on that scale.

The bulk of the process operates at atmospheric pressure and

temperature, and after the feed gas inlet there is no free H2S in the

equipment or piping. This simplifies operations and HSE-related

challenges in the design, which decreases costs in comparison with

competing processes. Frames is actively developing the technology

further to decrease the related OPEX and transport movements.

Thiopaq O&G is very suitable for modularization, which saves project

lead time and reduces installed cost.

Find out more about our oil & gas processing solutions.

Case

Thiopaq O&G, © Paqell

“Frames’ ability to build

complete integrated solutions

with a focus on sustainability

adds value and brings more

flexibilty in the offering to our

clients.”

Joost Timmerman, Managing Director,

Paqell

It may seem that often, not so much the sweetening

process itself, but the sulfur recovery (e.g. Claus)

part poses the major challenges. This specifically

concerns economic feasibility. Solutions for

challenges in facility size, operation logistics, costs,

and energy efficiency, all have led to the ultimate

solution for smaller sour gas fields. Pending the

presence of the various sour components, various

innovative solutions, such as liquid redox, biological

H2S conversion, or direct oxidation can be

implemented.

“It is widely known that producing sour

gas is an expensive affair and involves the

use of chemical methods. [...] Producing sour

gas is challenging and has to be done in a

manner that is profitable.”

Mario Mehren, CEO,

Wintershall

Viura, Amine System under construction

10 A Family of Oil & Gas Solutions

Logistics Issues

Oil and gas production has been moving towards more remote locations

without infrastructure, both onshore and offshore. For instance ultra-

deep waters, to a point where Floating Production, Storage and

Offloading vessels (FPSO) are nearly becoming the standard in new

developments. With increasing lack of infrastructure for products, and

with increasing distances to shore, logistics become an important aspect

of the operating cost. Logistics of personnel and of the products are

inherent to production, but also the supply logistics of all chemicals

needed for production and gas treatment need to be taken into account.

More efficient hydrate inhibitors (such as low dosage or kinetic

inhibitors) focus on reducing the consumption, but do not solve the

transportation issue. On-site synthesis or manufacturing of some

chemicals might be considered to fully eliminate the associated logistics

costs. Ultimately, selecting an alternative that needs

no chemicals at all might be even better, especially

for offshore or floater applications. This again calls

for compact solutions and smart technologies.

Operational CostsOperational cost reduction is achieved not only in

logistics, but also in maintenance and operational

costs of the equipment. The maintenance and

downtime hours are reduced to a minimum by

choosing components which have no service

requirements and by smartly using duty and standby

configurations.

Teekay FPSO Petrojarl 1, Topside Package on transport

3-D rendition of a seawater electrochlorination system

Teekay Libra FPSO: A seawater

electrochlorination solution

Both operational costs and logistics challenges were addressed when

Teekay invited Frames to propose an innovative solution for the

conditioning of seawater, aboard the Libra FPSO. Seawater is used for

cooling purposes on nearly all platforms and floaters. To prevent

fouling of the heat exchangers, filters, piping and valves of these

systems, addition of chemical(s) is needed to prevent growth of

biomass. Hypochlorite, the biocide chemical is synthesized on-site,

using the abundant seawater itself in a process based on electrolysis.

This entails that logistics and exposure to toxic chemicals are com-

pletely reduced to zero.

On the Teekay Libra Early Well Test FPSO about 9000 m3 per hour of

water is pumped through the cooling systems on the vessel. By using

both duty and standby hypochlorite generation trains for shock

dosing, we were able to reduce the weight, footprint and capital cost

of the package by 25%, making it the same size as a simple chemical

storage and injection package. The package

generates an amount of chemical equivalent to

2,000 liters of high strength bleach each day. This

eliminates the transport from shore to the vessel,

the need for storage and, last but not least, reduces

HSE risks.

Also we decided to use maintenance-free electroly-

sis cells, which keep themselves clean due to high

velocities through the cell. This eliminates the need

for acid cleaning, removing an additional hazard

and a lot of maintenance-sensitive equipment.

Case 5

Find our more about our

flow control and safeguarding solutions.

12 A Family of Oil & Gas Solutions

FRA1604W3

frames-group.comAbout Frames

At Frames we provide the vital link between well and pipeline.

We design, deliver and construct separation, treatment and control

and monitoring systems as well as total plant solutions and modules

for the international oil and gas market. Our people work directly,

one-on-one, with each client for the best results. Sharp. Together.

Committed.

Innovation to meet the industry

challenges

Challenging times ask for creative ideas. Investing in innovative

technologies will make the production of oil and gas cleaner, safer,

and more cost-effective. Here are some key developments.

• By selecting the most suitable technology, waste management and

environmental concerns can go hand in hand with cost reduction.

• Innovative solutions allow for elimination of flaring, leading to a

decreased use of primary energy sources and elimination of

unnecessary emissions.

• Road-transportable modules allow for shorter project times and

better quality control.

• Compactness of the technology is one of the most important

drivers in technology development.

• Solutions for challenges in facility size, operation logistics, costs,

and energy efficiency, have led to an ultimate solution for smaller

sour gas fields.

• With increasing lack of infrastructure for products, and with

increasing distances to shore, logistics become an important

aspect of the operating cost.

Contact

For more information about R&D contact:

Jacco Mooijer j.mooijer@frames-group.com +31 172 464217

Learn More

Read all our white papers at frames-group.com/together.