KAZAKHSTAN UPSTREAM OIL AND GAS technology and R&d ...

5.2 Operational HSE risk reduction under sour production conditions
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Solutions commentary
The three solution groups cover
n Personal Protective Equipment (PPE);
n Preventing H 2
S leaks;
n Minimising personal exposure.
The combination of potentially very high H 2
S
environments plus extreme climate requires
improved personal protective equipment to
be developed for locations like Kashagan,
allowing efficient, comfortable construction
and operational activities to be performed.
In the short term the detailed functional
specifications need developing utilizing
learnings and trials based on next generation
H 2
S personal protection equipment from
other high pressure H 2
S regions (Middle
East, Canada), eg self-contained breathing
apparatus (SCBA) that can support wireless
audio and video with noise cancellation
software. It is also expected that material
capabilities will need establishing in
Kazakhstan to enable the new PPE equipment
to be supplied from 2020, fulfilling the
goal of flexible material that is H 2
S aware,
recycles breathing air and meets gender and
temperature requirements.
The goal with respect to leak mitigation is to
have a significant reduction in leak risk and
occurrences after 2020. Such a goal needs
to be addressed in a holistic manner, ranging
from separation, re-injection and utilization
of H 2
S/Sulphur; to the more conventional
reduction and elimination of potential leak
points.
For example a large development has
upwards of 20,000 valves, 6,000 of which
will be in critical positions and all of which
are potential leak points. In the near term,
the focus should be on reducing exposure
via minimising leak paths in design and by
separation of toxic versus non-toxic process
areas, selective use of isolation valves (driven
by Operations Philosophy) and use of non
intrusive measurement and inspection methods
(driven by condition based maintenance
philosophy) .
Investments in R&D in the medium term should
focus on address the sealing limitations of
existing valves including providing valve
functionality with no moving parts, together
with ‘smart pipes’ that can self detect
problems via in-built fiber optic sensors or
analogous techniques.
The third solution group is focused on
reducing manpower exposure, where the
goal is to minimize and in selected areas
eliminate (normally unmanned) the presence
of workers within hazardous areas. Currently
in Kazakhstan, oil and gas operations
and maintenance activities require manual
intervention, some of which are performed
using breathing apparatus. Hence, dangerous
but high value tasks like fluid sampling are
often regretted. In the near-term transfer of
technologies and workflows from other parts
of the World like Oman and Canada can
reduce exposure while the detailed target
scope is developed. This is expected to lead
in the medium-term to further R&D focused
on robotics and automation of operations &
maintenance tasks to increase availability.
These technologies once deployed are
expected to deliver the required step change
reduction in manpower exposure.
Kazakhstan Upstream oil & gas technology and R&D roadmap