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The original design of
production facilities is optimised for maximising oil and gas
production for new fields or so called "green fields". As fields
mature and field pressures decline, the design of production
facilities, especially the gas compression systems, become
bottlenecked and production declines. Thus, whilst sufficient
reserves are still available, the production rate is constrained
by the design of surface facilities. A re-designed compression
system can remove the bottleneck and restore production rates.
Unfortunately, the modification of existing oil and gas assets
usually requires the plant to be shut down. This results in complete
loss of production and the revenue stream, operators are
therefore reluctant to go through with the required changes.
Ideally, a good concept design should anticipate the changes
that would be required, such that as the fields mature, a
re-design can be implemented with minimum disruption and delays.
However, this is not always the case; our experience of many
production facilities is that the changes require an
extended shut down and loss of production.
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