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March
2017
HYDROCARBON
ENGINEERING
T
o say it has not been smooth sailing for the
oil and gas industry over the last few years,
would be an understatement. Operators are
looking to save time and money to reduce
their exposure to low oil prices, all the while cutting
jobs and suffering the consequences of a loss of
expertise in their workforces.
In an industry where one unplanned shutdown can
cost millions of dollars, time has always been of the
essence. With margins threatened, companies across the
sector seek innovative technologies to answer to these
ever increasing pressures, to cut the cost of operations
and maintain steady production and efficient
downstream activities.
Focusing on chemical testing and monitoring, an area
which undoubtedly has suffered from the loss of
experienced personnel and subsequent increases to
individual workload, there has been an added pressure to
simplify methods of testing whilst still obtaining accurate
results. Such testing is critical to ensure operators can
identify levels of chemicals in process streams, allowing
quarantining of contaminated product and optimisation
of process equipment, such as monoethylene glycol
(MEG) regeneration plants. The ability to respond to real
time information allows the operator to make important
decisions to reflect positively on the value of the
product and thus the usefulness of these results has an
expiration date. Looking beyond cost, innovation must be