(186l) Solving Real-World Natural Gas Gathering Systems

Natural gas gathering systems can be very large and complex. They can join hundreds of wells and include hundreds of miles of pipelines. Consequently, the effort required to build an accurate and reliable model for a large network in a process simulator is substantial, perhaps even prohibitive.

This paper presents an automated method of generating models for natural gas gathering systems directly from geographic information systems (GIS) data. Once the network inlet and/or outlets are specified, all network connectivity is resolved automatically, with easy tools available to help the user resolve regions of uncertainty in the source data. Where no elevation information is available, elevation profiles are generated from knowledge of the underlying terrain.

Once built, the model is then capable of solving the entire network system simultaneously based solely on physical input parameters (temperature, pressure, flow rate and composition). No special numerical relationships are needed. Further, the model can then be optimized for various considerations, such as limiting capital and operating costs. Multiple real-world case studies will be presented to highlight the features of the developed method using the process simulator ProMax®.