Begin

New experiences can bring adventure, but also uncertainty and chaos. That applies to new product development just as well. These first four lessons will help you to get started, and to bring some order in the chaos. 

---

Landolt-Bornstein "Zahlenwerte und Funktionen aus Physik, Chemie, Astronomic, Geophysik, und Technik," 6th ed., Vol. II (2a, 2b, 2c), Vol. IV (4b), Springer Verlag, Berlin, beginning 1950. 

A loop is a path which begins and ends at the same point, such as CGDHC in Fig. 7.1a. If two loops have a line in common, they can be linked to form a third loop by deleting the common line. In Fig. 7.1a, for example, BGCEB and CGDHC can be linked to give BGDHCEB. In this case, this last loop is said to be dependent on the other two. 

Low temperature. Low-temperature process (below 0°C) can contain large amounts of fluids kept in the liquid state by pressure and/or low temperature. If for any reason it is not possible to keep them under pressure or keep them cold, then the liquids will begin to vaporize. If this happens, impurities in the fluids are liable to... 

The reactants dissolve and immediately begin to react to form further dichloroethane. The reaction is essentially complete at a point only two-thirds up the rising leg. As the liquid continues to rise, boiling begins, and finally, the vapor-liquid mixture enters the disengagement drum. A very slight excess of ethylene ensures essentially 100 percent conversion of chlorine. 

There can be an element of maintenance costs that is fixed and an element which is variable. Fixed maintenance costs cover routine maintenance such as regular maintenance on safety valves which must be carried out irrespective of the rate of production. There also can be an element of maintenance costs which is variable. This arises from the fact that certain items of equipment can need more maintenance as the production rate increases. Also, royalties which cover the cost of purchasing another company s process technology may have different bases. Royalties may be a variable cost, since they can sometimes be paid in proportion to the rate of production. Alternatively, the royalty might be a single-sum payment at the beginning of the project. In this case, the single-sum payment will become part of the project s capital investment. As such, it will be included in the annual capital repayment, and this becomes part of the fixed cost. 

Because they contain many islets of condensed aromatics, the carbon-rich asphaltenes can begin to acquire the spatial organization of graphite layers. 

Beyond 340°C in the reboiler, the residue begins to crack thermally. If the distillation is stopped at this point, the residue is called the atmospheric residue. In order to continue, the distillation is conducted under a low pressure, vacuum", so as to reduce the temperature in the reboiler. 

All these methods begin with combustion of the sample resulting in the sulfur being oxidized to SO2 and SO3. Table 2.3 summarizes the different analytical methods with references to the corresponding standards. 

We will begin by a brief review of the concept of the X-ray fluorescence analytical method widely used in the petroleum industry for studying the whole range of products and for analyzing catalysts as well. 

The diesel engine takes in and compresses the air. The fuel is injected into the cylinder in atomized form at the end of the compression stroke and is vaporized in the air. Ignition begins by auto-ignition in one or several zones in the combustion chamber where the conditions of temperature, pressure and concentration combine to enable combustion to start. 

The cloud point, usually between 0 and -10°C, is determined visually (as in NF T 07-105). It is equal to the temperature at which paraffin crystals normally dissolved in the solution of all other components, begin to separate and affect the product clarity. The cloud point can be determined more accurately by differential calorimetry since crystal formation is an exothermic phenomenon, but as of 1993 the methods had not been standardized. 

The desired improvements are usually on the order of 3 to 5 points, beginning with a base of 45-48. Under these conditions between 300 and 1000 ppm by weight of additive must be used. The treating costs are acceptable, being on the order of a centime (hundredth of a French Franc) per liter. 

When the temperature decreases, water becomes less soluble (see Figure 5.15) and deposits as fine droplets that begin to freeze as the temperature reaches 0°C. To prevent this occurrence, it is possible to use anti-freeze additives that absorb the water and lower the freezing point. These products, used at maximum levels of 1500 ppm, are ethers-alcohols for example, 2-methoxy... 

Their production in a refinery begins with base stocks having narrow boiling ranges and high octane numbers iso C5 cuts (used in small concentrations because of their high volatility) or alkylates are sought for such formulations. 

It should be noted finally that adding gasoline to diesel fuel which was sometimes recommended in the past to improve cold behavior conflicts with the flash point specifications and presents a serious safety problem owing to the presence of a flammable mixture in the fuel tank airspace. Adding a kerosene that begins to boil at 150°C does not have the Scune disadvantage from this point of view. 

The idea of clean motor and heating fuels, that is, those having an improved impact on the environment, has been developing since the beginning of the 1980s, first in the United States. It has since then appeared in Europe and will most certainly have its impact in the rest of the world beyond the year 2000. 

In Europe and elsewhere in the world, the trend towards reformulated gasoline has scarcely begun it is very likely, however, that it will be felt around the beginning of 2000, with more or less profound impact on the refining industry. 

At the beginning of each year, the new version of the SAE Handbook is published for which Volume 3 is entitled ... 

The major portion of sait is found in residues as these streams serve as the bases for fuels, or as feeds for asphalt and petroleum coke production, the presence of salt in these products causes fouling of burners, the alteration of asphalt emulsions, and the deterioration of coke quality. Furthermore, calcium and magnesium chlorides begin to hydrolyze at 120°C. This hydrolysis occurs rapidly as the temperature increases (Figure 8.1) according to the reaction i. ... 

A group of eminent specialists was placed in charge of writing the series, with those involved being listed at the beginning of each relevant volume. We would like to thank all of them for their dynamic and even enthusiastic approach to this project. 

The safety triangle shows that there are many orders of magnitude more unsafe acts than LTIs and fatalities. A combination of unsafe acts often results in a fatality. Addressing safety in industry should begin with the base of the triangle trying to eliminate the unsafe acts. This is simple to do, in theory, since most of the unsafe acts arise from carelessness or failure to follow procedures. In practice, reducing the number of unsafe acts requires personal commitment and safety awareness. 

Finally, it is worth remembering the sequence of events which occur during hydrocarbon accumulation. Initially, the pores in the structure are filled with water. As oil migrates into the structure, it displaces water downwards, and starts with the larger pore throats where lower pressures are required to curve the oil-water interface sufficiently for oil to enter the pore throats. As the process of accumulation continues the pressure difference between the oil and water phases increases above the free water level because of the density difference between the two fluids. As this happens the narrower pore throats begin to fill with oil and the smallest pore throats are the last to be filled. 

The resistivity log can also be used to define oil / water or gas / water contacts. Figure 5.53 shows that the fluid contact can be defined as the point at which the resistivity begins to increase in the reservoir interval, inferring the presence of hydrocarbons above that point. 

The input parameters to the calculation of volumetries were introduced at the beginning of Section 6.1. Let us take the STOMP calculation as an example. 

The example illustrates some important steps in identifying the uncertainties and then beginning to quantify them ... 

As discussed at the beginning of this section, the value of information from appraisal is the difference between the outcome of the decision with the information and the outcome of the decision without the information. 

Royalty is charged from the start of production, but tax is only payable once there is a positive taxable income. At the beginning of a new project the fiscal costs may exceed the revenues, giving rise to a negative taxable income. Whether the project can take advantage of this depends upon the fiscal status of the company and the project. 

This method attempts to relate the capital allowance to the total life of the assets (i.e. the field s economic lifetime) by linking the annual capital allowance to the fraction of the remaining reserves produced during the year. The capital allowance is calculated from the unrecovered assets at the end of the previous year times the ratio of the current year s production to the reserves at the beginning of the year. As long as the ultimate recovery of the field remains the same, the capital allowance per barrel of production is constant. However, this is rarely the case, making this method more complex in practice. 

The project cashflow discussed so far follows a pattern typical of E P projects a number of years of expenditure (giving rise to cash deficits) at the beginning of the project, followed by a series of cash surpluses. The annual cashflows need to be evaluated to incorporate the timing of the cash flows, to account for the effect of the time value of monef. The technique which allows the values of sums of money spent at different times to be consistently compared is called discounting. 

If the reference date is set at the beginning of the year (e.g. 1.1.98) then full year discount factors imply that t is a whole number and that cashflows occur in lump sums at the end of each year. If the cashflow occurs uniformly throughout the year and the reference date is the beginning of the year then mid-year discount factors are more appropriate, in which case the discounting equation would be ... 

The total undiscounted cash surplus (the ultimate cash surplus) is 190 m. The total discounted cash surplus ( 24.8 m) is called the net present value (NPV) of the project. Since in this example the discount rate applied is 20%, this figure would be the 20% NPV also annotated NPV(20). This is the present value at the beginning of Year 1 of the total project, assuming a 20% discount rate. 

Hydrocarbon-water contact movement in the reservoir may be determined from the open hole logs of new wells drilled after the beginning of production, or from a thermal decay time (TDT) log run in an existing cased production well. The TDT is able to differentiate between hydrocarbons and saline water by measuring the thermal decay time of neutrons pulsed into the formation from a source in the tool. By running the TDT tool in the same well at intervals of say one or two years (time lapse TDTs), the rate of movement of the hydrocarbon-water contact can be tracked. This is useful in determining the displacement in the reservoir, as well as the encroachment of an aquifer. 

Artificial lift techniques are discussed in Section 9.6. During production, the operating conditions of any artificial lift technique will be optimised with the objective of maximising production. For example, the optimum gas-liquid ratio will be applied for gas lifting, possibly using computer assisted operations (CAO) as discussed in Section 11.2. Artificial lift may not be installed from the beginning of a development, but at the point where the natural drive energy of the reservoir has reduced. The implementation of artificial lift will be justified, like any other incremental project, on the basis of a positive net present value (see Section 13.4). 

---