Platform design economics

Having defined and gathered data adequate for an initial reserves estimation, the next step is to look at the various options to develop the field. The objective of the feasibility study is to document various technical options, of which at least one should be economically viable. The study will contain the subsurface development options, the process design, equipment sizes, the proposed locations (e.g. offshore platforms), and the crude evacuation and export system. The cases considered will be accompanied by a cost estimate and planning schedule. Such a document gives a complete overview of all the requirements, opportunities, risks and constraints. 

Because of their compact size, packaged vertical boilers can be custom-designed as a complete boiler plant system and simply shipped to the customer on a steel skid or platform. This type of system may comprise a dual boiler arrangement, with a pretreatment unit (water-softening and chemical-feed system), boiler blowdown and condensate return facilities, and also possibly a dual stack containing an economizer. This type of packaged system may reach 85% GCV efficiency. 

In the 1970s, the awareness of the limited oil resources resulted in a sudden oil price increase by a factor of 4. It became economical to produce crude oil from sea bottoms. One of the first oil platforms in the North Sea was the Brent Spar. In the 1990s, oil production ceased and the platform had to be demolished. In the Brent Spar design, demolition had not been taken into account, and so the demolition appeared to be very difficult. In consultation with the British government it was decided that dumping in a deep trough in the ocean would be the best economical and environmental solution. 

These examples demonstrate that the economics of commercial chemical transformations on catalytic surfaces are determined by the reaction conditions as well as both reactor and catalyst design. Thus, it is always prudent to involve catalyst experts when designing new processes and reactors, and due to ever-improving catalyst technology, it is also possible to enhance the economics of an existing process by the further optimization of the catalyst. In this respect, carbon supports provide catalytic chemists with a very flexible and economic platform on which to ply their craft. 

Grade Location. The most economical and common location of process equipment is at grade. Supporting structures and platforms are not required. Construction is easy. Most valves and instruments can be made accessible firom grade. Operation and maintenance are convenient. Elevated equipment with its structures, platforms, handling beams, etc. means cost increases in several design areas. 

Derivative products are the products that are designed around a platform product. For example, Sony designed over 200 Walkman products, based on three platforms, to meet the specific needs of global markets. The economic proposition for derivative products is to reduce cost by reducing features (low-cost products), or to add features without changing the price significantly (line extensions), or to add features to increase the value to the customer (superior products). 

For safety instmmentation functions, fieldbus systems pass beta testing. (Prototype designed product tested at customer site for evaluation of the product.) Also, safe fieldbus systems are required to meet the lEC 61508 standard for functional safety systems for specified SIL so that suppliers can build their systems on the same. Also, protocols are subject to diird-party approval for safety applications. There are a number of fieldbus systems recognized in the world. Also, there are other system integration tools and protocols such OPC and HART, respectively. HART is a protocol, while OPC is a standard described in brief in Fig. IX/2.0.2-1. Now, initially each of them has their own ways and means to communications in intelligent way. There are some similarities in their network protocol but there was no common platform. These made it rather difficult to integrate various control systems, which is of tremendous demand not only from technological point of view but also from economical point of view. In 2003, major players in fieldbus systems joined hands and... 

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