Infrastructure-independent deepwater oil field development concept
A method for developing a sub-sea hydrocarbons field includes sub-sea wells, sub-sea oil/gas separation, storing the degassed oil in a storage tank located or the seabed, liquefying natural gas aboard a vessel using liquid nitrogen aboard the vessel to obtain liquefied natural gas, transporting the liquefied natural gas to an onshore terminal, re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas, and obtaining a new batch of liquid nitrogen using energy recovered from the re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas.
1 . A method for developing a sub-sea hydrocarbons field, comprising:
liquefying natural gas aboard a vessel using a liquid coolant aboard the vessel to obtain liquefied natural gas;
transporting the liquefied natural gas to an onshore terminal, re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas; and
obtaining a new batch of liquid coolant using energy recovered from the re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the liquid coolant comprises liquid nitrogen and further comprising:
transporting the new batch of liquid nitrogen offshore aboard the vessel using a plurality of storage tanks.
3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
de-gasifying hydrocarbons obtained from the sub-sea hydrocarbons field to produce oil and gas; and
conveying the produced gas to the vessel and the produced oil to the storage tank on the seabed.
4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the produced gas is conveyed to the vessel via a riser.
5 . The method of claim 3 , further comprising.
pre-treating the produced gas before liquefying.
6 . The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
storing the oil in a storage tank attached to a seabed.
7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
liquefying a new batch of natural gas using the new batch of liquid nitrogen aboard the vessel.
8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein one of a plurality of storage tanks aboard the vessel storage tanks is empty to receive an initial portion of the liquefied natural gas.
9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the re-gasifying the liquid natural gas is performed at the onshore terminal.
10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas produces high pressure gas.
11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
sending the high pressure gas to a pipeline.
12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein transporting the liquefied natural gas to the onshore terminal is performed using the vessel.
13 . A system for developing an oil and gas field, comprising:
a vessel configured to liquefy natural gas to obtain liquefied natural gas using liquid nitrogen aboard the vessel; and
an onshore terminal configured to obtain a new batch of liquid nitrogen using refrigeration recovered from re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas.
14 . The system of claim 13 , further comprising:
a sub-sea separation system configured to de-gasify hydrocarbons to produce oil and gas; and
a natural gas conveyance system configured to use a riser to convey the gas produced from the sub-sea separation system to the vessel; and
convey the oil produced from the sub-sea separation system to a sub0-sea storage tank.
15 . The system of claim 14 , further comprising:
a natural gas pre-treating facility configured to treat the produced gas.
16 . The system of claim 14 , further comprising:
a power and control buoy configured to provide electric power and control functions for the sub-sea separation system.
17 . An apparatus for developing a sub-sea hydrocarbons field, comprising:
means for liquefying natural gas aboard a vessel using liquid nitrogen aboard the vessel to obtain liquefied natural gas;
means for transporting the liquefied natural gas to an onshore terminal;
means for re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas; and
means for obtaining a new batch of liquid nitrogen using energy recovered from the re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas.