(510a) Industrial Perspectives On Distributed and Compact Chemical Processing

World oil demand has exceeded a stunning 85 MMBOPD in recent years. Because of finite nature of fossil resources, International Oil Companies have recently been forced to explore new frontiers such as deepwater and arctic areas to fight world's hunger for energy, and quite impressively, enjoyed success in finding oil and gas. To be able to convert these new resources into reserves, development cost will have to be reduced significantly from its current level. High cost is due to remoteness of asset location, harsh environmental conditions, stringent local content requirements, soaring steel and other commodities price, etc. For high GOR associated oil fields, gas disposal introduces another cost dimension. Venting/flaring of this ?byproduct? stream is no longer an option and putting together a pipeline is simply too expensive. In this presentation, deepwater offshore oil and gas processing will be reviewed, and needs for emerging development concepts such as floating LNG, floating GTL, hybrid oil/gas FPSO and their link with distributed/compact processing technology are highlighted. Other emerging energy related processes, such as biomass conversion, waste conversion, and coal to liquids, will also be described and discussed.