Role of Chemical Engineer in Design and Maintenance of Deepwater Facilities: A Case Study

As expected, the design and operation of a hydrocarbon processing facility in deepwater is a multi-disciplinary process. Chemical Engineers with their training in fluid phase behavior, mass and energy transport, and organic and aqueous chemistry, can significantly impact the final design and regular operation. The facets that a chemical engineer significantly influences are: (i) from the beginning during exploration of a well to obtain and characterize hydrocarbons and aquifer samples; (ii) design of subsea infrastructure using multi-phase simulations; (iii) chemical selection and implementation to ensure plug-free production and (iv) monitoring and asset integrity process implementation.

Chemical Engineers are uniquely placed in the upstream oil and gas industry to interface with Petroleum, Mechanical, Electrical and other disciplines to provide valuable contributions. A more in-depth view of each of the facets mentioned above will be discussed.