A methodology to assess the availability of a sour gas injection plant for the production of oil

Driven by the needs of highly competitive markets, the performance requirements of today's production systems are becoming evermore demanding. High availability is one of the key requirements for new machines and industrial plants. The objective of the present study is the assessment of the availability of a Gas injection Plant used for the production of oil in the Kashagan field (Kazakhstan). In order to assess the availability performance of this complex system, a broad set of studies has been conducted to gather accurate information in as much detail as possible as input for the availability analysis. Following this preliminary work, the availability analysis was performed using a simulation approach. The RBD technique, in conjunction with Monte Carlo simulations allowed many different elements to be evaluated simultaneously to determine the plant availability.