Minimizing Energy Consumption in Compressor Stations along Two Gas Pipelines in Nigeria
[1]
Agwu Ogbonnaya E., Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria.
[2]
Markson I. E., Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria.
[3]
Umana M. O., Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria.
Tackling the incidence of gas flaring in Nigeria must involve building and upgrading necessary infrastructure for gas transportation. Consequently, authorities are seeking to increase by 125% the gas throughput in the Oben-Ajaokuta gas pipeline in South West Nigeria. Also, new pipelines have been proposed to be built, one of which is the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna pipeline system. However, it is vital that energy is not unwittingly wasted even as it is conserved by reduction of the amount of flared gas. Therefore any new gas pipelines or upgrade on existing ones should seek to minimize energy consumption whilst maximizing gas delivery. To that end, this paper determines the optimal location and power requirement of compressor stations along the aforementioned gas pipelines in Nigeria. The commercially available pipeline simulator, PIPESIM, was used in the study. It was found that for the 198 km Oben-Ajaokuta gas pipeline, the intended upgrade will require that a single 8 MW compressor station be located 98 km from gas source for continuous gas delivery if the existing 24” pipeline is maintained. For the proposed 460 km long Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna pipeline system, the most competitive configuration for a flow rate of 450 MMSCFD was found to be a 24” pipeline with two compressor stations located at 86 km, 256 km and 370 km from gas source requiring 10 MW, 8 MW and 5 MW respectively of compression power.
Compressor Station, Energy Consumption, Gas Flaring, Natural Gas, Pipeline
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