Petrotech Journal April June 2012

Vol. VII Issue 5

April - June 2012

Petrotech 2010 Delegates: 3836

Petrotech 2009 Delegates: 3715

Petrotech 2007 Delegates: 4032

Petrotech 2005 Delegates: 3872

Petrotech 2003 Delegates: 3376

Petrotech 2001 Delegates: 2676

Petrotech 1999

Petrotech 1997 Delegates: 1500

Delegates: 1875

Petrotech 1995 Delegates: 1591

10TH INTERNATIONAL OIL & GAS CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION

Hydrocarbon and Beyond: Changing Landscape 14th -17th October 2012, New Delhi www.petrotech.in

Panaromic View of HMEL Bhatinda Refinery (Cover Story)

CONTENTS

Corporate Members Foreword

Sudhir Vasudeva, Chairman Petrotech, CMD ONGC

3

Messages Naresh Kumar, President Petrotech & CMD, Deepwater Drilling Industries Ltd. Ashok Anand, Director General Petrotech

5 6

Editorial Anand Kumar, Director Petrotech

7

Petrotech welcomes New Corporate Leaders of Oil and Gas Industry

9

CEOs Speak R K Singh, Chairman and MD BPCL A K Balyan, CEO & MD Petronet LNG

12

Cover Story HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited

15

Drilling Technology - Advances Laser Drilling Technology – Future of Hydrocarbon Industry

18

Shailendra Dutta

Unearthing the potential of digital oilfield technology

24

Source: From Public Publication of Deloitte

Undrained oil production from a 55 years old field

26

Sasanka Sekhar Deb

Project Management Chennai- Bangalore Product Pipeline Project: An Engineering Marvel in Project Implementation 29 U K Dhoot

Sustainability Carbon & Water Management for Indian Hydrocarbon Industry

34

Rajkumar Ghosh

Alternative Energy Residential Solar Electricity in Delhi-A Case Study

40

Chudamani Ratnam

Asset Reliability Ultrasonic Energy Measurement

Editorial Team Ashok Anand Director General

44

Mike Johnson and John Ward

20 Minutes with...

48

Karl M Phipps

STLE Certification

50

Dr Robert M Gresham Anand Kumar Director & Editor

CSR ONGC- A company that cares

52

G Sarpal

CSR - A Lawful conformation today

54

Secretary

Dr U D Choubey

Suman Gupta Manager

The views expressed by the authors are their own, and do not neccessarily represent that of the Petrotech.

Published by Petrotech at 601-603, Tolstoy House, Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi - 110 001

Back2School Fundamentals of E&P

57

Distillation Troubleshooting

60

Special Feature: Women in Business Women Leaders of Indian Oil Industry

62

Arpana Anand

TechScsn

65

Industry Kaleidoscope

69

Book Scan

71

Petrotech Activities

72

Foreword Dear Colleagues, Technology is a key enabler; Technology is a key differentiator; Technology is a key business driver; Technology is a key strategic resource; Technology is also a key cost saver; please allow me to elaborate.

The general belief is that just as all cost indices move up with time, so do our operating costs. In fact an inter-temporal graphical representation of operating expenditure of most of our companies in the hydrocarbon space will invariably indicate an acclivity.

I too held firm to this belief until a report of the US Department of Energy of 1999 vintage came to my attention. This report entitled “Environmental Benefits of Advanced Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Technology” determines that (reproduced from the said report): • 22,000 fewer wells are needed on an annual basis to develop the same amount of oil and gas reserves as were developed in 1985 • Had technology remained constant since 1985, it would take two wells to produce the same amount of oil and natural gas as one 1985 well. However, advances in technology mean that one well today can produce two times as much as a single 1985 well • Drilling wastes have decreased by as much as 148 million barrels due to increased well productivity and fewer wells • The drilling footprint of well pads has decreased by as much as 70 percent due to advanced drilling technology, which is extremely useful for drilling in sensitive areas • By using modular drilling rigs and slim-hole drilling, the size and weight of drilling rigs can be reduced by up to 75 percent over traditional drilling rigs, reducing their surface impact • Had technology, and thus drilling footprints, remained at 1985 levels, today’s drilling footprints would take up an additional 17,000 acres of land The data captures impact of technological benefit to the E & P industry from 1985 to 1999. Surprisingly, no further study appears to have been commissioned on how technology in our industry has been a cost saver and efficiency multiplier rolled into one.

We could therefore draw the inference that while our ‘opex’ trends invariably head ‘North’, the steepness of this acclivity would have been much more pronounced, had technological evolution remained a constant.

As we move deeper into brown-field development, ‘reflective seismic technology’ now enables precise location of ‘oil pools’ that were hitherto ‘invisible’ to us, thereby greatly reducing drilling cost as also enabling us to monetise ‘lost’ production; a clear case of efficiency multiplication in action. In similar vein, ‘through – tube rotary drilling’, ‘slim – hole’ drilling, ‘horizontal production drilling’ facilitated by ‘tight – turn’ drilling technology, ‘coiled tubing’, ‘measuring while drilling (MWD)’, ‘CO2 – sand fracturing’ are but a few developments that constantly enable us to enhance production levels as well as to rein – in operating expenditure that would otherwise have increased exponentially.

As in maintenance of existing operations, the challenges of monetising ‘exigent hydrocarbon’, especially deepwater and unconventional resources are also being addressed by technological evolution. Deep and Ultra – deep operations are as scientifically complex and challenging as space programmes, perhaps even more so, yet we are there and improving our confidence each day through the inevitable process of iteration in fine-tuning and customising products. The Shale gas revolution and now Shale oil, emerged from developments in ‘hydro-fracking’ and now as this technology increasingly draws flack for its adverse environmental footprint, propane – based ‘fracking’ has been developed and implemented that completely eliminates use of water, a most precious resource.

Disruptive technology is constantly being developed to radically change the way we presently operate; a few examples for your consideration: • ‘NXT Energy Solutions’ claim to raise the success of first – pass prospecting for trapped hydrocarbon reserves underground by up to 70% by deploying their unique “Stress Field Detection Surveys’. Pioneering companies such as Ecopetrol and Pacific Rubiales have already adopted it • Coal to liquid is passé; coal to chemicals such as ammonia and methanol is the next big thing. While a few plants are in operation in the

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United States, it is China that is giving this concept the big push with an investment of nearly US$ 140 Billion over five years into this technology • Mantra Ventures, a pioneer in the Carbon Capture and Recycle space (CCR), propose to deploy a process termed ‘Electro-reduction of Carbon Dioxide (ERC) that combines ‘captured’ carbon dioxide with water to produce high value materials such as formic acid, formate salts, oxalic acid, and methanol. They too have found support from a $12B market cap company, Lafarge (OTC – LFRGY), the largest building materials provider in North America and Powertech Labs Inc., a subsidiary of Canadian utility BC Hydro that specializes in the design and testing of clean energy systems These are a few examples of tech – savvy pioneers placing huge bets hinged on disruptive technology that have found crucial support from established industry players. There would surely be many more such examples and it would be most enlightening for our readers if they were to find space in this journal. I invite you to share your views on these and other related subjects that could be highlighted in the next editions of this journal.

Meanwhile, Happy Reading !!!

Sudhir Vasudeva Chairman, Petrotech CMD ONGC

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Message Technology and high crude price economics have given us much scope to experiment and explore new avenues of energy sources. Human quest to secure energy sources has taken a big leap from technology innovation. Oil Industry veterans today can still sight when people didn’t looked with much hope beyond 1000 ft of water depth for oil production. Development in the area of sophisticated drilling and production units, robust mooring and riser systems, better hull design, and conceptualized equipment have changed the deepwater frontier perception.

Today oil is being produced safely from Shell’s Perdido field in the Gulf of Mexico at a depth of more than 9,600 ft, and exploration and development is continuing in greater depths, breaking records every fortnight for deeper water and well depth.

As Exploration & Production has gone into deeper water, it also has expanded into more challenging geographical areas, including those with arctic conditions. This harsh operating environment introduces the need to contend with floating ice, flow assurance and logistical challenges, and personnel & environment safety issues. Last year's big Arctic discovery by Statoil in Skrugard and Havis oilfields and at the start of year Shell’s approval for drilling in Alaska are significant milestones of technological conquest over these difficult areas. Norway recently announced to offer 86 blocks next year mostly in the arctic region. As per US archeological department arctic reserves hold 13% of the world’s oil reserves and around 30% of the world’s gas reserves. This is a significant amount of energy to consider for fueling world economy in next few decades.

The big story in the field of natural gas is no longer the rapid expansion of LNG, rather its overnight surge in the unconventional gas. Suddenly there seems to be a rush to tap this unconventional gas inspired by US success story. Until recently, unconventional sources accounted for a small portion of gas production in the United States — just over one-tenth in late nineties. Over a decade’s time the gas production from unconventional sources account more than 30 percent of US and is still growing. According to an estimate one of the largest importer of energy US will become 90% self sufficient by 2020.

Interest in shale oil and gas is spreading around the globe, with China and India investing in North American fields while they lay the groundwork for domestic development. Discoveries in Poland and recent efforts in Europe will certainly open plethora of opportunities in the area of this unconventional resource. The ongoing shale gas boom has expanded US domestic energy production, pushed gas prices down to record lows and now changing the geopolitics worldwide. This revolution in natural gas -- unleashed by a flood of recently accessible shale gas reserves, once thought to be unrecoverable -- is the product of over 25 years of federal agencies and programs driving technology development in collaboration with private gas companies. From nascent stage to full commercial maturity is punctuated by the successive developments of massive hydraulic fracturing (MHF), microseismic imaging, horizontal drilling, and other key innovations that when combined made the once unreachable energy resource technically recoverable.

Various innovative technical methods such as Cold heavy oil production with sand, steam assisted gravity drainage, cyclic steam stimulation, Toe-to-Heel Air Injection (THAI), and open-pit mining has opened door for heavy oil and tar sands and increased the production from fields in, another unconventional resource of energy.

Today, next-generation advanced energy technologies -- including Gas Hydrates, wind, solar, advanced batteries, nuclear power, and others -- face many of the same scaling and cost challenges that shale fracking faced in the 1970s and 1980s.

But significant progress has been made, and if shale history to be considered as a model for technological triumph sooner or later we will be exploring various conventional and unconventional energy sources without being intimidated by Hurbbert Peak’s theory.

Naresh Kumar President, Petrotech & CMD, Deepwater Drilling & Industries Ltd

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Towards Alternate Energy…….

India consumes about 3.7% of the world’s commercial energy and is ranked as the fifth largest consumer of energy in the world in terms of energy demand. This is despite having one of the lowest per capita energy consumption in the world. Continued economic development and increasing population are pushing up the demand for energy at a higher rate than additions in generation capacity. India’s incremental energy demand for the next decade is projected to be among the highest in the world, spurred by sustained economic growth, rise in income levels and increased availability of goods and services. With a gross domestic product (GDP) growth target of 8% set for the next few years, the energy demand is expected to grow at 5.2% annually. This rapid increase in energy demand has resulted in increasing dependence on foreign sources of energy. It has been estimated that to support the government’s GDP growth targets, the electricity sector alone will have to increase supply by 10% annually.

Energy, and more specifically electrical energy, is the key input for development and sustenance of modern economy Electricity demand has been rising at a faster pace resulting in an increase in energy shortage. The per capita annual consumption of about 700 units at present in India is far behind that of developed countries. It has increased to this level from a mere 100 units in 1947. India’s installed capacity of power plants has expanded by more than forty times in the last forty years and doubled in the last nine years. However, addition of new power plants has not been commensurate with the rise in demand as a result of which the country currently faces a peak demand shortage of about 10%.

Moreover, the increasing prices of fossil fuel and growing concern over global warming due to green house gases (GHG) emissions by fossil fuel based power generation, have led to interest around the world for harnessing renewable sources for power generation. The importance of increasing use of renewable sources in the transition to a sustainable energy base was recognized in India in the early 1970s. The country today has among the world largest programme on renewable energy. The major renewable sources are wind energy, solar energy, small hydro power and biomass. Several renewable systems and products are commercially available which are economically viable in comparison to fossil fuels.

Among the different renewable energy sources, wind has been making a significant contribution to the installed capacity of power generation and has emerged as viable and cost effective option for grid connected power generation. Since no fuel costs are involved in wind energy Projects, the investor is able to generate electricity at a very competitive rate as compared to conventional means of power generation. The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) aims at large scale commercialization of grid quality wind power. Large scale investments in wind power are now taking place from private investors as well as PSUs. This is mainly as a result of investor friendly policies promulgated by the Government of India and State Governments. A few fiscal incentives were/are being offered by the Central & State Government for putting up wind farms are as under:• 80% accelerated depreciation, if the project is commissioned before 30 September of the same financial year, or 40%, if the project is commissioned before 31st March of the same financial year.

• Concession on import duty on specified wind turbine components.

• 100% deduction of power generation income for a period of continuous 10 years in the first 15 years in terms of Section 80 1A of Income Tax Act, 1961.

• Purchase of wind power by the State Power Utilities for agreed period of time at attractive buy-back rates through long term Power Purchase Agreement.

• Generation Based Incentive (GBI) in case accelerated Depreciation option is not opted.

• Wheeling of power generated from wind farm for captive use.

• 100% FDI investment allowed in renewable energy generation projects.

The installed capacity of wind power in the country as on 30.09.2011 was of the tune of 15500 MW. Thus the future prospects of wind energy in India are quite encouraging primarily because of three ‘E’s: • Energy- Reducing dependency on imported expensive fossil fuel to achieve the ‘Energy Security’ in long term.

• Economies- Profitable investment and sustainable returns.

• Environment- Reducing carbon footprint to mitigate global warming.

Have A Happy Reading!

Ashok Anand Director General, Petrotech

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Editorial Notes Dear Patrons of Petrotech, The period April-June was as agile and turbulent as the preceding quarter. You must have observed that PetroScan of these three months were replete with stories challenging the Indian oil & gas industry, be it sourcing of crude oil, replacing of Iranian crude with suitable substitute, overcoming the burden of subsidy on certain petroleum products, easy and price efficient availability of natural gas, besides unveiling of many technological breakthrough in new and renewable energy.

The oil prices had shown a southward trend this quarter, but depreciating rupee did not allow us to reap the benefits.

Though, it has created some what good environment for investing in oil and energy assets, for securing a balanced energy future, which may be spiked with high oil prices.

With Brazil hosting 20th anniversary event - Rio 20+, this quarter was marked by historically a very important event from the global perspective on climate change and sustainability, in which the Indian Premier and his team, representing India, made a significant contribution, in chalking out future course for containing the anthropogenic emissions of GHG and sustainable development.The scientists, however, were not happy with the outcome of this long awaited event.

However, the Indian oil Industry set another glorious milestone this quarter , when the HMEL Bhatinda Refinery was dedicated to the nation by the Hon’ble Indian Prime Minister. Team Petrotech extends its Heartiest Congratulations to the very inspired Team HMEL led by Shri Prabhdas, for successfully constructing and commissioning this refinery, in-spite of great challenges.

INDIA : A Oil Refining Hub Last issue of the JoP shared HART’s article, on this subject ( page 17). Slowely, but steadily we, the Indian refining hub is taking shape. Till January this year, India had 21 operating refineries, 18 in PSU and 3 in private sector, with combined refining capacity of had 3.9 mbpd. With addition of this 9 mtpa HMELs Bhatinda refinery - a joint venture of Hindustan Petroleum and Mittal Energy Investment Pte Ltd, Singapore, India has now 22 oil refineries, raising its total refining capacity to over 4.1 mbpd. The current Indian demand of oil of about 3.6mbpd, is expected to grow @ 4% for quite some years. At this rate, by 2015, aggregate Indian demand for petroleum products shall reach about 4.1 mbpd, whereas, at the same time, with addition of new grass-root refineries and augmentation of capacities of existing refineries, Indian oil refining capacity is expected to be 5+ mbpd.

India, with this refining capacity, shall have enough surplus for export, which shall certainly help offset a good part of our crude oil import bill.

Desire2Learn It emanates from our insatiable Desire2Excell. Thanks to the proactive action of Petrotech in entering in MOU with, the112 years old, University of Alberta (UoA), way back in 2006. When I see its extremely useful outcome and benefits, I derive great satisfaction for match making between the two. Recently the 5th batch of Indian O&G executives returned from a 5th Industry Educational and Collaborative Research Opportunity Tour to University of Alberta - the Energy Capita of Canada. Since 2008, it is conducted under this MOU with UoA. This week long interactive visit enlightened the group about Heavy Oil, Gas industries, oil refineries, heavy oil (from sands) up-graders, pipelines companies and research and development organizations in Calgary, Fort McMurray and Edmonton. It provided unique opportunity to see, feel and learn about the future of oil - which is unconventional and filled with great technological challenges and excitement. They had Face2Face interaction with eminent people from industry, academia and scientists.

The participants also interacted with the representatives of the Ministry of Energy of Govt of Alberta. It was due to this Petrotech & UoA MOU, that Ministry of Energy, Alberta has been participating in every biennial Petrotech Conference and exhibition, since 2009.

It is learnt that the Minister of Energy, Alberta , is all set to participate in the Pterotech-2012, with a larger contingent and larger space in the exhibition.

It is great opportunity for Indian O&G companies planning to get a share in the big energy pie of Canada, to get what they wish to. Canada is very positive

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towards India, for developing business relationship, and India should not miss this opportunity, as we know we are already late. Investment in Canada shall always be safer than many other countries, which have oil asset on platter, but are politically not as stable or democratic with sound judicial systems as Canada. In this regards India and Canada are mutually more compatible, compared to even China, which has already invested in Canadian energy- both in upstream and downstream, in a big way.

Desire2Develop Petrotech, under the dynamic leadership of its Chairman, and with the patronage of MOPNG, is perusing some 11 legacy projects, which emanated from the Pterotech-2010. One of the major thrust area identified was developing right talent for the industry. Petrotech, having identified this major challenge, has provided for in its MOU with UoA, for working on it. The dearth of talent has been felt at every level in the industry, and its also in the leadership positions. Business School, University of Alberta, in association of famous Rothmans Business School, University of Toronto, conducts part time program exclusively for Director.

Last year, Petrotech initiated dialogue with UoA for developing similar programme for Indian executives who would enter the board room of the companies in near future. In this regards, the faculty representative held preliminary discussions with some of the HR directors and CEOs of Indian Oil companies. It emerged that, such program could be split in two parts, first part to be conducted in India, by UoA in association of either ISB or any IIM, and second part to be delivered in Alberta, in a mixed group drawn from local companies, which shall be great opportunity for learning and networking.

This program shall emphasize more on the roles and responsibilities of Directors and corporate governance issues while on the board. It aims at preparing them for greater effectiveness in a shorter period, in their chosen area of work, irrespective whether they are on the board or on its periphery. Well, everything depends on our Desire2Excel in developing GeNext of Industry leaders.. We propose to develop this program in consultation of HR leaders and CEOs of our Industry‌ after all, the only job of a leader to create leaders.

Summer Schools : Bringing Industry closer to Academia Having realized its seriousness I, as President Triology Society of India (www.tribologyindia.org) had started Summer School in Tribology for a mixed group of faculty and field engineers from oil industry, which became an instant hit. Its first school was conducted in association of Petrotech. At the same time, we tied up the the world leaders STLE ( Society of Tribologists Lubrication Engineers of USA (www.stle.org), for conducting their basic and certification training programmes in India, with their faculty. You may read about it on page 50 of this issue.

Petrotech, in association of IndianOil-R&D and IiPM ( IndianOil Institute of Petroleum Management) successfully conducted its 7th Summer School in Oil Refining & Petrochemical; in June this year, for a mixed group of Engineering Faculty and oil refining engineers, with which I have been privileged to been associated right from its conception, way back in 2006. With a Desire2 Develop, Industry Academia Program are also conducted by Petrotech in Drilling Technology, Exploration and HSE, in association of ONGC, and OIL. All these program have, with the very passionate and untiring efforts of Shri G Sarpal, Secretary Petrotech, and Ms Suman Gupta, Manager Petrotech, been growing from strength to strength and flourishing year after year, and one of our most sought after programmes..

Safety- Our First Job: Developing Right Skill & Attitude Petrotech organised the 5th Industry Educatinal and Collaborative Research oppertunity tour to University of Alberta, Canada. During the recent tour we had opportunity of interacting with the Safety Association of Canadian Upstream Oil and Gas Industry (www.enform.ca), one of its kind institute for skill development in upstream oil and gas industry, who have shown keen interest in collaborating with Indian oil & Gas Industry, through Petrotech, in conducting customized training program in HSE for executives and skill development Program for others. They have a huge set up, which can, rather should be replicated in India.

Developing a working tie-up between them and one of HSE institutes of ONGC could be explored, which I am sure, of being great benefit to our industry.

Asset Reliability: Through better Tribology Like previous issues, this issue of JoP also, carries articles on reliability, which I consider of utmost importance. This time we have taken issues related to tribology - the science and arts of lubrication. A study conducted in a developed country has indicated loss of over 3% of its GDP due to bad lubrication, we can think of situation in our country. In fact, awareness level about it among our engineers and technicians is also very poor, which has its roots in the engineering institutions, where importance of this subject is hardly discussed. Greater efficiencies of equipments provides for less tolerances and clearances, which calls for better and improved lubrication and its understanding among the operating and maintenance engineers and operators. We must, therefore, encourage more and more our engineers and operating and maintenance staff for undergoing such certification courses.

Petrotech-2012, Oct14-17, New Delhi: Hope to see you there..

Its starting on 14th October. Hope you have already registered yourself as delegate. In keeping with heavy rush, this time the number of delegates have been restricted to only certain numbers. In order to avoid last minute disappointment, it better to do now online(www.petrotech.in). It Ă­s a great opportunity to learn and network, which comes only once in two years.

We greatly appreciate and welcome your feedback regarding our publications, programs, website and services so that we may continue to improve with your experience. I am, therefore, keen to know of your views, comments and questions, which is essential ingredient for continuous improvements.

I sincerely thank you for your continued support, guidance and contribution to JoP.

(Anand Kumar) anand.iocl@gmail.com info@petrotechsociety.org

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Petrotech Welcomes

New Corporate Leaders of Oil and Gas Industry Rahul Dhir President, Petrotech

Petrotech welcomes Mr Rahul Dhir, Managing Director & CEO, Cairn India who will be taking over as President Petrotech Society w.e.f. 8th July 2012.

Mr Rahul Dhir, joined Cairn India in May 2006 as the Chief Executive Officer and was appointed the Managing Director on 22 August 2006. Mr Dhir has over 25 years of experience in the Oil and Gas industry - covering technology, finance and business leadership. Prior to joining Cairn India, Mr Dhir was the Co-Head of Energy and Power Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch (London), where he set up the leading banking franchise in London – providing strategic and financing advice to major energy clients in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Mr Dhir joined Merrill Lynch from Morgan Stanley in London where he focussed on providing Mergers & Acquisitions and financing advice to energy clients in Europe. Following his MBA from Wharton in 1994, Mr Dhir joined the Mergers & Acquisitions team at SBC Warburg (in New York and London). Mr Dhir holds a Bachelor of Technology Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; a Master of Science from the University of Texas at Austin; and a MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Sunil Kumar Srivastava Chairman & Managing Director, Oil India Ltd.

Mr. Sunil Kumar Srivastava has taken over as Chairman & Managing Director of Oil India Ltd on May 01, 2012.

He worked for over 35 years in the upstream sector, out of which over 3 decades with Oil India Limited (OIL). During his more than three and half decades experience in OIL in on land and offshore fields in India and abroad, Mr. Srivastava had occupied several leadership positions, both in India and overseas in various capacities. He has actively guided OIL in the national and international bidding in several countries in Africa, Middle East, South East Asia and North American Continents. He

was also Head of Exploration for OIL in North East India.

He was responsible for several oil and gas discoveries and credited with setting up Oil India’s state-of-the-art G&G Interpretation Centre and Libya Project where the Company has exploration acreages.

Prior to taking over as CMD, OIL, Mr. Srivastava, worked as the Director General, Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), with an excellent blend of experience and expertise in oil and gas exploration, drilling, production, national and international exploration project management and upstream oil & gas industry regulation.

Mr. Srivastava did his B.Sc (Hons) and M.Sc.,(Geology) from Lucknow University. He had presented several papers and published in various symposia, conferences and refereed journals. He is the member of the prestigious American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Aloke Kumar Banerjee Director (Finance), ONGC

Mr. Aloke Kumar Banerjee has taken over as ONGC’s Director (Finance) A finance professional par excellence, he has varied experience in financial management and strategic planning in upstream oil and gas industry with specialisation in corporate accounts, corporate budget, cost management, risk analysis and financial planning, procurement of contracts, performance benchmarking and evaluation, audit, corporate governance and insurance.

The introduction of financial benchmarking concept, documentation of budget manual, introduction and implementation of zero-based budgeting, formulation of accounting standards have been some of his major initiatives. During his illustrious and highly productive career with ONGC, he has clearly demonstrated the passion to achieve the pinnacle of perfection.

Mr. Banerjee did his Masters in Commerce from Calcutta University and subsequently did his ACS from The Institute of Company Secretaries of India. He further enhanced his rich knowledge by obtaining FCA from the Chartered Accountants of India, ACWA from The Institute of Cost & Works Accountant of India and Diploma in Management from Indira Gandhi Open University.

Petrotech Welcomes Sanjay Gupta Director (Commercial) of EIL

Mr. Sanjay Gupta has assumed charge as Director (Commercial) of Engineers India Ltd. w.e.f. July 1, 2012.

Mr. Gupta, an engineering graduate from University of Roorkee has a long stint of 31 years in EIL. He has rich experience in implementation of mega projects in Refineries, Pipelines and Petrochemicals. He was also involved in some of the most prestigious mega projects implemented by EIL hitherto, such as, MGCC, Tabriz Petrochemicals, Pata Petrochemicals Phase-1 & Phase-2 (under implementation), Panipat Refinery Phase-1, Phase-2 & Panipat Naphtha Cracker Complex.

He led the OBE Mode of Project implementation team in the Company and pioneered the same with CPCL Euro-IV Project. He was also responsible for implementing one of the biggest LSTK Projects of EIL viz., PFCCU Project at MRPL. Prior to this, he was holding the position of Executive Director (Projects & In charge Commercial).

Shyamal Bhattacharya Director (Operations), ONGC Videsh Ltd.

Mr. Shyamal Bhattacharya takes over as Director (Operations), ONGC Videsh Ltd, at a time when India is striving to gain energy independence, in which the OVL plays a significant role.

Team Petrotech wishes him all success in all his endeavors and a glorious period ahead for him, OVL, ONGC and the country.

An unassuming and geoscientist par excellence, Mr.Shyamal Bhattacharya have held key positions in ONGC during his postings at different locations across the country.

A graduate in Petroleum Engineering from ISM Dhanbad, Mr. Bhattacharya joined ONGC in 1977 at KDMIPE and has more than three decades of diversified experience in reservoir engineering, reservoir simulation, water flooding, IOR & EOR techniques and reservoir operations.

Donning the mantle as Head of Institute of Reservoir Studies (IRS), Ahmedabad since November 2011, he was instrumental in leading a team of around 250 geoscientists and skillfully guided the team across the maze of data and maps, facilitating formulation of development schemes of oil and gas fields of ONGC across the country. During this short

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stint at IRS, he spearheaded the formulation of ‘IOR-EOR 2012’ document which acted as a guideline for the recent Perspective Planning for onshore fields. He has also been the driving force for compilation on the up gradation of IRS Laboratories which was released by Director (E), ONGC. Mr. Bhattacharya is also credited for organizing the ‘first onshore subsurface meet’at Ahmedabad during his tenure.

Prior to his tenure at Ahmedabad, he has had a long standing association with offshore assets, first as Sub-Surface Manager and then as Asset Manager –Neelam&Heera. He was actively engaged in formulating re-development schemes which were successfully implemented and resulted in enhancement of production. Before his departure from Mumbai, Mr. Bhattacharya finalized the ‘Heera – South Heera Redevelopment Phase-II’ which is currently under implementation.

Mr. Bhattacharya has been actively involved in oil and gas property evaluation of ONGC Videsh Ltd. and associated with many consultancy projects as well.

A strong believer in the Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) approach, he strongly proposes for thinning down of the dividing line between exploration and development and production. Further, he strongly advocates for introduction of concurrent exploration and development concept in highend projects.

Recipient of the National Mineral Award conferred by the Government of India in 2003, Mr. Bhattacharya has more than 25 national/international papers in reputed journals to his credit and has collaborated in many technical committees of SPE International Conference. SPE has selected him as a distinguished Lecturer for the year 2011-12.

With his experience of over three decades, knowledge and insights of the industry, ONGC Videsh hopes to scale greater heights of excellence and acreage.

P P Upadhya Managing Director, MRPL

Mr. P. P. Upadhya took charge as Managing Director of MRPL from Shri U.K. Basu, who superannuated on 30th June 2012.

During the tenure of Shri Basu, launched a massive expansion plan and Phase-III was commissioned successfully thereby, the name plate capacity of MRPL Refinery enhanced to 15 MMTPA. He was the man behind SPM and Polypropylene projects, which are going to be the margin drivers for MRPL. MRPL became the first Refinery to produce Euro-IV Diesel and achieved excellent rating in the MOU performance for all the three years. The Iran Crude payment crisis was handled very efficiently and MRPL was the first Refinery to make payment through the alternate mechanism. These were some of

Petrotech Welcomes his major accomplishments at MRPL. Mr. P. P. Upadhya, a chemical engineer from NITK, Surathkal and astute professional with more than three decades of experience, in the Petroleum Refining Industry, started his career with Indian Oil Corporation, a Fortune 500 company.

Mr Upadhya, a well versed team person, is adept in refinery operations planning, asset development and reliability, people management. He is equally proficient in all spheres of public life.

He has served as a Trustee of New Mangalore Port Trust, for a period of two years. Currently, a member in the Petronet Mangalore–Hassan Bangalore pipeline Board representing ONGC. Mr. Upadhya has set his priorities on completion of phase III facilities including SPM and Polypropylene unit, improving energy performance, safety and procurement of alternate crude oil in the wake of US sanctions on Iran.

Team Petrotech, wishes Shri Upadhya every success in his priorities and making MRPL one of the benchmark in oil refining and related activities.

A S Basu Managing Director, CPCL

Mr.A.S.Basu has been appointed as the Managing Director of Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL), a group company of IndianOil, by the Government of India.

He assumed charge today.

A Chemical Engineer from Jadavpur University, West Bengal, Mr.Basu, carries with him over three decades of professional experience in Refinery Operations & Management in India’s largest Global Oil Company – Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. He has served in diverse capacities in IndianOil’s various refineries- Mathura, Haldia and Refineries Headquarters.

Mr. Basu with his cross functional exposure has the unique advantage of knowing how to extract value from across the hydrocarbon value chain in the downstream which is invaluable always, especially so in difficult market conditions. Prior to this appointment Mr. Basu was ED (Operations), Refinery Headquarters of IndianOil, New Delhi.

Mr A S Basu, a down to earth and very humble person, has taken over the reins of leadership of CPCL, at atime, when its looking to enter a very challenging and ambitious phase of expansion and modernization.

Team Petrotech wishes his grand success in all his endeavors and a glorious time ahead for him, CPCL and IndianOil.

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels From Editor’s Notepad It’s the title of the book, written by Michael Watkins, and published by Harvard Business School Press.

More than a quarter of all managers in all major corporations enter new leadership roles each year, by way of promotion, recruitment, election, nomination or appointment. Whether their assignments involve leading a work group, a business unit, a profit center, an institution, joining board of a company as Director, or taking over a company as CEO, they face very similar challenges and risks, in those critical first few months on the job.

How new leaders manage their transitions can make all the difference between their story of success, just sailing through or failure.

The first 90 days in the new job, is an opportunity to start a fresh on better footing, with new vision, new vigor and determination. This is a short and yet very critical period to build a momentum and instill a new vibration among the people and company as whole. Its also a period, when one may have to understand the embedded ethics, values, vision and culture of the new set-up, organization and its people. During this critical period, one would need to spend tremendous time with the people from top down up to grass root level, building rapport and instilling confidence among employees, executives and some of critical stakeholders.

In this hands-on guide, Michael Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions, offers proven strategies for moving successfully into a new role at any point in one’s career.

Concise and practical, The First 90 Days walks managers through every aspect of the transition, from mental preparation to forging the right alliances to securing critical early wins. Through vivid examples of success and failure at all levels, Watkins identifies the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and provides tools and strategies for how to avoid them.

As per my own experience, its period of only communication, communication and communication, where priority should be on listening, understanding, sharing a vision, and showing passion and transparency in the purpose, thinking, dealing, speaking and actions, which goes long way in building trust for ever.

I am sure, most of managers and aspiring leaders keep updating and renewing their knowledge by reading management, Leadership and biographical books and journals. I consider, that of many excellent books, the one which, should always accompany a leader are The Good to Great; The 8th Habit : From Effectiveness to Greatness; Arthasashtra; Team of Rivals; The Enemy Within: Actions That SelfDestruct Companies, Customer Service and Jobs; The Goal, Blue Ocean Strategy, and Bhagwat Gita.

Anandbodh (anandbodh1950@gmail.com)

JoP, April-June 2012

11

CEOs Speak Need stability in crude price before moving on petrol: CMD BPCL In their last fortnightly meeting, oil marketing companies withheld any changes in the price of petrol despite crude prices remaining below USD 100 per barrel for most of June. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, chairman and managing director ofBPCL RK Singh explains that they are looking for a sustained stability in crude prices before moving on petrol.

Mr. R K Singh Chairman and Managing Director BPCL

"Just a reduction of crude price, petrol price or exchange rate for a day or two doesn't make any sense because we can't rush through the decision based on such information," he said. He goes on to say that if the pattern does call for revision, the benefits will be passed on to the consumers. As of now, Singh says that BPCL is not losing money on the sale of petrol and that the company's refining margins have improved.

W

ith regards to the reports of OMCs paying VAT or octroi on net realisations instead of gross realisations, Singh says he has not been informed of any such changes.

Below is an edited transcript of his interview with Latha Venkatesh and Ekta Batra. Also watch the accompanying videos.

Q: We understand that oil marketing companies such as yours will now be paying VAT or octroi on the net realizations not on the gross realizations which you were doing earlier. Could you confirm whether this has become the rule and how much this might benefit you?

A: Frankly speaking I have no clue about this. I heard about this from the media itself. But as far as we are concerned we have received no such indications, no such instructions, so I am afraid I can't talk about it.

Q: Assuming it was to come, what would it mean in terms of an improvement in margins for you?

A: I don't think I am in a position to quantify the benefits to the consumer oil companies because this is news to me. You are the second person telling me about it.

Q: Just wanted to focus on petrol prices, at the moment are you making a loss at the current prices of petrol?

A: We are not losing at the current price

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JoP, April-June 2012

the petrol; that was the case earlier on.

Q: I understand that you had decided not to move on petrol prices in your last fortnightly meeting. Any reason why OMCs chose not to cut prices then and whether there is any room going forward to do so?

A: We have to wait and watch the price movement over a period, it has to sustain itself. Just a reduction of crude price or petrol price or exchange rate for a day or two doesn't make any sense because we can't rush through the decision based on such information. As you know, petrol prices and crude prices have a very high degree of volatility in the market.

There are three factors which influence the price revision, upward or downward. One is crude price, the second is price of petrol itself in the international market, because that is the price we pay to the refiners, and third is the rupeedollar exchange rate. Now all these three components are highly volatile.

So we have to wait and see how they move because whatever decision we take has to sustain. We can't change the decision every now and then, so we are watching and we'll take a view very soon as far as petrol price is concerned.

Q: Considering that all through June crude prices has remained lower, is there a chance that at the next fortnightly meeting a downward revision in petrol is possible?

A: It could be upward as well because

we don't know how the prices will move. So I can't say upward or downward.

Q: But crude has remained under USD 100 per barrel for practically all of June?

A: At times it has moved up to USD 102-103 I remember. So one has to wait and see the pattern of movement and if it does call for revision we would certainly be very glad to pass on the benefits to the consumers. But we can't rush through such decision in a highly volatile situation, therefore we have to wait and see.

Q: Shifting focus from petrol to diesel, can you tell us what your current under recoveries on diesel would be and therefore what will be your expected loss from the current price on a possibly full year basis?

A: The current Indian crude basket is close to USD 95 plus, and at this crude price and the exchange rate of 56 the under recovery at the end of the fortnight on June 16 works out to Rs 10.20 per litre on diesel. On kerosene and LPG the under recoveries have reduced

by Rs 2.5 per litre.

With this kind of under recovery, BPCL will be losing something like Rs 90 crore a day on these three sensitive products. On a monthly basis it will be about Rs 2700 crore, so this is the kind of loss that BPCL alone will be incurring if this current trend continues. If

crude prices come down drastically, the situation may change, bit it may go upward if the crude prices go up.

As I told you, the crude price and the rupee-dollar exchange these are the two main components that will determine the losses as far as oil companies are concerned.

Q: The rupee depreciation has cut your gains, but from April to today there hasn't been a dramatic depreciation in the rupee. On other hand, crude has managed to stay below USD 100 per bbl for possibly all of June at least. Hence wouldn't your losses be lower in June?

A: Yes, it has fallen. It used to be Rs 13.64 paise in April and May and the it came down to Rs 12. Now it has come down further to Rs 10.20 paise Q: How are refining margins panning out?

A: Refining margins have improved.

Refinery grade price is determined based on international price and the rupee depreciation has helped the refinery in the sense that they get higher price for the product that they produce. But at the same time, the cost of crude also goes up, so whatever gain they have by way of rupee depreciation is being eaten away by the cost of the crude that they have to pay. So all in all there is some gain and not much of deterioration as far as refinery margins are concerned.

But another thing affects the refinery margin, which is if crude is falling there could be inventory loss. We normally maintain a stock for about 10-12 days or 15 days in refinery. If you have purchased crude at USD 100 and it has come down to USD 95 per bbl, there is an inventory loss. So there have been fluctuations, but not much of problem as far as refinery margins are concerned.

Q: Is there any move on the part of the ministry to ensure that you buy your dollars directly from RBI. There was some talk, but has it fructified? Are you at the moment buying from the RBI? A: I remember this was done once in 2008 or 2009. This does help the matter because when we buy dollars from the market there will be trading and there will be all kinds of premium and wider range of fluctuations. I agree with you, but there is no such move to my knowl-

edge at least. But if it does happen, it will help.

Q: There is lot of pressure from rating agencies such as Fitch and S&P to cut the fiscal deficit and the subsidy burden. In light of that, has the government consulted you with regards to reducing the under recoveries and any measures that you would undertake for the same?

A: Not really, but my personal view is that these kind of under recoveries we are incurring is not sustainable. Government will have to take a call, but at the same time they will have to take into account the inflation scenario. % of the total petroleum sales is in account of diesel, so the government will really have to do some kind of a balancing act and not pass on the entire burden on the consumers and at the same time reduce the subsidy to make sure that prices do now not go abnormally high leading to inflation.

So in my view they will have to do combination of things. There could be little price increase, duty cut, VAT cut and state governments will have to cooperate. So it has to be a combination of many factors. I don't think the only solution is to raise the price and burden the consumers because that kind of situation will create chaos in the market.

As you know the usage of diesel unfortunately in this country is highest today.

It is being used by various segments of the society so much so that the furnace oil, which is supposed to be the cheapest fuel today, is costlier than diesel. And about 1.5 million tonne of diesel goes to replace furnace oil, which is a sheer waste of energy resource. So because diesel gives high calorific value, diesel is cheaper, it is the cleaner fuel, people tend to use diesel in those applications where furnace oil could easily be used. So this price distortion needs to be corrected.

What can be done is a partial de-regulation or a combination of many things, that is something government will have to decide. I cannot comment on it and we are not being consulted at the moment.

Q: Have you been able to quantify what exactly the discoveries in the Mozambique block will mean to your company in terms of net present value?

A: The discovery announced so far on

the conservative side is about 60 tcf, that is the announcement operator has done. We have all analysed this properly, we are party to such analysis, so I can say that most conservative figure is close to 60 tcf. Some more is yet to be drilled so it is kind of a gold mine, it is real world class discovery and we are all very bullish about it.

Now as far as the valuation is concerned, I don't think we have done any valuations but one of the British companies, Cove Energy, which holds 8.5% stake in this block, are talking about something in excess of USD 2 billion for 8.5%.

That was the quote when the announcement was 50 tcf, but now it has further gone up to 60 tcf. So it is anybody's guess, but I am quite sure that this is a world class discovery and this is something which will change the complexion of BPCL in next 4-5 years.

The gas is going to be monetized, it is going to be available and it is going to flow by 2018. So we are all very bullish about it and we are going to stay on and we are going to do marketing because we are a gas marketing company.

Gas is going to replace liquid fuel, we want to be a big player in gas marketing therefore we have no intention of selling it. We are not a venture capitalist who will sell in and get the money, we are going to stay on and be a part of the consortium, be party to the entire process of monetization and hopefully will bring gas to our own country.

Q: How much more money will you have to possibly commit to the Mozambique block?

A: Our share alone will be close to about USD 2 billion. The total investment that is required for development as well as the downstream facilities will be to the tune of USD 20 billion and our 10% will be USD 2 billion.

But we are not worried about it because there are banks coming forward to lend money for the developmental activities.

Infact, there is some kind of competition going on based on the reserve that has been discovered and announced, so there are banks coming forward to lend money for the developmental activities. So we are not worried in terms of mobilization of resource.

JoP, April-June 2012

13

"Petronet LNG Kochi terminal shall be commissioned on time" In a recent interview with .CNBC-TV18, Dr A K Balyan, CEO and MD of Petronet, said that its Kochi terminal, with a capacity of 5 million metric tonnes per annum, shall, certainly be ready by mid 2013. It will help in meeting enormous demand of natural gas for power, fertilizers, petrochemicals and various other industries in the southern states.

Dr A K Balyan CEO & MD Petronet LNG

Petronet LNG is India's largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at its Dahej regassification plant. The company recently expanded the capacity to 10 million tonne per annum (equivalent of 40 million standard cubic meters per day or MMSCMD).

Below is the transcript of his interview: Q: There has been some concern that your Kochi terminal might have to do with inadequate or very low capacity utilization for quite a while because GAIL's pipeline will not be ready, can you just take us through what your expectations are once the Kochi terminal is fully up and running?

A: We feel that the Kochi terminal should be operating around December-January. The progress is on track, it is as per schedule. Phase I of the pipeline, is being steered by GAIL and it is definitely going to be ready. So this first phase of about 45 kilometers would connect the immediate neighbourhood. We are looking at major consumers like Bharat Petroleum and in fact, one or two other consumers, maybe a power consumer as well.

I think we are looking at commissioning its operation somewhere around January or so. We have to fine tune our exact dates in discussion with GAIL and the readiness of the consumers to receive gas.

But the two major pipelines, one which goes from Kochi to Mangalore and then Kochi to Bangalore via Tamil Nadu would be ready somewhere around 2013 and may take some more time. I believe, now the terminalâ₏™s capacity utilization largely depends upon the pipeline connectivity.

I am sure GAIL is working on that.

We have jointly reviewed it along with the state government. We sought their help to see the land related issues are sorted out and the state has facilitated quite a bit. So we hope that the pipelines, which are under construction would be able to go further quickly.

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JoP, April-June 2012

In 2013 we surely expect the pipelines to be there and two major consuming centers, Mangalore and also enroute to Bangalore, would definitely take our capacity utilization to much higher levels.

Q: Your last quarter volumes were not great, regasification volumes particularly, are you expecting a significant pick up in Q1?

A: I must point out that in the month of April and partly in May, we had a situation where all of a sudden some five fertiliser plants had gone into maintenance work. They had to shut down and we were not aware of it. Even GAIL and others were not aware. So there was an immediate drop in consumption.

But, we see slowly they have come back on operations. Last month it was up one trend and it has become pretty much normal. We are back to operating over 100% capacity in our Dahej terminal.

Q: What would you be more confident of holding out in terms of a volume target for this year, even for the calendar year?

A: I feel the trends, the demand scenario is pretty much similar to last several months. We feel this trend may continue and we are hopeful that we should

be operating Dahej at more than 100% capacity. Our expansion plans for Dahej is also going on right now.

Q: Apart from the Kochi-Bangalore pipeline, what other expansion plans do you have lined up for the next six months and going into the next year?

A: Our first priority is ofcourse to see that Dahej plant, which operates over 100% capacity is expanded. We don't want to get into a capacity constraint there. We have completed the field work that is the frontend, engineering and design work is going on right now. We hope to finish it in maybe another one and a half months.

Then we would like to quickly go and see competent contractors coming into regasification facilities as also additional tankage. Our marine facilities for the second jetty is already under construction. I think, for us, this is a top priority project and we hope to perhaps have the marine facilities completed somewhere around 2013.

It would give us little leeway to go from beyond the present capacity utilization and then once the regasification facilities come in, we expect a quantum jump upwards, in terms of our capacities.

Cover Story

HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited Energising a Brighter Tomorrow Corporate Overview HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) is a joint venture between Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Mittal Energy Investment Pte Ltd, Singapore, a Lakshmi N Mittal Company. Both the JV partners hold a stake of 49% each in the company and the remaining 2% is held by financial institutions. HMEL operates the Guru Gobind Singh Refinery of 9 MMTPA at Bathinda in Punjab. The joint venture partners bring more than four decades of experience in the oil refining industry and expertise in the global industry to the table.

strategic location of Bathinda, the refinery will serve fuel requirements of the northern States of India.

Refinery overview The 9 Million Metric Tons per annum (MMTPA) Guru Gobind Singh Refinery (GGSR) at Phullokari, Bathinda is built at a cost of over $ 4 billion. The mega project comprised of several sub-projects, each sizable on stand-alone basis, namely –

HMEL has also incorporated a wholly owned subsidiary HPCL-Mittal Pipelines Limited (HMPL) to set up and operate an SPM for crude oil receipt, storage and cross country transportation of crude oil.

Guru Gobind Singh Refinery The Guru Gobind Singh Refinery at Bathinda in Punjab was dedicated to the Nation on April 28, 2012 by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh. The refinery is a testimony to a successful Public Private Partnership in the oil and gas sector. The first example of such a kind between a Navratna and Fortune 500 company, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Mittal Energy Investment Pvt. Ltd. Co., Singapore, a Lakshmi N Mittal Company.

The project got a cabinet nod in the year 2007 and construction at the site in Bathinda commenced in 2008. The refinery is built to help fulfil India’s energy security needs. Given the

• a single point mooring (SPM) facility 7 kilometres in the sea and • a crude oil terminal (COT) at Mundra in Gujarat • a 1017 km long cross-country crude oil pipeline from Mundra to Bathinda and their intermediate pumping stations • 9 million metric tonnes per annum refinery • a captive power plant of about 165 MW gross capacity The refinery also has a petrochemical unit producing Polypropylene.

Project Commissioned Commercial production from the refinery commenced in 2012. The refinery began refining crude oil in August 2011.

Construction at Bathinda commenced in 2008. First liquid sales from the refinery were made in December 2011 with dis-

patch of kerosene to HPCL. HMEL entered the solids market with sale of petroleum coke (PET) in February 2012.

The crude import facility (Single Point Mooring - SPM), Crude Oil Terminal (COT) at Mundra and pipeline from Mundra to Bathinda were commissioned earlier in August 2011, when crude oil reached the refinery through the facilities set up. The SPM, COT and the 1017 km pipeline were constructed and laid through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana reaching Punjab in a record time of 27 months.

Key Partners

will look like.

The project has been constructed on conventional basis. Engineers India Limited is the Project Management Consultant who also prepared the FEED and carried out EPCM activities for the project. The project financing is being lead managed by SBI. Initial financing was done through 25 PSU banks and LIC.

The present configuration translates into the highest Nelson Complexity Index for the Refinery amongst all the refineries in the country. The Nelson Complexity Index indicates the value addition potential of a refinery among other things. The highly complex refinery will maximise value added products even from heavy/ sour crudes. The world class Crude Oil Terminal is capable of blending different crude proving the ability to procure crude from 16 to 60 API.

Refinery Configuration The refinery itself is a world-class state of the art refinery incorporating the latest technologies enabling it to exceed the current specifications available in the country. Configuration has been developed after extensive and intensive Linear Programming modeling, keeping the domestic and regional requirements in mind, the latest cost effective technologies available for generating required fuel specifications, and future changes. The advanced configuration represents what tomorrow’s refineries

This state of the art refinery in the heartland of the country will meet the growing requirements of the Northern domestic market. The refinery will save energy on a sustained basis for the country as crude is transported by pipeline. Transportation of crude is more energy efficient than moving products separately. Further the import facility (Single Buoy Mooring) is capable of berthing Very Large Crude Carriers

(VLCCs) reducing transportation of crude to bare minimum.

The GGSR refinery is an energy efficient, environmental friendly, high distillate yielding complex. Diverse environmental protection measures have been incorporated in the designs of all the Project facilities. These include Sulphur Recovery Units, Hydro-treaters, Desulphurisation Units, State-of-the-art Effluent Treatment Plants, Vapour Recovery Systems and Low NOx Burners in the furnaces. The refinery has also set up advanced electronic operating and security systems which provides real time information about the units and transactions to the employees.

The GGSR has now set the stage for a hydrocarbon revolution that truly addresses the country’s energy security needs. The enormity of the Guru Gobind Singh Refinery makes it the single largest investment at any location in Punjab and the first oil and gas project to be set up in the state. The refinery will produce petroleum products compliant with Euro III and Euro IV norms, ushering in an era of development and industrialization in northern India. Locally, the refinery will boost industrialization. It will also help bridge the large demand-supply mismatch of petroleum products faced in the Northern region of the country.

In the Fitch Ratings announced in 2012 the National Long-Term rating of HMEL has been upgraded to ‘Fitch AA-(ind)’ from ‘Fitch A+(ind)’ indicating the timely completion of the 9 MMTPA green field refinery and the stable outlook.

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JoP, April-June 2012

Additional Notes • The refinery is expected to change the socio-economic landscape of the Bathinda region. The project has enabled a great deal of infrastructure development in the region including new roads, electric supply and other logistic connectivity. The refinery has attracted the best talent pool in the hydrocarbon industry to the region of Punjab and the best in class work force and expertise.

• Grass-root refinery of 9 MMTPA comprises of Crude Distillation Unit/Vacuum Distillation Unit, Naphtha Hydro Treater, Diesel Hydro Treater, VGO- Hydro Treater, Fulidised Catalytic Cracking -Petro Chemical Unit, Poly Propylene Unit, Delayed Coker Unit, Hydrogen Generation Unit, Sulphur Recovery Unit, ATF Merox & Treater Units (FG/ LPG), Utilities & Offsites in Bathinda, Punjab, India.

• Crude receipt facilities - Single Point Mooring (SPM) buoy capable of handling Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) for crude import located at Mundra, Gujarat, India reducing transportation of crude to bare minimum.

• Crude Oil Terminal (COT) approximately 6 kms away from the sea shore, with 14 crude tanks capable of holding about three VLCCs at Mundra in Gujarat.

• Cross-country crude oil pipeline 1,017 kms from Mundra to Bathinda.

• Captive Power Plant with gross capacity of about 165 MW for Refinery power and steam requirements.

Value Enhancers • One of the highest Nelson Complexity Indices in the region with the ability to process Heavier and

Sour crudes.

• World Class Technologies deployed to maximise efficiency in operations.

• Amalgam of Global and Indian Experts deployed to build a state-ofthe-art refinery.

• High Quality products that are geared to meet present and future environment protection norms.

• Synergies with HPCL’s existing Marketing Network in Northern India.

• Self-sufficient Captive Power Plant (CPP) with a gross capacity of 165 MW. • Flexibility of Capacity Enhancement to 18 Million Metric Tonnes per Annum.

• Strategic Location to service the demand of fuel deficient Northern India.

core values speak of our actions so ingrained to steer us towards success and act as a driving force. Our values are our philosophy and culture, helping to build a world-class Energy company.

We are governed by six core values

Salient Features

We are dedicated to becoming a leading global energy company through superior performance and sustainable growth while forging fruitful relationships with our partners and our communities. State of the art technology has been employed in the design and operations of our refinery in order to protect the environment and to ensure good health and safety for the community. Our company aspires to transform the future of the energy sector by meeting stakeholder aspirations. We aim to be an employer of choice and a compliant and ethical organisation, abiding by laws and regulations. We are also exploring opportunities in the fields of Alternate Energy and Oil and Gas Exploration and Production in our efforts towards becoming a global energy company with diverse interests.

• With an investment of over $4 billion, HMEL is the largest company in the state of Punjab in India.

• Largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Oil Refining Sector in India.

• More than 200 million man-hours have gone into the construction and the commissioning.

• Among the highest yields of propylene, the feedstock for polypropylene, almost twice that of earlier processes.

• The largest extruder for polypropylene in the world.

• ‘Plant-floor’ to ‘Top-floor’ Integration to create an ‘Instrumented, Interconnected and Intelligent’ enterprise.

• The Crude Oil Terminal (COT) at Mundra and the Crude Pipeline are sufficient to hold 3 days of India’s total crude oil requirement.

Our Core Values Our values define and measure us. Our

• Safety First • Teamwork • Continuous Improvement and Learning • Respect for People • High Ethical Standards • Achieve Targets and Meet Deadlines In our endeavour to conduct business with the highest standards of integrity and ethics HMEL has instituted a code of conduct for its employees and a whistle blower policy.

The Road Ahead

We at HMEL are dedicated to becoming a leading global energy company through superior performance and sustainable growth while forging fruitful relationships with our partners and our communities.

JoP, April-June 2012

17

Drilling Technology-Advances

Laser Drilling Technology – Future of Hydrocarbon Industry Shailendra Dutta Ex-ED, Head IDT, ONGC, Dehradun, India

Introduction Mechanical methods for drilling oil and gas wells like Cable Tool Drilling with impact action of bit was first used to drill in U.S. for oil in 1859. This method was first developed in China 1300 A.D for drilling salt water wells. The last radical change, Rotary Drilling was first used to drill in U.S. for oil in 1901 .This method was developed in France in 1860 and replaced cable tools. Since then, great strides have been made in refining the rotary technique; however, no fundamental revolutionary changes in making hole have been introduced.

Rock destruction and removal is a significant issue in the process of oil and gas well construction and completion.

Over the years, billions of cubic feet of rock have been removed, with tremendous capital investment. According to a GRI study conducted on costs associated with well construction, nearly half of the time was spent on drilling, a quarter of the time on moving tools in and out of the hole, and the remaining quarter on casing and cementing activities. In general, major potential cost reductions related to well drilling were likely to come from increasing the rate of penetration of the drill bit into the earth, and reducing the time involved with moving tools, such as bits and pipe, in and out of the hole. It was at the turn of the 20th century when rotary drilling supplanted cable tool drilling as the petroleum industry’s standard method for reaching oil and gas formations. While major improvements have occurred since then, the basic mechanical drilling method has remained essentially the same.

Using lasers to bore a hole offers an entirely new approach. The novel drilling system would transfer light energy from lasers on the surface, down a borehole by a fiber optic bundle, to a series of lenses that would direct the laser light to the rock face.

Researchers believe that state-of-the-art lasers have the potential to penetrate rock many times faster than conventional boring technologies - a huge benefit in reducing the high costs of operating a drill rig. Today, a typical land-based oil or gas well costs around US $400,000 to drill, while costs for an offshore well average nearly US $4.5 million. But in some deeper or more difficult drilling terrains, costs can be much higher. Reducing the time a drilling rig remains on site can lower costs and make previously uneconomic gas or oil deposits commercially viable.

The Study showed that laser systems now can provide more than enough power to cut rock. Because the laser head does not contact the rock, there is no need to stop drilling to replace a mechanical bit. Moreover, researchers believe that lasers have the ability to melt the rock in a way that creates a ceramic sheath in the wellbore, eliminating the expense of buying and setting steel well casing. A laser system could also contain a variety of downhole sensors - including visual imaging systems - that could communicate with the surface through the fiber optic cabling.

While the lure of laser drilling has been its speed, one major drawback has been the large amounts of energy experts assumed would be required.

Introduction to Laser A laser is a device that emits light (electromagnetic radiation) through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term “laser” originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. The emitted laser light is notable for its high degree of spatial and temporal coherence, unattainable using other technologies.

monochromaticity, there are lasers that emit a broad spectrum of light, or emit different wavelengths of light simultaneously. There are some lasers which are not single spatial mode and consequently their light beams diverge more than required by the diffraction limit.

However all such devices are classified as “lasers” based on their method of producing that light: stimulated emission. Lasers are employed in applications where light of the required spatial or temporal coherence could not be produced using simpler technologies.

Spatial coherence typically is expressed through the output being a narrow beam which is diffraction-limited, often a so-called “pencil beam.” Laser beams can be focused to very tiny spots, achieving a very high irradiance.

Or they can be launched into a beam of very low divergence in order to concentrate their power at a large distance.

Temporal (or longitudinal) coherence implies a polarized wave at a single frequency whose phase is correlated over a relatively large distance (the coherence length) along the beam. A beam produced by a thermal or other incoherent light source has an instantaneous amplitude and phase which vary randomly with respect to time and position, and thus a very short coherence length. Most so-called “single wavelength” lasers actually produce radiation in several modes having slightly different frequencies (wavelengths), often not in a single polarization. And although temporal coherence implies

Construction of a laser: A laser consists of an active laser material, a source of excitation energy, and a resonator or feedback mechanism to perform the three stages of laser action. The general construction of a laser is shown in Figure given below-.

Laser material: The lasing material can be a solid (Ruby, YAG and glass lasers), liquid (Dye lasers), gas (Helium-neon, argon and carbon dioxide) or a semi-conductor (In, Ga, Al, P). A material is said to be in “Normal State” if the number of atoms in the lower energy level is more than the number of atoms in the higher energy level.

The material is said to be in a excited state if population inversion has been achieved. The laser material is one in which population inversion is possible.

The downward transition from the excited to the normal state is triggered by stimulated emission.

Excitation Source: Population inversion is achieved by “pumping energy” from an external source. Depending on the external source, the excitation

process is called as optical pumping or electrical pumping. In electrical pumping, an AC or DC electrical discharge is used for excitation. Gas lasers and semiconductor lasers are usually excited using electrical pumping. In optical pumping, light is the source of energy and is used for most of the solid-state and dye lasers.

Resonator: A Fabry-Perot cavity that has a pair of mirrors, one at each end of the laser is used as a resonator in most lasers. One of the mirrors is completely reflective while the other mirror is partially transparent. The reflection of the laser beam between the two mirrors results in increased power. The beam is reflected back for amplification, until a specific threshold power is reached.

The portion of the laser beam with the necessary power is coupled as output through the partially transparent mirror.

Types of Laser 1. HF (DF) Laser – Hydrogen fluoride (HF) and Deuterium fluoride (DF) lasers operate at wavelengths between 2.6 and 4.2 μm. The U.S. Army’s Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser, MIRACL, was used for the first series of tests on reservoir rocks in this research project. This laser was the first megawatt-class, continuous wave chemical laser outside of the Former Soviet Union.

2. COIL Laser – The U.S. Air Force Research Lab’s Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser operates at a wavelength of 1.315 μm. Initially developed in 1977, this high power continuous wave laser has evolved to a sophisticated level for military and now industrial applications. It has gained notoriety for its Airborne Laser (ABL) tactical capability to track and destroy missiles.

3. CO2 Laser – The carbon dioxide laser operates at a wavelength 10.6 μm in either continuous or pulse modes. Its average power is up to 1 MW. When operating in pulse mode, its pulse length can vary between 1 and 30 μs. The significant advantage of the CO2 laser is its durability and reliability. CO2 lasers emit energy in the far-infrared, and are used for cutting hard materials.

One of its problems is that because JoP, April-June 2012

19

of its large wavelength, it is greatly attenuated through fiber optics.

4. CO Laser – The carbon monoxide laser operates at a wavelength of 5 to 6 μm. Like the CO2 laser, it can operate in either mode. Its average achievable power is 200 kW and pulse length can vary between 1 and 1000 μs.

5. FEL Laser – The Free Electron Laser operates on high energy electrons that lack discrete energy levels and therefore can be tuned to virtually any wavelength in continuous wave mode. Some scientists consider it to be the high power laser of the future.

6. Nd: YAG Laser – The neodymium yttrium aluminium garnet laser operates at a wavelength of 1.06 μm.

Currently only 4 kW industrial lasers are commercially available. R&D trends indicate the feasibility of output powers of 10 kW and higher.

7. KrF (excimer) Laser – Excimer lasers (the name is derived from the terms excited and dimers) use reactive gases, such as chlorine and fluorine, mixed with inert gases such as argon, krypton or xenon.

When electrically stimulated, a pseudo molecule (dimer) is produced. When lased, the dimer produces light in the ultraviolet range.

The krypton fluoride excimer laser operates at a wavelength 0.248 μm. Because the component atoms krypton and fluoride in this diatomic molecule are bound in the excited state, but not in the ground state, this laser operates in the pulsating mode. The maximum average power is 10 KW with a pulse length of 0.1 μs.

8. Diode Laser – Unlike the Nd: YAG laser, which is a solid state laser (lasing material distributed in a solid matrix), the diode lasers or semiconductor lasers are generally very small and use low power.

They may be built into larger arrays, such as the writing source in some laser printers or CD players.

These lasers typically emit a red beam of light that has a wavelength between 0.630μm and 0.680μm.

Laser Drilling Rotary drilling has been widely used for extraction of hydrocarbons all over

20

JoP, April-June 2012

the world for more than a century. During this period many alternatives drilling techniques have been suggested, worked upon and tried, so as to reduce the time and increase the efficiency of drilling.

These techniques include the use of niche technology with tools commonly known as novel devices. This category of devices includes water jets, electron beams, cavitating jets, electric arcs, plasma and laser. In comparison with all the above devices, laser drilling if developed has shown the potential to be a futuristic advanced tool that will revamp the conventional rotary drilling system.

Lasers are being used as a potent tool with effective results in various fields such as medical, metallurgical and military applications. At present lasers are widely used for precision cutting and welding of metals, ceramics and various other materials.

Majority of research in the field of laser drilling is focused on solely using a laser to vaporize the rock. This

method is proposed to have various advantages over currently used rotary drilling techniques which include: 1.

Increasing Rate of Penetration (ROP) - Laser drilling shows the potential of having ROPs that is more than 100 times the present ROPs. 2. Provision for temporary casing.

3. Reducing trip time and increasing bit life.

4. Single diameter bore hole.

5. Lesser dependence on parameters such as weight on bit, mud circulation rate, rotary speed, bit design.

6. Accurate and precise drilling since lasers travel in a straight line problems like dog legging are completely eliminated.

7. Achieving these breakthroughs with environmentally attractive, safe and cost effective technology.

Laser drilling vision • Laser applies infrared energy to the working face of the borehole and

ablates the rock.

• Excavated material is carried to the surface as solid particles / vapor.

• When desired, some or all of the excavated material is melted and forced into and against the wall rock.

• The ceramic thus formed could replace the steel casing currently used to line well bores to stabilize the well and to control abnormal pressures.

• When the well bore reaches its target depth, the well is completed by using the same laser energy to perforate through the ceramic casing.

• All this is done in one pass without removing the drill string from the hole.

• The downhole assembly includes sensors that measure standard geophysical formation information, as well as imaging of the borehole wall, all in real time.

Technology advances in Laser Drilling Since 1997, Gas Technology Institute, Illinois, USA has been investigating the application of high-power laser energy to several rock lithologies for oil and gas well construction and completion.

Early qualitative investigations were performed utilizing weapons-grade military “Star Wars” lasers to demonstrate well construction feasibility.

In 1994, a congressional mandate to transfer cold war military technologies to American industry opened the door to an investigation of laser drilling. Beginning in 1997, Gas Research Institute (now GTI) funded a two-year research project, “Adapting Star Wars High-Powered Lasers to Drilling Natural Gas Wells,” to examine the feasibility of adapting extremely high-powered military lasers for use in drilling oil and gas wells.

A follow-up study began in year 2000 to investigate laser/rock interactions using pulsed lasers and under in-situ conditions. The research team shifted its research emphasis from military lasers to industrial lasers, and investigated the rock removal energy requirements, effects of pulsed versus continuous wave lasers, and the effect of fluids on laser/ rock removal efficiencies.

Beginning in year 2003, GTI advanced its laser/ rock cutting research by per-

forming additional rock cutting tests with a 5 KW ytterbium-doped multi-clad fiber laser. Recently, high power fiber lasers have become commercially available and have positioned themselves as a serious alternative to other solid-state and carbon dioxide lasers for industrial material-processing. Over the past two years, fiber lasers have increased in power from several watts to kilowatts, and are fully capable of delivering sufficient rock cutting power via fiber optics. They have rapidly evolved into a leading candidate for on-site applications including hard rock mining, tunneling, pavement cutting and rock drilling.

A laser drilling system may provide some unique benefits that address some of the economic and technical limits faced today. Expected higher penetration rates and the ability to drill nonstop surface to total depth will likely reduce the total actual drilling time. The ability to create a tough, ceramic sheath in the borehole while drilling may reduce or eliminate the time required for setting steel casing in the well. Since the system has a permanent, hard-wired connection from the surface to the bottom-hole assembly, additional wires and/or optical fibers can be added to the bundle. This will allow the addition of many formation sensors, including tele-viewers and other imaging capabilities, delivering information to the surface in real-time and at incredibly high data transmission rates. The combination of the casing and sensing capabilities will all but eliminate the time required to run tools in and out of the hole, and will significantly reduce the time required for other activities.

Laser Drilling System Conceptual Development of a Laser Drilling System

The ultimate goal of this effort is to be able to actually use a laser to drill wells more cost effectively. This will require a design for a laser drilling system that reflects the unique character of the mechanisms at work and takes full advantage of possible benefits. Some of the basic design elements that need to be developed for a prototype include the following.

Cutting Schemes – Several possible designs for bottom hole assemblies have been discussed by the research team.

Most involve using optical fiber to bring the energy to the bottom of the hole, but whether the energy should be combined into one beam or applied as a number of smaller beams is yet to be determined.

Laser System – The specific laser to be used for a prototype must be determined. Candidates at this time include the Nd:YAG, the COIL, a diode laser and possibly the free electron laser .

Energy Delivery – Optical fibers seem to have the characteristics necessary for sending large amounts of power down a hole. However, a diode laser head is small enough that, properly reconfigured, it may be possible to locate the laser in the hole.

A literature review and summary of optical fibers will be performed as a preliminary step towards making a determination in this area.

Drill String and Bottom Hole Assembly – Laser drilling will differ from current technology in that no weight on bit is necessary, therefore there is no need for the tensile and compressive strength of steel in the drill string.

Also, if optical fiber is used to send the energy down hole, sectional tubing would complicate deployment. A composite coiled tubing system seems to be a reasonable option, as long as pressure differentials do not exceed collapse strength. Since there will be a minimum of abrasive activity around the drill head containing the fiber end reflectors and fluid nozzles, there is no need for a heavy steel “bit,” and a composite matrix, easily millable bit is one possible option. Engineering design work will be carried out to shorten the list of design options in this area.

Drilling Fluid and Solids Control Systems – It is most likely these systems will remain much the same as conventional systems. Some adaptation will be needed for use in composite tubing. At some time, a pressure control system will have to be adopted for deeper wells, but for the purposes of a prototype, it will not be needed.

Limitations of Laser Drilling in E &P While the lure of laser drilling has been JoP, April-June 2012

21

its speed, one major drawback has been the large amounts of energy required to melt and vaporize the rocks. The 199799 Gas Research Institute study indicated, much of it based on 20-year-old calculations, may have significantly overestimated the energy required to break, melt or vaporize rock. One of the limitations of the laser drilling is to obtain much more precise measurements of the energy requirements needed to transmit light from surface lasers down a borehole with enough power to bore through rocks as much as 20,000 feet or more below the surface.

Another limitation will be to determine how to send the laser light, in sharp pulses or as continuous stream, to further increase the rate of rock penetration. Pulsed laser have been used for better performance in cutting steel, for example. It may be likely that the pulsing action will flex and break the physical bonds between the rock grains, boosting the cutting effectiveness.

A third limitation will be to determine if lasers can be used in the presence of drilling fluids. In most wells, drilling mud is injected into the borehole to

wash out rock cuttings and keep water and other fluids from the underground formations from seeping into the well.

The technical challenge will be to determine whether too much laser energy is expended to clear away the fluid where the drilling is occurring.

Other limitations are as follows:

• Features of Modern High Power Lasers - The choice of lasers for application in oil and natural gas well drilling and completion is limited to seven types of lasers.

• Laser Energy Transfer into Rocks – Infrared radiation is more attractive for laser rock destruction than visible radiation not only because of the availability of high power lasers in the infrared, but also as a consequence of the properties of rocks.

• Physical and Chemical Processes Characteristics in Rocks that have been Heated by Laser Radiation – The physics and chemistry of laser rock interaction is very complicated.

Systematic experiments on laser rock interaction with various lasers, operating in various modes, with various rocks should be done for better understanding of the physical and chemical

phenomena associated with rocks under the influence of laser radiation.

• Rock Destruction under the Influence of Laser and Non-coherent Radiation - The experiments on rock destruction can be used for a rough estimate of the energy consumption and drilling rate that may be possible using lasers. The information that is reviewed concerning laser-rock interaction is based on results obtained with relatively low power lasers. The impacts of high power laser-rockfluid interactions have not been studied. Further research will provide the foundation which will determine the benefits of using Star Wars laser technology for drilling and completing natural gas wells.

• High capital expenditure, skilled operators and maintenance personnel and costly safety devices are the other limitations of laser drilling in E & P industry. Other limitation is how to control high formation/pore pressure. In case fiber laser is lowered along with coil tubing, pore pressure can be controlled by applying back pressure through lubricator. But lubricator cannot handle high pore pressure.

Conclusion Using lasers to drill a hole offers an entirely new approach. The laser drilling system would transfer light energy from lasers on the surface, down a borehole by a fiber optic bundle, to a series of lenses that would direct the laser light to the rock face. Researchers believe that state-of-the-art lasers have the potential to penetrate rock many times faster than conventional drilling technologies - a huge benefit in reducing the high costs of operating a rig.

The study showed that laser systems now can provide more than enough power to cut rock. Because the laser head does not contact the rock, there is no need to stop drilling to replace a mechanical bit. Moreover, researchers believe that lasers have the ability to melt the rock in a way that creates a ceramic sheath in the wellbore, eliminating the expense of buying and setting steel well casing. A laser system could also contain a variety of downhole sensors - including visual imaging systems - that could communicate with the surface through the fiber optic cabling.

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JoP, April-June 2012

While the lure of laser drilling has been its speed, one major drawback has been the large amounts of power requirement. This paper will provide a basic understanding of laser drilling and how this technology may change oil and gas exploration in near future.

References 1. Gahan, B.C., Batarseh, S. 2006.

“Laser Drilling: Drilling with

the Power of Light, Continuation of Fundamental Research and Development,” DOE Annual Technical Progress Report, Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC2600NT40917 2. DeGolyer and MacNaughton, One Energy Square, Dallas, Texas, 2000.

3. W.C. Maurer, Novel Drilling Techniques, Pergamon Press, 1968.

4. W.C. Maurer, Advanced Drilling Techniques, Petroleum Publishing,

1980.

5. R.M. Graves and D.G. O’Brien, “Star Wars Laser Technology Applied to Drilling and Completing Gas wells,” SPE 49259, 1998.

Acknowledgement My heart felt thanks to ONGC and its Management for giving me the opportunity to work with them.

Shailendra Dutta

Shailendra Dutta, Ex ED - Head IDT, ONGC Shailendra Dutta, a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, India, as Graduate Trainee in Drilling Engineering and superannuated on 30th April 2012 as Executive Director- Head of Institute of Drilling technology(IDT), ONGC, Dehradun.

He has 37 years of experience in oil industry including a decade in offshore. During his service in ONGC, he was assigned as In charge Cementing and subsequently he has headed as Regional Incharge Cementing Services, Head Drilling Business Group & Head Corporate Inventory Management in different regions and work centers of the company.

During his tenure in ONGC, he had been credited with the introduction of many innovative cementing technologies in directional wells of offshore & onshore wells with bare foot completion without damaging the formation. In the capacity of Head Drilling Services he had taken the achievements of drilling services to new heights wherever he was posted. He had introduced the iMac – codification system in SAP and has liquidated inventory considerably which saved huge money for the company. In his tenure at IDT, Applied R&D and Training performances scaled new all time highs repeatedly. Many new sections, equipments, major software packages were added to the infrastructure of the institute. Awards & recognition were received, from National & International bodies. He is a member of SPE and presently he is holding the position of Section Chairperson of SPE North India Section. sdutta74@gmail.com

Good practice, regulation make fracking safe : A UK study Hydraulic fracturing, properly managed and regulated, can be conducted in the UK without threatening groundwater or creating risks of serious earthquakes, according to a joint study by two British research groups.

“Hydraulic fracturing can be managed effectively in the UK as long as operational best practices are implemented and robustly enforced through regulation,” concluded a review, funded by the government’s Office of Science, by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Royal Society.

The study deemed “very low” the risk that induced fractures would propagate from shales deeper than “many hundreds of meters” to overlying aquifers.

More likely causes of contamination, it said, are faulty wells and spills associated with surface operations.

“Neither cause is unique to shale gas,” it said. “Both are common to all oil and gas wells and extractive industries.”

On earthquakes, the study’s findings parallel recent findings by the National Research Council in the US and by a government review in the UK of a study commissioned by Quadrilla Resources Ltd. of seismicity induced by hydraulic fracing in Northwest England (OGJ Online, June 15 and Apr. 17, 2012).

The new study said seismic events caused by fracing are likely to be weaker than those associated with coal mining, which are weaker than natural seismicity.

The study made a number of recommendations, many addressed to regulators and research groups. Recommendations directly addressing or involving operators include: • Site-specific monitoring of methane and other contaminants in groundwater before, during, and after shale gas operations.

• Development of arrangements for monitoring abandoned wells.

• Well-integrity tests, such as pres-

sure tests and cement bond logs.

• Monitoring of seismicity before, during, and after hydraulic fracturing.

• Sharing of data with government officials to establish a national database of shale stress and fault properties to assist with identification of well locations.

• Monitoring of potential leakage of methane or other emissions to the atmosphere before, during, and after shale gas operations.

• Implementation of methods for minimizing water use.

• Recycling and reuse of wastewater where possible.

• Planning “from the outset” for treating and disposing of wastes.

• Environmental risk assessments.

• Goal-based risk assessment to reduce risk to “as low as reasonably practicable.”

• Mechanisms to allow reporting of well failures and other accidents between operators.

Source: O&G Journal JoP, April-June 2012July’12 23

Drilling Technology

Unearthing the potential of digital oilfield technology Introduction The Digital Oilfield is much talked about, but often not clearly articulated. The truth is that many existing and new technologies contribute to the overall concept, and there is no clear-cut definition as to what is, and what is not, part of the Digital Oilfield. The Digital Oilfield potentially extends from the use of 4-D seismic imaging, through to “data-todesktop” initiatives that take production data through to marketers and traders. This means that it can, potentially, impact the entire oil and gas value chain, with all the technical, process and human impacts that go with it. To date, emphasis has been put on developing the technology, but to deliver the true potential, the effort that will have to go into process and organisational change is likely to be as great if not greater. This paper looks back at where the Digital Oilfield has come from, where it may go in the future, and what challenges organisations are likely to face along the way.

The story so far ...

The Digital Oilfield has numerous synonymous labels such as “Smart Fields,” “e-Fields,” or “Intelligent Fields.”

Whatever label we choose to use, it is important to remember that the Digital Oilfield is nothing more than the evolution and convergence of a number of oil and gas drilling, exploration, and digital control techniques coupled with standardised communication technologies. The result is not just impacting the volume and types of data available, but is also reducing intervention times and increasing production optimisation potential.

Some of the basic concepts around drilling and exploration technologies used today began about 50 years ago. A horizontal well, for instance, was drilled in the late 1930s, a multilateral well in the early 1950s, and 3-D seismic was first field tested in 1964. Two and three-dimensional seismic– as 4-D – is now an important reservoir management

tool; horizontal drilling technology helped lead to multilateral completion capability.

By the end of the 1990s, advanced exploration, drilling and other technologies, many of which were coming together in the 1980s, doubled the amount of oil and gas developed per well, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).

At about the same time as drilling and exploration techniques were improving, enhancements to communication and information technologies were emerging.

Today’s forward thinking oil firm links state-of-the-art exploration and production (E&P) technology with information and communication protocols to achieve economies of scale, real time oil well management and production, while saving on operational costs. For example, in its “smart fields” projects, Shell has experienced a 10% sustained improvement in production, 5-10% increase in recovery, as much as a 20% reduction in operating costs, and as high as a 75% reduction in workflow cycle times in its core processes. In BP’s Gulf of Mexico project named “Amberjack”, their engineers used a portion of Microsoft’s Oilfield Connectivity architecture to link the production platform with the desktop. The company was able to realise a 7% increase, or 600 barrels of oil equivalent, per day for a system cost of US$860,000. Yet despite some success stories, as with most new technologies, there is more to their application than infrastructure, software and hardware.

Key challenges A number of key challenges remain. We believe that the technologies will continue to mature, reduce in cost and continue to deliver more sophisticated, voluminous and timely data, from increasingly remote and hostile locations. We also believe that two key challenges are, as yet, not given

sufficient consideration. Broadly, these challenges can be described as:

and maintenance planning. This has a number of potential advantages:

Organisational impact: The volume, frequency and complexity of data available drives a major need for organisational change. The tools, capabilities and skills required to analyse and act on the incoming data is significantly different from those expected of head-office staff in the past.

Specifically, staff will need to have more and differing skills to take decisions, while systems will do some of the low value work. Organisations will be able to leverage geographically dispersed expertise, but risk losing some of the local familiarity that is often so important to asset optimisation.

Supply chain benefits– centralisedmaintenance planning should allow more efficient management of equipment and spares, even if execution is managed locally.

In addition, the technology available has the potential to enable new working models, such as the outsourcing of equipment monitoring and maintenance, more effective use of centres of expertise and deployment of resources.

Value management: Many impressive claims have, and continue, to be made as to the delivered benefits of Digital Oilfield Programmes, but as with many efficiency improvement programmes, insufficient effort and rigour is exercised on benefits management. Appropriate and well thought through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) must be established up-front to ensure that the programme benefits are clearly distinguishable from other production or cost impacts. This is particularly difficult – and equally important – for growing or declining fields, where production variation is greatest.

New opportunities The Digital Oilfield opens up a raft of new opportunities, three of which are are discussed in more detail below.

Centralised monitoring and maintenance planning

The technologies associated with Digital Oilfields allow real-time production and equipment data to be viewed in locations many hundreds, or even thousands of miles away. This raises the possibility of centralised equipment

Potential to outsource management ofcritical equipment – turbine manufacturers already service and maintain their own equipment in the airline industry, and there may be significant benefits in moving towards such a model for the oil and gas industry Consistent application of a maintenance strategy – centralised maintenance planning will assist in the application of a firm-wide maintenance strategy, ensuring consistency as well as optimisation, where choices need to be made for the benefit of the company rather than the local business.

Value optimisation Digital Oilfield Technology has the potential of bringing real-time data to many parts of the business, potentially allowing more informed trading and risk management (through sending production data to traders desktops), and potentially more informed decisions where other parts of the business depend on either the volume or quality of the crude, gas or condensate being exported.

Functional deployment While most local assets have, by necessity, a degree of local expertise, often access to deep subject matter expertise lies with “gurus” within a centralised function, or is dispersed around a network. Perversely, this often has the impact of removing these people from the place where they are often most needed – at the operations “coal face”. Digital Oilfield Technology has the potential to allow much closer integration between company subject matter experts, and local assets.

Summary In summary, the technologies around Digital Oilfields have much promise

Some technology highlights of the 1980s Year Milestone 1980

3-D post time depth migration seismic survey, 50 sq files, cost $8 million.

1981

First offshore horizontal well drilled in Italy.

1983

Horizontal wells from vertical shaft, Kern River, California.

1984

First steerable drilling system.

1985

3-D vertical seismic profiling developed.

1986

Neutron porosity measurement added to measurement-whiledrilling.

1987

First logging-whiledrilling tool.

1988

First horizontal well drilled from semisubmersible.

1989

Only 5% of Gulf of Mexico wells based on 3-D seismic data.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy

and will no doubt become a key component of “business as usual” in the oil industry. However, the technology itself will not deliver, and the value realisation needs to be planned and managed. New organisational structures will be requried for the Digital Oilfield, and the resulting organisational change carefully planned and managed. Without organisational redesign or value management, the Digital Oilfield risks becoming a piece of clever and interesting technology, rather than an enabler for commercial success. In case iterested in learning more may contact Phil Shaw phshaw@deloitte.co.uk Source: From Public domain of Deloitte

JoP, April-June 2012

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Drilling Technology - E O R

Undrained oil production from a 55 years old field Another milestone in the Naharkatiya oil field Sasanka Sekhar Deb Oil India Limited, Duliajan

T

he Nahorkatiya oil field is well known to all Oil Indians cutting across generations, to all the old timers of the Indian petroleum Industry and a large section of petroleum explorationists of the world.

This was the first oil field discovered in the independent India. The Nahorkatiya oilfield with its myriad geology has contributed to the Indian petroleum industry and the country more than what anyone could have expected. With new ideas, concepts technology and initialization the contribution from this field has been immense and can be compared to the Kamdhenu of Indian Mythology.

Discovered in 1953 this field has had many achievements in terms of longevity, recovery and cost of production etc during its long life of production history of oil and gas. Different oil field infrastructure /installations associated with this field have become obsolete /unusable but the field is still on production. Even after around 60 years of uninterrupted service to nation in particular, in terms of crude oil production, this field is still a major contributor towards the production of liquid hydrocarbons & feedstock for gas in the latest sceFigure 1: Location map of Nahorkatiya Oil Field N

Location Location Map Map Showing Showing the the Study Study

Nahorkatiya Oil Field Cha Cha JONA SIMEN

MECHAK TALA

DIBRUGAR DIKO

DHEMAJ

BAGHJA KHAGORIJA CHANDMAR BORHAPJA CHABU HAPJA TINSUKI DUARMAR

BHOGPAR KATHALO

JUTLIBAR JR SANT

SHALMAR

DHAKUWAKHAN

KHOWAN

NORTH

MORA

NIJLALU BIHPURI MADHUPU

KUMARBAR GARMU

DIGBO

KHARSAN TOKLON

TARAJA

JAIRAMPU

JAIPU

BARUANAGA

Margherit Thrus t LEGEN

SIBSAGA

STRUCTURE

GELEK

JORHA

NH

KUMCHA

State B d

Nag Thrus t

STRUCTURE OIL’S OPERATIONAL

nario of industrial development of NE India.

Recently, the Nahorkatiya field has achieved yet another milestone in its glorious history when significant production has been added to the company’s total oil production following

drilling of two new wells in the field. In this article I would like to highlight few salient points on this particular milestone.

The Nahorkatiya oilfield was discovered in 1953 and is located at a distance of around 30 km towards the west of the historic Digboi oil field, the first oil field in Asia (Figure-1).

So far, a total of around 205 wells have been drilled in this field mainly for Oligocene (Barail) hydrocarbon prospects.

The field has produced a significant amount of oil (305 MMBBL) out of an in place volume of 950 MMBBL and gas of 29774 MMSCM during the last five and half decades and is still on production. The field also has a large gas cap and the initial GIIP is estimated to be around 73060.20 MMSCM. If we consider the contribution in financial terms it amounts to around Rs.1.2 lakh crores at the present international crude oil price. No doubt it is an astronomical figure. Conversion of the recoverable gas reserve at the present market value translates to around a few lakh crores value. It is estimated that with systematic production, gas from this field can be supplied to BCPL/BVFC/NEEPCO for the next 10-15 years. It’s really an unbelievable contribution from a single oil /gas field.

The subsurface Nahorkatiya structure, on which the Nahorkatiya oilfield is located, is a faulted anticline with the major axis trending in E-W direction. The field is compartmentalized into different fault blocks by a number of NE-SW trending normal faults (Figure-2). Initial pressure of the reservoir was around 260 kg/cm2 but with subsequent withdrawal, the reservoir pressure has declined at places to around 85 kg/cm2 (175 kg/cm2 below hydrostatic pressure). To arrest the pressure drop, water injection and gas injection were initiated in the reservoir at different periods since the early eighties.

Till the mid part of the first decade of the new millennium, recovery from this field was in the range 30-50%. Reservoir pressure was on a downhill trend. Of over two hundred wells drilled in the field, only around 30 wells were on production. Production from the field had gone down from the peak

Figure 2: Depth structure map of Nahorkatiya Main Field

around 44030 BBL to 3775 BBL. It was in this milieu that initiation of a geological review of a discrete fault block within the Nahorkatiya was started in the year 2007 (Figure 3). Based on the in-house review, proposal for drilling of infill and extension locations in the 55 years old field for bypassed/undrained hydrocarbons was put forward in Field Development Note (DGN 960). The reviewer had a nightmare with old vintage logs, scarcity of vital data and poor productivity of old wells/ high watercut wells/ high GOR wells.

But use of basic petroleum geological concepts and guidance from seniors helped in deciphering the geology and subsequently identifying of the sweet spots for drilling was possible.

Backing the project to the hilt, Mr. P.N.Baruah , the then General Manager (Geology & Reservoir), whose geological work in analogous fields has been path breaking, took the bold step to forward the review to the releasing authority in spite of huge risk that involved the investment of around Rs. 40 crores for drilling and completion.

In addition, for proper drainage of the undrained hydrocarbon Mr.Baruah suggested two more locations to be proposed in the nearby area. But , the reviewing group during the subsequent deliberation was more in favour of a phasewise implementation of the plan due to the risk involved and ultimately it was agreed to keep the latter locations in the future category (Figure-3).

It needs to be mentioned here that in the early 1990s Mr. Baruah had reviewed the area and his observations had been presented in an internal Note (DGN 381) but his concepts was not

accepted at that point of time.

Based on the review, three locations were proposed in category A(Loc. X, Y, Z) and two locations were proposed as future locations (Loc. P, Q) from the G&R Department , Duliajan (Figure 3) , and subsequently released after detailed review by Director (E&D)’s office.

The infill location X had been released as Loc NKW and subsequently drilled as NHK 587 .The well was completed at a total depth of 3282 meters in July 2010. Wireline log evidence indicated around 50m (expected 54m) of hydrocarbon pay to be present in this well (Figure 4). Despite the evidence, apprehension still lurked about the flow of oil to the surface considering the low reservoir pressures. The final result astonished every body when the well produced clean oil @350 BBL per day, similar to production from any other new/virgin reservoir with flat GOR and around 1-2% water.

Detailed work and application of basic petroleum geological work had paid off and in a business where uncertainty is invariably an integral part, the flow of oil in well NHK 587 saved us from embracement from our peers.

Subsequently, Loc.Z (released as Loc. NKY) had been taken up for drilling during Aug 2010. This well was considered to be even more critical than the earlier well NHK 587 (Loc. NKW), as it was an extension location placed in structurally the most down dip part of that particular fault block. A number of structurally updip wells were shut in due to water cut or had been converted to injection wells. The well was completed as NHK 589 in Oct/Nov 2010 with total depth of 3297 m. Log evidence indicated around 30 meters of hydrocarbon pay (expected pay 35m) in this well (Figure-5). However worries persisted on the actual production from the well despite positive log interpretation results because of the low pressure in the reservoir and the well being structurally the most down dip well. The final result brought a big smile on everybody’s face when the well produced clean oil @ 520 BBL per day rate.

More success and solace yet again from the doubting Thomases who had their sabres already drawn out. Bouquets and brickbats- a part and parcel of petroleum business. We are ready to accept the responsibility for failure in exploration for greater interest of our company.

Currently the well NHK 587 is producing @ 460 BBL and the cumulative production from this well is 159530 BBL, while the well NHK 589 is producing @ 1040 BBL and cumulative produc-

Figure : 3 Depth structure map of study area within Nahorkatiya Main field

Loc: X, Y, Z

Loc. P,Q

JoP, April-June 2012

27

Figure: 4 Geological cross-section and log interpretation showing expected and actual hydrocarbon pay in NHK 587 (NKW)

tion is 218050 BBL (as on 31.07.2011).

Production behavior of these wells can be compared with a new reservoir. For a greenhorn it is hard to believe that 55 years field old can produce like any other virgin reservoir.

If we convert the total crude oil production of last few months from these wells in fiscal terms it comes to a gross

contribution from these wells?

Many more such discoveries are possible in our mature fields. An identical message was conveyed earlier in the author’s last article published in ‘’OilNews’’ Jan-Feb, 2011. Greater challenges and opportunities are lying ahead for the younger generation. The need is to face the challenges with hard

Figure 5: Geological cross-section and log interpretation showing expected and actual hydrocarbon pay in NHK 589 (NKY)

work, dedication and translate opportunities to success which would lead our company to even greater heights.

These discoveries have opened up new avenues for the petroleum explorationist to look for more opportunities also in those areas which have had a prolific production history. Success may not be easy but one single success like the one in Nahorkatiya Oilfield, can compensate for numerous failures. In hydrocarbon exploration success and failure go hand in hand but the fear of failure should not deter our mission. History has proved that such a spirit has spurred the petroleum industry to find hydrocarbon below ocean water depths of 3 KM. Many members of OIL’s family may not have been aware of this real life example of finding new oil in an old field right at our home turf and the author’s intention is to share the experience through this article. It is yet another cause to celebrate the success of our beloved company and cheer for this Great oilfield which brings us pride over and over again. A word of caution in future beware of prefixing the word ‘old’ when referring to the Nahorkatiya oilfield, it may boomerang on you.

Is it sheer coincidence that a contemporary Amitabh Bachhan starrer released at an identical juncture was aptly named ‘’Buddha Hoga Tera Baap’’.

Acknowledgement: Author like to acknowledged Shri P.N.Baruah Group General Manager (E&D) and Shri R. Borgohain, General Manager (G&R) for their technical input in preparing the paper. Author also indebted to Shri I.Barua , Chief Geologist (Dev) for his valuable input. Support from Shri Pradyut Bora, Senior Geologist & Kanak Sharma of E&P Development Center are thankfully acknowledged.

Source: OIL’s Inhouse Journal “SYNERGY” of around Rs. 165 crores at current international crude oil prices. It can be seen that less than one year earnings from the production of crude oil from these two wells is probably more than one year’s PRP of all Oil Indians or OIL can pay the review team’s (4 members) entire service life payment from less than a month’s production from these wells. Is this not a commendable

28

JoP, April-June 2012

Sasanka Sekhar Deb

Sasanka Sekhar Dev, Joined Oil India Limited, Duliajan in the year 1991 as an Executive trainee in Geology and Reservoir Department. Last twenty years have been working in different sections/ capacities in fields and project as Geoscientist. Additionally, working a alternate Operating Committee members of two non-operative NELP Exploration blocks in Assam and West Bengal. sasankadeb@gmail.com

Project Management

Chennai- Bangalore Product Pipeline Project: An Engineering Marvel in Project Implementation U. K. Dhoot Dy. General Manager (PJ-Monitoring), IndianOil Corporation Ltd

I

ndian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) , the largest Indian business organization, owns and operate over 11230 kms of Oil and Gas Pipelines across length and breadth of India, besides 10 oil refinery, with over 66 mtpa capacity, and numerous oil installations connected to these pipeline.

IndianOil has unique strength of laying of Petroleum Products and Gas Pipelines from concept to commissioning and subsequently operating and maintaining the same in mist efficient and professional manner. IOCL has also provides PMC services to other organizations, and CPCL, HPCL and some of the overseas OMCs have availed of its PMC services.. IOCL Pipelines, also, imparts customized training in Operation and Maintenance of Pipelines to other organizations in India and abroad.

IndianOil is the only Indian company, which has developed, scaled up and commercialized its own intelligent pigs for managing reliability of its pipelines This article narrates a very fascinating story of laying of a product pipeline between two capitals cities of south Indian states. The author has brought out the engineering challenges in laying this product pipeline between Chennai and , and how it were overcome by the IndianOil Pipelines group, at every stage of this project, right from design to commissioning.

Background Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (CPCL) is the largest Petroleum Refining Company in South India with a total refining capacity of 10.5 MMTPA. Their refineries are located in the state of Tamil Nadu, one at Manali (9.5 MMTPA) and

another at Narimanam (1 MMTPA). The products of these refineries are marketed by IndianOil. The supply of petroleum products in and around Bangalore is primarily met from the products of Manali Refinery. The products were transported largely by Rail.

Since the demand of the petroleum products were growing with high industrial growth and service sector growth in and around Bangalore, the transportation requirement were increasing and it was becoming difficult to meet the requirement of petroleum product with only by rail and road modes of transport.

Even the transportation of products by rail from CPCL refinery at Manali was fraught with many constraints and challenges, including transfer of POL from Refinery to Marketing Terminal at Tondiarpet (Chennai), getting required number wagons and wagon loading in stipulated time, in order to avoid paying heavy demurrage. Transportation by road was again a big challenge, posed by large number of additional tank lorries required for plying on already very busy road.

Both these problems were solved by laying of this pipeline from CPCL, Chennai to the existing Marketing TOP at Bangalore (Devangonthi). It also helped reduce carbon footprint of the transportation of products between these tow capital cities.

The Project was approved by Indian Oil Board on 30.7.2007 at a total cost of Rs. 232.11 crore, which was enhanced to Rs. 273 crore to take care of price escalation of steel, with a completion schedule of 24 months after receipt of environment & forest clearance.

Sectionalizing valves have been provided at all the 6 nos. of repeater-cumcathodic protection stations located on the pipeline route. These valves can be remotely operated through the computer-controlled SCADA system with the help of dedicated optical fibre cable communication system installed along the pipeline.

A state of art Leak Detection System (LDS) has been designed for this pipeline for ensuring the operational safety of the pipeline network. Leak detection module helps in speedy detection of leak during operation and shut down condition of the pipeline including pumping conditions.

Bangaluru Termianl of Chennai Bangalore Pipeline

Final forest clearance was received on 24.6.2008 for Palmaner Reserve Forest in AndhraPradesh and accordingly, the project schedule was fixed for completion in June’2010.

Project Description A pipeline of 290 km. in length, between Chennai and , passing through three states and having gradient varying from 5 meter to 920 metre. This project consisted of the following: • Pump station at CPCL, Manali with 5 nos. motor driven (395 kw each) MLPUs having flow rate of 213 KL/ hr (dis. Head 495 MCL per pump) • Laying of a 147-km 14” OD x 0.25” WT, API-5L X70 pipeline from Manali (Chennai) to Chittoor.

• Laying of a 143-km 12.75” OD x 0.25” WT, API-5L X70 pipeline from Chittoor to Devangonthi (Bangalore).

• All crossings with heavy wall thickness pipe of 0.375”WT. • Cathodic protection system for mitigation of external corrosion of the cross country pipeline.

• Laying of a dedicated optic fibre cable communication system alongside the pipeline.

• Installation of state-of-the-art SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and tele-supervisory systems, with Master Control Centre at Manali Pump Station, for the pipeline.

• Scrapper receiving station at Ch.

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JoP, April-June 2012

147.00 kms at Chittoor.

• Terminal station at Meenambakkam AFS, and hook-up with existing ATF tanks.

The Pipeline Design The pipeline system has been designed as per API, ANSI and OISD standards.

Pipes of additional wall thickness have been provided at river and uncased road crossings.

The pipeline is originating from CPCL, Manali, and traverses through the state of Tamil Nadu (101 km), Andhra Pradesh (108 km) & Karnataka (81 km) having a total length of 290 kms.

This pipeline is a very unique pipeline from design point of view. It has a gradient of 5 Mtr. at Chennai and has max. gradient of 920 mtrs., 17 kms before Devangonthi terminal, which is at 905 mtrs. Such a steep difference in gradient of the pipeline calls for very stringent operating parameters and surveillance.

The CPCL pump station houses the Master Control Centre for the integrated pipeline. Station Control Station of Chennai Pump Station is interconnected with Station Control Station of Chittoor Scrapper Station & Bangalore Terminal Station through OFC.

Challenges Faced During the Implementation of the Project Permission of laying the pipeline through Palmaner Reserve Forest Land

The unique challenge for this project was to avoid Forest land. During initial survey, this matter was considered, however the main issue arose during detailed survey, when it was noticed that a good section of route is passing through Kaundaliya wildlife sanctuary and the Rayala Elephant Reserve under the Tekumanda and Palamaner reserve forest in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh.

Following lengthy presentations, discussions and lot of follow-up, with the communities and authorities concerned and overcoming legal issues, we could get the clearance for laying the line

The pipeline encounters 91 major crossings, which are as follows: S.No.

Type of Crossings

No. of Crossings

1.

Railway Line

4

2.

National Highways

8

3.

State Highways

10

4.

Canals / Rivers

13

5.

Other Metal Roads

56

Accordingly, the new Contract was awarded in Nov. 2008 to M/s Welspun.

Meanwhile, the contract for Mainline was also awarded and subsequently specific notice was issued in Jan 2009 for commencement of the job, in line with the delivery schedule. The actual receipt of Pipes at the designated stock pile at Chittoor commenced from April 2009 and concluded in August 2009.

With the timely action of terminating the M/s MSL and awarding to M/s Welspun ensured delivery of pipes within a reasonable time, although there was a delay.

Stay Petition in Human Rights Commission

Clearing of Trench and Lowering of Pipeline

close to NH-4 with a ROW of only 7.0m wide, as against the requested width of 18.0 m.

Getting environmental clearance was no doubt the most challenging, but equally challenging was execution of Mainline work in this over 12 km passing thru reserve forest besides over 6 Km thru declared forest.

Various factors which were at deterrent for smooth execution of the projects were: 1) Felling of trees was prohibited; and had to follow stringent Forest regulations for felling the trees.

2) Very close to busy NH-4 connecting Chennai-Tirupati-Bangalore cities.

3) ROW width of only 7.0 m wide as against normal width of 18 mtrs.

4) Strict compliance of Forest norms and regulations.

5) Highly undulated and rocky terrain, 6) No heavy equipment was allowed.

7) No rock blasting was allowed.

The above factors have made the construction job all the more difficult and said activity was on critical path, which would determine completion schedule of the project. However, close coordination with Forest officials, NH, local police and contractor, the said job could be completed without any untoward incident.

Delays in Supply of Pipe

Delay in issue of mainline pipes: - The scope of supply of Mainline Pipes was kept with Indian Oil. Mainline Pipe supply was free issue material to the contractor and was to be delivered from IOCL stock pile site at Chittoor. Order for mainline pipes rolling was initially placed on M/s MSL, in April 2008. The party could not meet specifications and the rolling of mainline pipes could not be commenced at all. Considering the situation, the said contract was terminated and process of awarding the said job to the new contractor was initiated.

We need to tackle number of land owners and other agencies from who land pipeline passes. This requires special efforts for adhering to project timeline.

In this project, mainline work could not be taken up at Gangavaram village stretch due to injunction from High Court of Judicature and Human rights Commission for the case filed by local land owners in Andhra Pradesh State Human Right Commission, Hyderabad. It was alleged that said route was passing through many inhabited and residential areas in Gangavaram which would endanger their lives.

After lot of persuasions and discussions with the villagers and with intervention of Human Rights Commission, the case was disposed off in favor of the project. Even then, Villagers were adamant and as the hear-

Originating Pump Station at Chennai

JoP, April-June 2012

31

in this area started on 22.12.2009 and completed on 28.12.2009.

Delayed Permission by Railways

The pipeline was required to cross railways line at two locations cased crossing. Railways , for long time did not grant permission for these crossings, as a result work order to the contractors could not be released, therefore, the boring machinery and other equipments could not be mobilize, which delayed other activities viz., completion of Hydro-testing, dewatering, installation of mainline valves, caliper pigging, golden tie-in and completion of mainline.

Pipeline Scraper Station at Chittoor (A.P.)

ing with Andhra Pradesh High Court was still pending, they were not willing to sign any Panchanamas. Thereafter, in line with procedure, notices were issued and three weeks time for hearing the objections was given.

Meantime, following very close follow-up and persuasions, some of the local villagers agreed and accepted the compensation cheques. Thereafter, the mainline work at Gangavaram village could be started in February 2010 and completed within 10 days.

Dispute over RoW

The mainline work was stopped by M/s Srini Food Park Private Limited, Hyderabad, coordinating agency for Mega Food Park at Mogili Village, Palamaner, AP on 02.09.2009 on the pretext that the said land belongs to them as it has been acquired by APIIC and allotted to them as a part of SEZ for food processing industry in Chittoor district.

The party also submitted the relevant documents about the acquisition in said survey nos where our pipeline ROW traverses.

Accordingly, in order to stall our job, they approached High court and got an interim injunction through writ petition of High Court. The work was completely stopped from 02.09.2009 to 23.09.2009 considering the legal point of view.

The party was cordially explained that pipeline ROW acquisition was done way back in 2006 much earlier than the SEZ project and it was also

32

JoP, April-June 2012

conveyed that it is a project of national importance and cannot be stopped which would result in enormous loss of public money. At this juncture, to thaw the stalemate, IOCL along with Competent Authority, Andhra Pradesh and Srini Food Park officials had series of meetings and after prolonged discussions / deliberations it was finally agreed to reroute the mainline in an amicable manner suiting both the parties. Accordingly, a new route was finalized close to the NH-04 passing on one side of the plot earmarked for M/s Mega Food Park. It is worth mentioning that the new route was not only beneficial to the party but also to IOCL considering the original alignment which was passing through gorges and lot of undulations. Based on this resolution, the writ filed by M/s Srini Food Park Private Limited in the High Court of Judicature, Andhra Pradesh was dismissed & any further delay was avoided.

Common RoW with HPCL

Work could not be undertaken in a stretch of 1000 mtrs from 26.10.2009 due to objection by HPCL as the line was passing through HPCL area, near Devangunthi.

After rigorous follow-up and meeting with senior management of HPCL at Mumbai, they agreed and allowed to lay the CBPL pipeline along the boundary of their land. The route was finalized in consultation of the local officials concerned of HPCL. The work

IndianOil transports about 60% of the white products it produces, in railway POL wagons, specially meant for this purpose. The loading and unloading operations are managed by the refinery and marketing personnel of IndianOil. During our discussions with the railways, they informed that the permission for the above stated two crossing was held up due to non-payment of certain lease rental by Mktg Division of IndianOil, to the railways. The matter was in dispute, and Railways tried to encash this opportunity for getting the dispute settles.

With rigorous follow-up with Railways and IOCL-Marketing officers, the matter was settled and the Railways granted permission for execution of this part of the project. These are unforeseen small issues, generally overlooked at planning stage, and yet detrimental to maintain project schedule.

Undulating & Rocky Terrain

The terrain through which pipeline was traversing was highly undulating & rocky in stretches. The pipeline after entering Karnataka traversed south of Kolar town. The route was located about 10 km north of Kolar Gold mines. Entire pipeline route in Karnataka was consisting of loose soil in the initial stretch followed by red soil & rocky stretches with a lot of undulations. Pipeline laying through such strata was really a herculean task, and yet was executed with great precision, without affecting overall schedule of project completion.

Project Implementation and Monitoring

area in Karnataka and part of Andhra etc.)

Shri Veerappa Moiley and other dignitaries.

In order to have a track on the progress of on-going activities a detailed activity schedule was drawn supported by a Work- Breakdown–Structure covering activities involved at the micro-level.

Project Coordinator was assigned the task of progress monitoring with respect to the said schedule. The apex level management was kept appraised on a regular interval about the status of projects. Even, the Board of Directors was apprised on monthly basis on the project status.

On commencement of construction work, pipeline laying was taken up concurrently at 4 spreads by engaging two agencies. The progress was monitored on daily basis at site-level and requirement of construction materials were assessed. Achievement/ short-fall was closely reviewed regularly at Project Head Quarter and finally at apex level. Periodic interactions were carried out with the vendors to asses at their end if any, in order to ensure supply of various equipments in time. This provided an effective tool to arrest the slippages in time & to take corrective measures for recovery.

Conclusion:

As a Project Management tool, Pipeline Information Management system (PIMS) software was introduced to get real time construction status and monitoring through GIS application. This has facilitated in assimilating the various data from various sources / sites all along the 290 Km long stretch, which in turn helped in taking quality decisions to attain quality job.

During the construction of the pipeline, we have dealt with 157 Villages (Tamil Nadu 43, Andhra Pradesh 40, Karnataka 74) having more than 2000 Villagers / farmers in all the 3 states namely Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and have paid a land and crop compensation of Rs 18.20 Crore.

By adopting innovative project management practices and taking proactive actions in the vulnerable areas (Gangavaram court case in Andhra Pradesh, ROW acquisition in Mallur village in Bangalore, laying of pipeline in rocky

In spite of all the aforesaid hurdles construction activities could be kept continued without any break and finally the pipeline could be completed in it’s totality by adopting innovative project management practices, meticulous planning to utilize the every available work-front and taking proactive actions in vulnerable areas .

The project was formally completed and progressively commissioned on 22.3.2010 at an expenditure of approx. Rs.265.00 Crore, well before the scheduled completion time & within approved cost.

The pipeline was dedicated to the nation on 2.7.2010 by Hon’ble Governor, Karnataka in presence of Cabinet Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas, GoI Shri Murli Deora, Cabinet Minister of Law,

Chennai-Bangalore product pipeline faced some major hurdles on the way, i.e. linguistic problems, passing of mainline through marshy land as well as highly developed areas, unique challenge of crossing through stretch of rocky & highly undulating 7 kilometers of Palmaner Reserve Forest adjoining the National Highway - 4, dealing with Human Rights commission etc.

These challenges were overcome with the help of dedicated & experienced Pipeline team, highly expert in “CONCEPT TO COMMISSIONING” of pipelines. Multi prolonged strategies and close liasion with all stake holders ensured smooth flow of activities against the formidable constraints.

Lessons were learnt during the project execution and all efforts were made to avoid repeating the same mistakes and take proactive actions for better performance in future projects.

To summarize, the project objectives could be achieved by safe design, safe construction practices aided by State-of-the-Art technology, tools and very close monitoring of schedule and deliveries. Presently, Chennai-Bangalore product pipeline is operating with its full capacity, and it enriched us many new lessons in Project Management.

U K Dhoot

U.K. Dhoot, Dy. General Manager (PJ-Monitoring), IndianOil Corporation Ltd., (Pipelines Division), NOIDA (UP), has worked in Project Management of large petroleum pipelines since 1982.

Besides managing pipeline projects, he has vast experience construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance of various crude and product oil pipelines of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., which includes Kandla-Bhatinda Pipeline, Haldia Barauni Crude Oil Pipeline, Viragmgam-Chaksu-Panipat Pipeline, Chennai Bangalore Pipeline, Viramgam Kandla Pipeline, Bijwasan Panipat Naphtha Pipeline, Dadri Panipat R-LNG Gas Pipeline, Off Shore Integrated Crude Oil Handling System at Paradip, Construction of Additional Tank Farm at Vadinar and many more.

He has also worked as faculty at IndianOil Institute of Petroleum Management (IiPM), Gurgoan, where he introduced U21 Global Course on Project Management, which has so far certified over 500 IndianOil executives. It was a pioneering initiative, which prepared the IndianOil project Mangers for efficient execution of mega projects of IndianOil spread all over the country. dhootuk@INDIANOIL.IN JoP, April-June 2012

33

Sustainability

Carbon & Water Management for Indian Hydrocarbon Industry Rajkumar Ghosh Director (Refineries), IndianOil Corporation Limited

C

arbon is present in all forms of life and is the most abundant element in human beings. It is the sixth most abundant element in the earth’s crust. The quantity of carbon in the atmosphere/earth is dynamically maintained by an exchange mechanism called Carbon Cycle. Human activities such as burning of fossil fuels and deforestation lead to release of carbon, one of the most damaging forms of which is carbon di-oxide (CO2). The quantity of CO2 and other such greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is steadily increasing leading to increase in global temperature. But is GHGs all that bad? It is estimated that without the presence of naturally occurring GHGs such as CO2, Water Vapour and Methane in earth’s atmosphere, the earth’s average temperature would have been much cooler, comparable to the atmosphere on Mars. At the expected-18oC on average, most of the water would be frozen all year long.

On the other hand too much of the GHG effect is also detrimental. Such a situation is encountered on Venus, which has an atmosphere rich in CO2, inducing temperatures above the melting point of metallic Lead and making it as hostile to life than the cold Mars. Thus to preserve life on earth, limited presence of GHGs is essential. The question is how to balance.

1025 MToE (million ton oil equivalent) as against the present level of 624 MToE which is to be met primarily from imports of Oil & Gas. India is fifth largest energy consumer in the world even though its per capita consumption is lower than the world average.

In terms of GHG emissions, CO2 emission in India is likely to be 3.4 Giga tonnes in the year 2030 considering the reference scenario and is likely to be 2.2 Giga

As we approach 2050, world population is projected to be 9 billion compared to present level of 7 billion and energy requirement of the populace will increase by 2 to 3 times from level of the year 2000 and the environmental issues have put question marks on the path of development. Capital required to mitigate emission by 2030 is approx. $26 trillion (Avg. $1.1 trillion/yr) and half of these investments are required in non-OECD countries, else emission will go up by 50% of current level, in 2050.

The projected future world energy mix for the year 2030 continues to be predominantly based on fossil fuels viz., Coal, Oil & Gas which is going to add to emission of the GHGs unless renewable energy sources are tapped to a large extent which again depends on the technology and economics.

Fastest growth in energy usage is expected to be in India & China. The energy demand of India is likely to go up to

Source: NASA-GISS, CDIAC, NOAA ESRL

Tonnes considering scenario where the CO2 emissions are restricted to 450 ppm in the atmosphere through adequate sustenance measures. India is the fourth largest country,

ture is shown here for the past 130 years Sustainable Development definition by Brundtland Commission, “Our Common Future: Development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Emission contribution of some of the key nations are as given below: Region / Country

Energy cons.

(MTOE)

CO2 emissions (Million T)

Per Capita Energy Cons.

(TOE)

Per Capita CO2 emissions (Tonnes)

Kg CO2/ $ GDP (PPP)

World

12 150

28,999

1.8

4.29

0.45

USA

2 163

5,195

7.03

16.9

0.46

China

2 272

6,877

1.7

5.14

0.55

Japan

472

1,093

3.71

8.58

0.32

Germany

319

750

3.89

9.16

0.33

India

676

1,583

0.58

1.37

0.35

Source : IEA 2011

in terms of CO2 emissions at 1.3 Giga Tonnes per year even though the per capita consumption is much lower than the developed countries.

Today, humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year.

Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, by 2030s, we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only have one.

Turning resources into wastes faster than wastes converting back into resources, puts us in global ecological overshoot, depleting the very resources on which human life and biodiversity depend.

The recent increase in concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the result of human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels. As the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased, so has the average surface temperature of the Earth.

The relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration and surface tempera-

Sustainable development is to allocate the resources in such a way as for all, including the environment, to have an adequate share without making any one group worse off, both now and in the future.

The emission challenge According to IEA, in 2010, 1.4 billion people lacked access to electricity, 85% of them in rural areas. The numbers were projected to drop to merely 1.0 billion by 2030, without determined efforts. Number of people relying on traditional biomass use is set to increase between 2.7 billion to 2.8 billion by 2030. In a global economy, this is inequitable – and unsustainable.

As per the Global Emission Scenario, India’s per capita CO2 emissions are amongst the lowest; however its aggregate emission contribution is the third highest in the world.

The increase in global CO2 emissions was mainly due to the combustion of the fossil fuels i.e. coal, oil and natural gas. Fossil fuel still remains the most used energy source to meet the growing energy demand. India’s imperatives to meet energy requirements are a) maximizing utilization of domestic resources, b) bridging electricity deficit, c) rural electrification, d) increasing Civil Nuclear Power capacity, e) Energy Efficiency and Demand Side Management, f) Reduce emission intensity while achieving growth.

Electricity Generation is the major contributor for GHG emission. Downstream Oil & Gas Sector also contribute significantly towards emission of CO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, Hydrofluoric carbons, Per -fluorocarbons. CO2 alone has over 50% contribution in global warming. Mainly CO2 emission determines the GHG inventory. In refinery CH4 emissions are accounted in terms of CO2 equivalent.

ISO 14064 standard provides systematJoP, April-June 2012

35

ic accounting and verification of carbon emission in oil & gas sectors.

Cost of carbon capture & storage is still a barrier and ,therefore, need for more fiscal incentive & support from Govt. for renewable energy. There is a need for corpus fund to support aggressive Carbon Management in downstream sector fostering more R&D initiatives for developing cost-effective energy efficient technology.

come from refining activity. Refining capacity to grow by 4% & beyond during 12th V-year plan. New refineries need to be 20–25% more energy efficient. Under specific emission reduction initiatives for the sector, no gas flaring, Gas processing and transportation efficiency improvement have been identified.

Major drivers for improvement in energy efficiency

Potential Drivers - improving energy efficiency

pollution in cities/ towns. New business opportunities in this area can spur innovation.

For companies, it is the opportunity to reduce energy costs. For the nation this translates into energy security.

Lower power demand, hence lower capital expenditure in power plants, Societal benefits in the form of lower

India’s Commitment in Tackling Climate Change India’s Voluntary Offer include i) Per capita emission level never to exceed that of developed countries, ii) Reduction in CO2 emission intensity by 2025% over 2005 level by 2020.

National Action Plan on Climate Change consists of the following missions: • National Solar Mission • National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency • National Mission on Sustainable Habitat • National Water Mission • National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem • National Mission for Green India • National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture • National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change • Expert Group on Low Carbon Strategies for Inclusive Growth headed

by Dr. Kirit Parekh • Power Sector: Sub-Critical v/s Super Critical Plants • Mass Transportation Expert Group on Low Carbon Strategies for Inclusive Growth headed by Dr. Kirit Parekh has suggested the following focus areas: • Power Sector: Sub-Critical v/s Super Critical Plants • Mass Transportation • Process Efficiency in Industries / Energy Sector, etc Observations from Kirit Parikh’s report on Low Carbon Economies, 2011 on Oil & Gas Sector: 80% of Oil and Gas sector emissions

36

JoP, April-June 2012

30-35% of India’s carbon abatement potential can be captured from energy efficiency measures. Major opportunities for energy efficiency improvements in the industrial segment are expected in the power, steel and cement industries. In the area of buildings, improved design with lighting controls and hiefficiency HVAC in commercial new buildings, higher LED lighting penetration and higher penetration of highest efficiency appliances are key levers.

Efficiency Enhancement Process Efficiency

Energy – a factor in selection of process technology e.g. Selection of energy efficient equipment during design stage, Power plant with combined cycle operation (STG / GTG) to improve overall thermal efficiency from 35-40% (STG based plant) to > 60% level; Performance test runs in accordance with yearly calendar for iden-

tifying limitations & plan corrective measures; Up gradation of old equipment for higher energy efficiency, Intra/ Inter-unit heat integration, Waste heat recovery, process yield / energy optimization, etc. It is said that every refinery has a hidden refinery within it from energy standpoint. Recent benchmarking studies have shown that PSU refineries can improve energy efficiency through effective process operation as well as through improved steam usage. In refineries like ours where Power & Steam are generated from Captive Power Plant (CPP), there is enormous scope to improve energy performance through improved operation of CPP, optimum Steam & Power balance, generating steam at highest pressure level, use of combined cycle, reduction in PRDS operation etc.

finding more usage in refineries. Due to increase in energy cost, some of the initiatives which were not economically attractive earlier, need re-evaluation.

Pipeline Division

The mode of transport is itself environment friendly. IndianOil presently has close to 11,000 km of pipeline network as against industry network of 20,000 km.

IndianOil Strategy

A new department is formed as ‘Nodal Office’ at corporate level as commitment towards Renewable Energy & Sustainable Development (RE&SD) with designated officers at Divisions to

Marketing Division

drive & implement Sustainability Development Action Plan. Policy driven approach towards sustainability, GHG emission reduction, venturing into Renewable Energy and Water & Waste management areas have been adopted.

Inspiring Innovation – Helping create a low carbon economy by

Setting up of Kisan Seva Kendras (KSKs) in rural areas (nearly 500 every year)

Equipment Efficiency

Improvement in efficiency of pumps, motors, compressors, air coolers, heat exchangers, condensers, air pre-heaters, furnaces & boilers, Conversion of condensing type STG to back-pressure type, Monitoring of equipment operation at optimum level for best efficiency.

Alternative Fuels / Renewables

The Advantages of absorption of Natural Gas are higher calorific value, lower carbon & improved combustion with low excess air as well as lower stack temperature leading to higher efficiencies. Its usage as fuel in GTs & heaters, boilers, HRSGs and as feed to HGU (benefit: lower steam requirement during reforming) need to be encouraged. Under renewable, Solar Energy for small scale heating & power generation and use of bio-fuels can be explored. Adoption of solar energy depends on investment cost vis-à-vis payback. More applications in future will depend on lowering of solar PV & solar thermal appliance cost.

Low carbon strategies at IndianOil Refinery Division

The MBN (Energy scale for comparing energy performance amongst Refineries i.e. MBtu /Bbl/NRGF) even though is lower than the Industry (PSU)average ,efforts are being made to minimize the gap between the theoretical & actual energy requirement.

Gasification of Coal to liquid; Carbon capture & storage; 2nd & 3rd generation bio-fuels; Resid upgradation; Coprocessing of Bio-Oils; Low carbon Technologies; Waste management (Olivorous); Gasification & Coal to Liquid.

Shifting focus from ‘Oil and Gas’ to ‘Energy’ companies

IndianOil in Renewable Energy Business Target Other low carbon strategies at IndianOil

Off-Grid Alternate Energy by use of Solar PV in Retail Outlets & Installations, Roof top Solar Power, Solar Water Heat-

Advanced Techniques

Examples such as step less control in compressors, foggy coolers / air chilling in GTs, magnetic resonators in FG/Fuel Oil supply lines, helical Exchangers for preheat improvement, tube inserts for improved performance, enhanced heat transfer tube bundles, VAM system for air-conditioning, pressure recovery turbines in high pressure system & use of Glass Air Pre-heaters etc are now JoP, April-June 2012

37

er, Solar Street Lights. Energy reduction through Flare Gas Recovery, Energy Efficiency in buildings, Lighting efficiency (from CFLs/Mercury lights to LEDs & Induction Lamps), Star-rated appliances, Carbon Neutral Events & Tree Plantation, making major events carbon neutral by planting trees – 18 events 98,600 trees planted in 2010-11.

The Water Challenge Statement by Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General - “As I travel around the world, people think the only place where there is potential conflict over water is the Middle East, but they are completely wrong. We have the problem all over the world.’’

would be further aggravated by receding of glaciers and dwindling fresh water resources. The sector likely to be asked to reduce the consumption in the event of water scarcity would be most definitely, the Industry!!

Fifty years ago, common perception was that water was an infinite resource.

The population was lower, 50% of current number of People, required a third of the volume of water presently taken from rivers. Today, competition for water resources is intense. World population is now nearly 7 billion and forecast to rise to 9 billion by 2050.

Climate change is expected to worsen the situation by causing erratic and un2009-10 (MToE)

2016-17 (MToE)

Captive

0.48

0.69

Wind/ Solar

0.01

0.09

Nuclear

--

1.60

Total energy through Renewable Business

0.49

2.38

Total Primary Commercial Energy Demand of India

450

569

IOC Contribution

0.1 %

0.42 %

% increase in contribution

Only 2.5% of Earth’s Water is Fresh Water! Water use has been growing at more than the rate twice of population increase in the last century. Water withdrawals are predicted to increase by 50 percent by 2025 in developing countries, and 18 per cent in developed countries. By 2025, 1800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in last century. In developing countries 70% of industrial wastes are dumped untreated into the waters where they pollute the usable water supply. Everyday 2 million tons of sewage and other waste drain into world’s water body.

Water security is emerging as an increasingly important vital issue for India. Many Indian cities are beginning to experience moderate to severe water shortages, brought on by the simultaneous effects of Agricultural growth, population growth, Industrialization and urbanization. These shortages

38

JoP, April-June 2012

India, there are numerous expert government committees to look at water supplies and management. Scarcity of water still prevails in both urban and rural areas.

Industrial water use is closely linked to the economy of a country. So far as India is concerned, as GDP increases, so will industrial water consumption: These environmental challenges need to be addressed through four broad approaches: 1. Improving efficiencies and minimizing losses 2. Recharging ground water aquifers 3. Abatement and treatment of water pollution 4. Reuse and recycling of waste water Water footprint reduction rests on the principles of reduce, recycle, recharge, reuse. Water conservation through awareness is actively pursued at IndianOil refineries. Some of the measures that have been taken at IndianOil refineries are as below:

320 %

predictable weather, which could drastically diminish the supply of water coming from rainfall and glaciers. By 2025, India, China and select countries in Europe and Africa will face water scarcity if adequate and sustainable water management initiatives are not implemented, and an estimated 3 billion people will be living below the water stress threshold, says a study by Grail Research. Water shortage has already led to a growing number of conflicts across the country, with 90 per cent of India’s territory served by inter-state rivers.

India’s supply of water is rapidly dwindling primarily due to mismanagement of water resources. Over-pumping and pollution are significant contributors. In

• Reduction of Fresh Water through waste water treatment Revamp/ Modernization for better treated effluent quality • Reverse Osmosis for treatment of high TDS effluent • Increased Recycling of Treated Effluent • Storm Water Reuse • Steam Condensate Recovery & recycle • Enhanced use of Air Fin Coolers • Counter Current Cooling Towers for new projects • Decreasing Cooling Tower Drift Losses • Advanced Cooling Water and Effluent treatment to improve COC • Use of Domestic Effluent after treatment

Summary

(billion cubic meters / yr) Category

1990

2010

2025

2050

Irrigation

460 (88.6%)

536 (77.3%)

688 (73%)

1008 (70.9%)

Industries + Energy

34 (6.6%)

41.4 (6%)

80 (8.5%)

143 (10.1%)

Total (including others)

519

693

942

1422

Source: National commission for integrated water resources development plan, Ministry of water resources,1999

GHG emissions and global warming are modern and complicated problems involving the entire world. The emission reduction strategies are tangled up with paradoxical objectives such as poverty alleviation, economic development etc. A price needs to be put on the emissions released by organization to encourage more

efficient strategies. Rewards to be given to those doing the right things e.g. preserving forests, plantations & ecology in general.

Quantity of fresh water being limited in the world, there is no option but to adopt 4 R’s i.e. reduce, recover, reuse and re-cycle. With the growth of

population and increased urbanization, water consumption of both agriculture and industry sector grow exponentially. Efficient use of water, reducing wastes and recovery & recycle from all the sources is a must for industry sector to survive and promoting inclusive growth.

Rajkumar Ghosh

Mr R K Ghosh, Director (Refineries) Indian Oil Corporation, Ltd, heads India’s largest oil refining business of the company, responsible for operating 8 oil refineries with combined capacity f over 62 mtpa, and 3 major petrochemical complexes. He is currently busy constructing a 15 mtpa greenfield oil refinery at Paradip, on the Indian east coast, at an estimated cost of over US $ 5.5 b. Most of his refineries have adopted TPM, and their Environmental and safety systems are ISO certified. Mr Ghosh, has in a big way gone for reducing carbon and water footprint of his refineries and related operations.

Prior to this, he was Executive Director (l/C) at the most modern PSU refinery of the country at Panipat and was responsible for all functions of the Refinery, Naphtha Cracker and other downstream polymer units. Mr. Ghosh led the commissioning of Panipat Refinery Expansion from 12 to 15 Million Metric Tonnes Per Annum (MMTPA) and India’s largest Naphtha Cracker which ushered in a new era of industrial development in Haryana.

A graduate in Chemical Engineering from I.I.T. Kharagpur, Mr Ghosh has over three decades of experience to his credit in Hydrocarbon Industry. He has worked in various positions at Barauni, Mathura, Haldia, Guwahati and Panipat Refineries as well as at Refineries Headquarters in New Delhi. Mr. Ghosh who will be heading the Refineries Division of the largest refinery of the country is known for his technical knowledge, dynamic leadership and clarity of vision.

GHOSHRK@iocl.co.in

Improve Sustainability based on the feedback: But do you receive, any? How to get it?

From Editor’s Notepad Sustainability initiatives are no more a choice but compulsion for survival in a fiercely competitive business arena, be it manufacturing, services or government. Companies are passionate about telling the world of their sustainability initiatives, through their sustainability report, which they prepare with great passion and effort. This initiatives have to taken for meeting long term expectations of the stakeholders and people at large, on whom the business sustains.

Once the Sustainability Report is made public, normally, most of companies forget about its outcome or effect on the target readers. However, many sensible and passionate companies, with great expectation, request their stakeholders i.e shareholders, vendors, suppliers, customers and the people around their locations etc, to send some feedback on the report, which could be of great delight to companies, the writes of report in particular; which could certainly help them make improvements.

But, how many receive this creative or

even suggestive feedback? Its really very frustrating, when one does not get feedback on his work of passion.

The Government has now made it mandatory for companies to invest in sustainability. I am not sure, even the Govt departments, as majority shareholders of PSUs concerned also read and send feedback on the sustainability reports of their companies.

But the real problem is within the methods, generally adopted by companies, to get feedback. Many companies insert a format which restrict the type of feedback they want to receive. Normally, we come across feedback’ link with the Sustainability Reports, with a bunch of go / no-go type questions, e.g.

Have you found the report clear and easy to read?; Do you feel we’ve covered the topics most relevant to you?; Was it easy to navigate, and if not how could it be improved?; What type of reader are you, along with selection options such as investor, customer etc?;and finally, ‘If you would like us

to respond to your comment, please give your email address’.

Facilitating readers to provide feedback is as important for getting it. This mechanism must give readers a enough space for readers to write whatever’s on their mind, one may however limit it to 500 or 100 words. It shall enable the reader to respond spontaneously, and within seconds the whole process is over, rather than writing a separate mail to the company.

It may be still better to have open fields for comments, like we see with blog comments to make the process very visible and inviting, which shall bring companies in direct dialogue with the readers and stakeholders. It shall also help companies to get fresh ideas for innovating outside in, which one of essential ingredients for sustainable business..

Getting feedback, is a must, should also be the job of designated Sustainability Executives of the company, and one of his KPIs. Let us try it out. Anandbodh (anandbodh1950@gmail.com) JoP, April-June 2012

39

Alternative Energy

Residential Solar Electricity in Delhi A Case Study Chudamani Ratnam Oil India Limited, Duliajan

H

aving spent all my working life in producing fossil energy,viz.crude oil and natural gas, I have in my 20 years of retirement moved from what started as a mental exercise in renewable energy to a practical venture in producing solar photovoltaic(PV) electricity.at my residence in Delhi Of the different forms of energy I consume,viz.petrol,LPG and electricity, it is the last which forms a major part of my household budget. Of this 80% is used by airconditioning and of this again one unit represents 50% of my annual electricity bill. It was this one application which I targeted in considering a solar PV package and eventually installed. on my terrace as displayed in Fig.1.

Perceived wisdom has it that PV is not economic for airconditioning but this logic has a flaw in that most PV technoeconomic analyses are based on annual averages. The energy from the sun referred to as “solar insolation” as we all know is a highly variable commodity. It starts from zero at sunrise, rises to a peak at noon and falls to zero again at sunset.Furthermore the sun is at its highest and hence delivers most energy on 21st.June and least on December 21st..

Typically most solar PV systems are optimized to be effective throughout the year by appropriate orientation but this comes at a cost. It is important to know that PV panels react to incident light and not to ambient heat.

Airconditioning is a rare application where the demand coincides with peak insolation and the PV system can be optimized to produce maximum electricity when needed most.i.e April to June in Delhi .PV output decreases on cloudy days but then so does the demand on airconditioning which considerably reduces the required system specifications and while still not competitive with the grid, solar electrity is cost effective when compared with a generator..

The benefits would be particularly dramatic in areas where daytime load shedding of many hours is common during summer months and as a wise man once said “no electricity is as expensive as no electricity” For a layman it is useful to know some basics of electric-

ity. Watts=Volts x Amperes.. Watt hours=Watts x Hours.

Kilowatt(kw) = 1000watts and one unit of electricity is 1 kwh A PV panel,when exposed to sunlight, outputs DC(direct current) which has to be converted to AC(alternating current of 230v at a frequency of 50 cycles per second) to run various domestic appliances.

Modern appliances are certified as “energy efficient” by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency(BEE) of the Government which issues star ratings for various energy consuming items. A modern 2 ton airconditioner consumes 2Kw(kilowatts) as against 3Kw for older grey market products. and I found it worthwhile to replace my old units. The reduced electricity consumption has made it cost effective to install a PV system and also replace my old 10kw inverter with a 5kw model with a concurrent saving of Rs.6000/- per annum in maintenance contract.. .Historic data of solar insolation is available on the Internet for all days for a number of years in the form of hourly readings for major cities in India and elsewhere, on a horizontal shade free surface and for planning purposes it is possible to estimate fairly accurately the total insolation per day as well as variation during the day. Fig2 is a representative hourly plot in watts/sq.metre for randomly selected cloud free days in different months/years in Delhi and the area under each curve is the total insolation for that day.Table 1 lists the total insolation in watt hours for these days..

The radiation from the sun has two components,direct and diffuse. One is the direct light from the sun even if partially shaded by cloud and the other is the light scattered from nearby clouds, buildings, dust and water vapour in the atmosphere,etc.which can be a significant proportion. The sum of the two is referred to as Global radiation and is what the solar panel reacts to.Even on cloudy days as long as it is not very dark the solar panel will produce some electricity.

The plot in Fig.2 is of global radiation as impinging on a horizontal surface but by appropriately orienting the panel to the sun the production of electricity can be increased.

under peak conditions.amounting to 3000 x 7.392=22176 watt hours for the day of 18/06/2002. To distribute this amount over 11 hours of airconditioner use, the electricity has to be stored in batteries and drawn at a uniform rate of 2kw... At present the orientation of my PV array is fixed but there are more advanced/expensive systems where the array is motor driven to face the sun continuously.

In PV terminology a “peak sun” is defined as having a peak insolation i.e. at mid-day of 1000watts/square metre.

Now from Table 1 above for example, on 18/06/2002 the total insolation for the day was 7392watt.hours/sq.metre.

This is the amount of energy impinging on 1 sq.metre under a peak sun shining for 7.392 hours and hence the insolation on this date in Delhi can also be defined as 7.392 equivalent sun hours,which is useful for assessing the performance of a PV panel.

The sun moves from an elevation of 23°30’ north of the equator on June 21st when the days are longest to 23°30’ South of the Equator on December,21st.when the days are shortest.Delhi has a latitude of 28° 40’ North i.e about 5 degrees north of the highest point of the sun and hence to keep the array pointing at the sun during the hottest months it should be tilted by about 10° sloping southwards.

The high point of the sun in Delhi is about 12h20m IST(Indian Standard

Time) because Delhi has a longitude of 77° 2’ east whereas IST is set to 82° 30’ east, roughly at Allahabad and 360° of longitude corresponds to 24 hours.

From April to June the airconditioner under study runs for 11hours per day,from 11am to 10 pm and hence consumes 22 kwh per day. The demand reduces during other months and is zero from mid-October to mid-March.

It can be seen from the table that this load can be met by a 3kwp solar array. though there will be some systems losses which could reduce performance by about 15%..During winter months a heater can be plugged in to the airconditioner socket.

The heart of the PV system consists of a set of PV panels forming an array.

In my system each panel size is 2’x5’ and is rated at “0.125 watts peak” This rating means that under a peak sun described above the panel will generate 0.125 watts of DC . I have a total of 24 panels generating in all, 3000watts

Table 1 Date of observation

Daily horizontal Insolation in Watt.hours/sq.metre

Equivalent Sun hours

Output of 3kwp horizontal panel In watt.hours

19/12/2006

3749

3.749

11247

18/04/2007

7224

7.224

21672

6/05/2002

7113

7.113

21339

28/05/2002

7358

7.358

22074

18/06/2002

7392

7.392

22176

10/07/2005

6179

6.179

18537

The brain of the PV system is commonly referred to as the inverter,but it actually performs two functions.

Firstly it is a charge controller which conditions the DC output of the solar panels and feeds it into the batteries for charging and at the same time ensures that the batteries are not overcharged.

The inverter takes the output from the batteries which is DC and converts it to 230v AC for supplying the load and also ensures that the batteries are not over discharged. The capacity of my solar inverter is 5kw to allow for start and stop fluctuations of the load. The inverter which is on the terrace has a display of various operating parameters such as charging and output current, battery voltage etc In addition.I have installed duplicate displays of voltage and current across the battery bank terminals at a convenient location within my residence so as to be able to monitor the functioning of the PV system more frequently.

A top class inverter will produce a true sine wave output unlike cheaper models and all the sophisticated functions of the charger/inverter are performed by integrated circuits(chips) which are imported. In a common household inverter charging only takes place when the mains power is on and output only when the power is off whereas in a solar inverter both charging and discharging take place simultaneously. Most solar inverters automatically switch over to mains when solar power is not available,e.g.at night but when the sun is playing hide and seek among the clouds the load ,i.e. the aircondioner will kick on and off frequently which is very annoying.. I have therefore disabled this function and installed a manual change over switch In the long run batteries are the most expensive ,the most troublesome and JoP, April-June 2012

41

perhaps the least understood ,at least by me, item in the PV system .and mine uses a bank of ten 12v(nominal ) batteries in series giving a total voltage of 127. These are sealed maintenance free(smf) inverter batteries and the capacity of each battery is 135AH(Ampere Hour) which is equivalent to 17145 watt hours i.e. 127v x 135 amperes for ten batteries in series.

The AH figure will vary depending on the rate of discharge and is typically quoted at 20 hour discharge. The inverter is usually set to cut out at 50% discharge which corresponds to about 8.5 kwh. because higher discharge will shorten battery life. A good battery should last 1000 charge/discharge cycles and assuming 300 cycles per year this corresponds to about three years, but luck is an important factor. Even if one battery fails the recommendation is to replace all at a cost of around Rs.8500/- each.Different brands of batteries have variations in their performance which also decline with use and it is not considered advisable to mix brands ,models or age.

Battery voltage is an approximate but convenient indicator of the state of charge (SOC) of the battery bank and the display will be around 112v when nearing full(50%) discharge under load to around 140v at near full charge with no load.

On disconnecting or connecting the load these numbers jump to 116v and 127v respectuvely This is because there is a varable internal resistance in the batteries which the controller has to overcome.

The upper limit of charging current is supposed to be set to around 1/8th of the AH rating of the battery which works out to 135/8=17 amps. Battery management is crucial and the various operating parameters should not be compromised, but this is easier said than done as we are at the mercy of the inverter and battery suppliers knowhow. Batteries can be prematurely and permanently damaged, partially or wholely, by improper handling.

Unfortunately the voltage figures given above will still be shown even when the batteries ,either the whole bank or individual batteries are partially damaged.

My own experience is that the aircondioner initially ran,once only, for nearly 4 hours after sunset on fully charged batteries, i.e the batteries supplied about 8kwh before being cut out by the

42

JoP, April-June 2012

inverter, which is about 50% of the rated capacity. as expected, but the performance is inconsistent.

To illustrate the problem, around 7th October, 2011during a totally cloud free week, when I switched on the ac at 1pm with battery showing 140v it ran for about 3 hours whereas when I switched on at 10.30am,130v,on the next day it ran for more than 6 hours. On the third day, when I switched on after sunset with fully charged batteries it ran for less than 2 hours. The problem could be in either batteries or inverter and there seems to be a case for acquiring both from the same manufacturer so as to be able to invoke guarantees.

In retrospect I should have installed 200AH or higher batteries but there can be situations in which it is more cost effective to add additional solar panels rather than batteries. mainly because a PV panels life is more than 20 years.

It also seems that the SMF type of battery may not have been the ideal choice and there are options available in India which some manufacturers now label for solar application.Further investigation is required. To get value for money the load should ideally not remain unconnected beyond 140v because then on sunlight would only be wasted.

There are some performance efficiency issues to be considered. Firstly batteries do not give out as much as put in and a loss of about 10% occurs,getting worse with age..Next the inverter also loses about 5% in converting battery DC output to 230v AC. Unfortunately manufacturers do not publish these data and I can’t help feeling that they may not even know , except in a cursory way and losses could be worse, especially at the lower end of the market. .PV panels are however supposed to perform according to their ratings,less some temperature effects.

Panel temperatures in the summer in warm climates can easily reach 50oC resulting in a 12% reduction in output compared to the rated output at 25oC. The BEE should take solar items under their purview as this will also put pressure on the manufacturers/suppliers to learn more about what they are selling.

Indian suppliers/manufacturers of PV systems range from big industrial houses to roadside mechanics. However one

thing is clear; they are not advisers or designers and basically can only respond to a tender invitation where the customer lays down detailed,itemwise, performance specifications. They seem to have limited knowledge of insolation, battery characteristics, weather, etc. and I have had to do my own homework I have used a mid-level supplier because he could offer a price within my budget. The rough break up of my systems cost is; 1)3kw solar array Rs.3lakhs 2) 5kw inverter Rs.1.2 lakhs3) Batteries Rs.85000. 4)Installation including frames etc.Rs.75000.

5) miscellaneous electrical works Rs.15000. My residence is a top floor flat and is unliveably hot for a major part of the year. I look upon the PV system as a protection of my investment in the flat.

It would be useful to know every morning how sunny the day is likely to be especially during the monsoon period and hence how the PV system is going to perform The India Meteorological Dept(IMD) puts out on its website (http:// www.imd.gov.in/section/satmet/dynamic/insatnwdist_ir.htm satellite ) images of the cloud cover which are updated every hour or so:If the time of the image is given for example as 4.30Z this means 10.00 am IST. (Z is short for GMT also known as UTC) The images to be viewed are visible,infra-red and water vapour from which I have learnt through experience to get a very rough but unreliable idea of the expected insolation. Hopefully IMD will get around to forecasting the expected solar insolation every morning with periodic updates during the day together with the actual for the previous day as it does for temperature and rainfall data.

The above write up focuses on what has been actually implemented and does not do justice to nearly 5 years of mental effort I have put in to study solar energy in all its aspects This covered electricity, electro-chemistry, light , thermodynamics, meteorology, spherical trigonometry and even some astronomy. Among the interesting possibilities was DC airconditioners which like DC traction are more efficient than AC and such airconditioners were used by the Indian railways.This would have also avoided using inverters.and lower powered PV panels would have sufficed but unfortunately DC airconditioners are not commonly available.

There is a proposal in Delhi to have an arrangement, as in some progressive countries, for the grid to buy back any surplus electricity produced on a real time basis, but this will not work during load shedding which usually coincides with peak solar generation. If successfully implemented it would save on battery costs.

Furthermore,the base electricity load in Delhi is around 3500 megawatts(MW) rising to nearly 5000MW in summer, obviously due to airconditioning. The built up area in Delhi is around 70000 hectares and about 30% of this is probably available for roof top PV packages, which would result in a generation of 150000MW(220v a/c). The target population for PV would be the spoilt middle class for whom a Zen or Santro is a second car and would not hesitate to splurge to assure their comfort without any subsidy However as the sales of solar packages picks up the cost will come down for all. Meanwhile the electricity price in

Delhi has recently gone up to Rs.6 per kwh(kilowatthour). at the highest slab and we may shortly see time of the day billing.

In concluding one should be aware that the solar industry , especially in India , has not been in existence long enough to assess extended performance or give the practitioners adequate experience.

After overcoming various glitches including some personal health problems, I have yet to complete one full annual cycle and I am still on the upslope of the learning curve.It has not helped that this year,2011, has had the rainiest and cloudiest weather in May and June during the last 10 years.As a word of caution, the above guidelines should not be used for mission critical applications such as medical equipment, without additional safeguards.

Source: OIL’s Inhouse Journal “SYNERGY”

Chudamani Ratnam

Chudamani Ratnam was born in 1933 and was educated at Delhi University. He was awarded an Assam Oil Co. scholarship to study at the Imperial College, London, where he specialised in petroleum exploration and development. After completing his studies in London he joined the erstwhile Assam Oil Co. which, after nationalization, became Oil India Limited. During his career he served in various parts of India, both onshore and offshore, as well as internationally in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and U.K. (North Sea). Since retirement he has been involved in an advisory capacity with both the public and private sector oil industry. He has written and lectured extensively on energy related matters.

JoP, April-June 2012

43

Asset Reliability

Ultrasonic energy measurement

To improve effective lubrication practices Consider these data-collection methods to develop a well-defined relubrication program.

Mike Johnson and John Ward

G

rease-based lubrication practices occupy a large amount of the available time dedicated to machine lubrication activities. In previous TLT articles, we have addressed a process one could follow to optimize these practices to a signifi cant extent.

For some production sites where grease lubrication practices were established years ago and without an objective quantitative basis, such as the DIN 51825 standard, that can mean returning man-hours to the labor pool to pursue additional meaningful activities (Note: More information on this topic can be found in the April 2009 TLT, available digitally at www.stle.org). Though quantitative means are an appropriate starting point, there are plenty of applications where finetuning is needed. As a rule, the higher the speed, the greater value can be derived from actually measuring the effectiveness of the lubricant fi lm before additional grease is applied.

If the lubricant fi lm is intact, adding additional lubricant is a waste of time and materials. If the lubricant film has been depleted and the bearing is running in a boundary state, the bearing should be replenished.

There are instruments available to help the reliability engineer and lubrication technician measure the presence of boundary state conditions, regardless of the calculated baseline. The degree of objectivity (results based strictly on the numbers) differs between the available instruments. Whenever objective (numerical) values can be used to supplant decisions previously made on subjective terms, machine lubrication effectiveness improves.

This article introduces the concept of condition-based lubrication practices using high-frequency energy measurement techniques, which was discussed in the February TLT (also available digitally at www.stle.org).

Rolling Machine Contacts Previously, we introduced the idea of extremely high-frequency energy being produced by operating machines. This specific type of energy form is referred to as compression wave energy and ultrasonic energy. Although it is difficult to capture without well-defi ned data-collection techniques, this energy can be systematically captured and measured. A comparison of energy states between measurements gives reliability technicians a means to characterize oil fi lm thickness effectiveness.

For any rolling contact (bearing, gear pitchline), the protective oil film is trapped between two surfaces, creating a separating barrier. As long as the flow of oil (from either an oil sump or a body of grease surrounding the component) is maintained, the separating film is intact. Furthermore, as long as the product was properly selected to produce the optimum viscosity at machine operating temperature, the surfaces will fl oat on an uninterrupted film of oil. The purple area in the bearing diagram shown in Figure 1 represents the contact point where this oil film is maintained.

When the oil film is ruptured and surface asperities from one surface contact asperities of the mating surface, the impacts create an energy wave. The wave travels well through solid surfaces and is transmitted directionally through the component body. When multiple asperities collide, such as when the oil fi lm has dissipated from the loaded surface, the amountof energy produced rises dramatically.

Figure 2 shows this energy as it’s produced at its point of origin.

Since ultrasound is produced with normal elastohydrodynamic fi lm for mation, it is reasonable to expect new and properly lubricated (oil or grease) bearings will produce some

There are instruments available for reliability engineers and lubrication technicians to measure the presence of boundary state conditions of a bearing.

Figure 1 : The area of surface deformation under normal load is shown in purple. (Courtesy of Lubcon GmBH)

ultrasound. As the shaft rotational speed increases, the incidence of asperity contact at the element and race surface also increases, and the ultrasonic energy intensity increases. The energy is typically reported in decibels (dBs).

Condition-Based Greasing The reliability engineer must determine how much of the ultrasonic energy is normal and how much is from a deteriorated lubricant film condition for each bearing to be tracked and for a given operating state. This should be done empirically before one as-

Equipment owners can overcome data-collection issues with the use of remotely-mounted sensors and stud-mounted locking sensors. serts that the bearing’s recorded dBs reflects an appropriate (correct) operating state.

Variables that may negatively affect readings include: • • • •

Bearing type Bearing size Shaft speed The volume of fresh lubricant in the bearing • The volume of residual lubricant in the housing • Lubricating oil viscosity • Bearing dynamic load • Overall mass of the bearing mount • Mechanical boundary layers the signal must penetrate • Metallurgical differences at boundary layers • The angle of measurement • Sensor placement (too close or too far away from the point of emanation).

conditions, the data-collection process should be very well-defined and observed. Data collection must occur with exacting repeatability, regardless of collection methodology, to avoid misdirection from poor data. Instrument suppliers propose generically that ultrasound information should be collected on a bearing during optimum operating condition to establish a baseline reading. This is good advice.

Consider the following steps for ultrasonic energy data collection and evaluation needed for relubrication:

1. Calculate the proper viscosity r quirement at the machine’s operating temperature and select the appropriate product. The proper frequency and volume for grease is also calculated if it is a grease-lubricated application. Organize replenishment activities according to the calculated values into a linear sequence.

2. Schedule and complete the grease sequence (route). Record bearing temperatures within a few minutes following routine replenishment.

3. Document the instrument make/ model number and the sensor

Figure 2 : Represents what is likely any time the oil fi lm is lost, and the number of asperity contact events increases. (Courtesy of SPM Instruments)

In order to avoid influences from these JoP, April-June 2012

45

make/serial-model number for the bearings that are to be evaluated.

Assume that sensors and instruments are not interchangeable. Readings should always be taken with the same sensor and instrument each time to maintain trendability for a route.

4. On the initial cycle, find the place on the bearing that produces the best quality signal. This can be done by attaching a stinger probe to the instrument and searching for the high-energy location on the housing. It should be at the front or back face of the bearing in the third of the circumference that represents the load zone. For overhung loads, it will be in the direction toward the driven component. Data collection can occur perpendicular to the shaft axis in the region of the load\ zone. Mark the data collection spot for future measurement. If it is not possible to determine or to reach the load zone, select a clean, flat, preferably unpainted surface as the designated collection point. Vibration collection points may or may not be useful given their location and possible sources of error (metallurgy, mechanical interferences, etc.).

5. Within one hour of relubrication, start the data-collection routine.

Check and compare the operating temperature with the temperature recorded at the time of lubrication.

If a rise of more than 10% occurred, it is likely that churning is present and the ultrasonic energy reading may produce misleading data. Once the temperature is stabilized, record the energy value and assign it as the default decibel value.

6. Record any deviation from the normal operating state (speed, process rate or load variation). This is the baseline reading. If the component was outside of the default operating state, this reading should be repeated when the default operating conditions can be replicated.

7. For those machines that operate with normal variability in speed or load, the established default state at initial data collection has to be repeated for each future collection. Even if the conditions are the worst possible case, they should be duplicated once they are set. Any time a change in the default operating states occurs, the trending must

46

JoP, April-June 2012

be restarted. This may seem overly detailed, but it is necessary to minimize variability in high-frequency energy production.

8. Prior to the next lubrication interval, use the selected instrument and sensor to measure and record the current state. Assuming the new reading is an accurate measurement, a change of 6Âą decibels represents a 100% increase in signal intensity, indicating that the lubricating film is partially or fully lost.

9. If the decibel reading drops, verify that the reading was taken in precisely the same way as the last time through. Make sure the speed and load conditions are the same or very similar. If all checks out, replenish with the predefined amount of the selected lubricant according to the plan. If the operating state does not meet the baseline, replenish (see Step 10) and reschedule the measurement to be completed (soon) when all the prerequisites can be met.

10. With the sensor on and running, add grease with slow single strokes of the gun to gradually reintroduce fresh lubricant. If a grease volume meter is used, introduce half-gram increments each few seconds. Add grease until a decibel level increase is observed. Record the amount introduced, the temperature and the decibel reading for future use and adjust (extend) the normal replenishment interval by one-fourth.

11.If the decibel reading increases, replenish the lubricant (see Step 12).

12.With the sensor on and running, add grease with half-strokes of the gun to gradually reintroduce fresh lubricant. If a grease volume meter is used, introduce half-gram increments each few seconds. A decibel decrease should be observed after a film is reintroduced to the surfaces. Repeat the steps as long as the decibel level continues to decrease.

When the decibel value ceases to decrease, pause for 30 seconds. If the decibel value increases, repeat the steps again. When the decibel value hangs for more than a minute, stop lubricating the bearing.

13.Note the replacement volume and adjust (shorten) the schedule by one-fourth of the current period. Adjust the required volume to match the amount that was just in-

troduced. These values become the new frequency and volume baseline. Repeat the reading practice at the adjusted intervals until there is stability through three complete unadjusted cycles.

14.After the correct frequency and volume has been fully determined, it is appropriate to periodically spot check the routes to verify continued effectiveness.

15.If a change in lubricant type, grade, operating conditions (load, speed, heat load, moisture or solid contamination state) or sensor and instrumentation occurs, the entire data point should be reinitiated. Coupling other sensory methods with ultrasonic measurements improves the efficiency and likelihood for rendering a successful judgment call.

Quality and dependability There are still many questions about the repeatability and dependability of this type of approach. As is the case with all measurement techniques, the sample collection practice can have a significant impact on data usefulness.

As sensor proximity to the point of emanation improves, the quality and dependability of the technique improves.

Signal intensity declines as the sensor placement is moved away from the point of signal generation and across mechanical interfaces. Where interface metals are dissimilar, signal loss increases.

Equipment owners can overcome datacollection issues with the use of remotely-mounted sensors and stud-mounted locking sensors. Unfortunately, close proximity is a challenge. Metallic or plastic guards and overs of ten obstruct the load zone for shaft bearings. These require modification to gain proximity, which requires planning, approval of work orders and time during outages.

Further complicating matters are differences between machine speeds, loads, bearing sizes and capacity to manage overloading and the normal surface compression that occurs with EHD film formation, which all complicate signal interpretation. There is no clear parallel between ultrasonic analysis for lubricant film effectiveness measurement and pattern recognition from routine vibrationbased monitoring (imbalance, misalign-

ment, shaft straightness, looseness, etc.).

Instrument vendors have aggressively promoted the fundamental technology as being simplistic enough that cursory observation of audible and visual indicators is adequate to achieve precise adjustments in lubrication. Technicians can clearly see and hear something, but without recognizing the layers of variables it is possible to either fail to recognize or mistakenly insert meaning into the readings. In the absence of clearly defined patterns, the discrepancies are difficult to identify. The mechanism to overcome uncertainty is to fully vet data collection to deliver the component’s maximum signal intensity to the data logger/collector.

The bearing manufacturing community has not yet provided documentation that defines the single best practice that may be broadly applied to element-bearing lubricant film meas urement. Documentation is expected to occur following adequate collection and analysis of data.

Summary Ultrasonic energy measurement can be a highly useful tool to optimize bearing lubrication volumes and intervals. It is vitally important to have repeatable data-collection methods defined that include collection of the data from the correct physical location on the bearing or machine component. Physical modification to ex-

isting guards may be needed to assure correct results. There is no clear and simple corollary between frequency and pattern recognition from broadbased vibration analysis practices and ultrasonic energy programs, but with a well-defined program and a proper data-collection technique in place, a step-by-step routine can be followed that provides the lubrication technician with a best possible replenishment routine.

Reprinted with permission from the June 2012 issue of TLT, the official monthly magazine published by the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers, an international not-for-profit technical society headquartered in Park Ridge, Illinois (USA).

John Ward Mike Johnson

Mike Johnson, CLS, CMRP, MLT II, MLA III, is the principal consultant for Advanced Machine Reliability Resources, in Franklin, Tenn. You can reach him at mike.johnson@ precisionlubrication.com

John Ward, Jr., MLT II, MLA II, is a senior reliability engineer with AMMRI. You can reach him at john.ward@ precisionlubrication.com

What is Tribology?

Tribology is the science and engineering of interacting surfaces in relative motion. It includes the study and application of the principles of friction, lubrication and wear.

The tribological interactions of a solid surface’s exposed face with interfacing materials and environment may result in loss of material from the surface. The process leading to loss of material is known as “wear”. Major types of wear include abrasion, friction (adhesion and cohesion), erosion, and corrosion. Wear can be minimized by modifying the surface properties of solids by one or more of “surface engineering” processes (also called surface finishing) or by use of lubricants (for frictional or adhesive wear).

Estimated direct and consequential annual loss to industries in the USA due to wear is approximately 1-2% of GDP. (Heinz, 1987). Engineered surfaces extend the working life of both original and recycled and resurfaced equip-

ments, thus saving large sums of money and leading to conservation of material, energy and the environment. Methodologies to minimize wear include systematic approaches to diagnose the wear and to prescribe appropriate solutions.

Important methods include: • Terotechnology, where multidisciplinary engineering and management techniques are used to protect equipment and machinery from degradation (Peter Jost, 1972) • Horst Czichos’s systems approach, where appropriate material is selected by checking properties against tribological requirements under operating environment (H. Czichos, 1978) • Asset Management by Material Prognosis - a concept similar to terotechnology which has been introduced by the US Military (DARPA) for upkeep of equipment in good health and start-ready condition for 24 hours. Good health monitoring systems combined with appropriate

remedies at maintenance and repair stages have led to improved performance, reliability and extended life cycle of the assets, such as advanced military hardware and civil aircraft.

In recent years, micro- and nanotribology have been gaining ground. Frictional interactions in microscopically small components are becoming increasingly important for the development of new products in electronics, life sciences, chemistry, sensors and by extension for all modern technology Nanotribology is a branch of tribology which studies friction phenomenon at the nanometer scale (see nanotechnology, nanomechanics). The distinction between nanotribology and tribology is primarily due to the involvement of atomic forces in the determination of the final behavior of the system.

Source: Wikipedia JoP, April-June 2012

47

Asset Reliability

20 minutes with…

Dr. Ashlie Martini

Karl M Phipps, Managing Editor

Dr. Ashlie Martini

From student member to board member, this young researcher is mentoring the next generation of tribologists.

Education

• Doctorate, mechanical Engineering – northwestern university, Evanston, Ill., 2007 • Bachelor’s of Science, mechanical Engineering – northwestern university, Evanston, Ill., 1998

TLT: how were you fi rst introduced to tribology?

Martini: My first exposure to tribology was limited until I returned to graduate school at Northwestern to work on my doctorate in mechanical engineering. I had been out of academics for several years and was exploring which areas would be best to continue my education. I chose tribology because my early impression of it (which was later proven correct) was one of a versatile field with many opportunities for involvement in diverse and stimulating research.

Now that I am teaching at a university, I want to ensure that students become aware of tribology long before they enter graduate school. Introducing tribology as its own undergraduate class is not usually feasible, given the already high number of basic engineering courses required for students to receive their degree. However, there are opportunities within those basic courses to introduce students to topics in tribology (for example, discussing viscosity in fl uid dynamics or bearings in component design, among others). One of my goals as a college instructor is to make sure that the students in my classes (and others whenever possible) know generally what tribology is and are aware of it as a career path.

Academic Experience

• Assistant Professor, Engineering, university of california-merced, merced, calif., august 2011-Present • Assistant Professor, mechanical Engineering, Purdue university, west Lafayette, Ind., august 2008-august 2011 • Visiting assistant Professor, mechanical Engineering, Purdue university, west Lafayette, Ind., august 2007-July 2008 • Graduate research assistant, northwestern university, Evanston, Ill., august 2002-July 2007 Non-Academic Experience

• Information Technology consultant, deloitte consulting, chicago, Ill., June 1998-July 2002 Stle Activities

• Board of directors (may 2011-Present) • Nanotribology Technical committee, vice chair (may 2010-Present) • ASmE/STLE International Joint Tribology conference Planning committee (October 2008-Present) • Young Tribologist committee, Founder and chair (2008-2011)

TLT: how did you get involved with stle?

Martini: My first exposure to STLE was as a student attendee at the annual meeting. I started by just attending and then moved on to presenting posters and giving oral presentations. Now I try to be involved in as many aspects of the organization as possible. I really believe that STLE is going in all the right directions, and I want to be a part of the society’s continued growth and success.

TLT: as the founder and chair of stle’s young tribologist Committee, can you tell us how it got started?

Martini: The Young Tribologist Committee was formed after I approached Robert Bruce, STLE’s 2008-2009 president, about developing STLE programs that focused on students and early-career tribologists. After further discussions, I was tasked by STLE to help organize the YTC. At that time, although people were aware of the importance of developing the next generation of tribologists, there was no specific group targeted to this demographic of the society’s membership. A few years later, I’m thrilled that STLE now has developed many programs and activities specifically for students, including offering awards to selected, qualified applicants to attend STLE-sponsored meetings and conferences, the student poster competitions, as well as organizing professional network-

ing events at the annual meeting. In addition, it’s great to see the student poster abstracts published in TLT, too. Most important, all of these activities couldn’t be done without the tremendous support and efforts by the society’s headquarters staff.

TLT: What is a typical work-day like for you and what do you enjoy most?

Martini: What I do varies quite a bit from day-to-day. Things on my task list include (1.) planning and teaching undergraduate courses, (2.) mentoring my graduate students in their research, (3.) writing grant proposals, (4.) writing journal papers, (5.) preparing presentations and, of course, contributing to STLE. What I am doing on a given day usually consists of some combination of those things that are most pressing. But I really love most aspects of my job. Generally speaking, I would say I get the most gratification out of sharing knowledge, be it through directly teaching, mentoring or participating in various STLE activities.

That sounds somewhat cliché, but honestly there is nothing better.

TLT: Why do you study nanotribology?

Martini: Although tribology is complex on any length scale, for many macroscopic problems, the field has developed to the point where an engineer can make reliable predictions about behavior of a standard tribological interface. However, many of the design tools available to that engineer are empirical and often limited to a relatively small set of conditions.

My primary motivation for studying nanotribology is as a means of developing a better understanding of the physical mechanisms underlying observed phenomena. By focusing on very small length and time scales, I hope to be able to hone in on more fundamental and general principles of rolling and sliding. The goal is to be able to say, “We may not have worked with this particular tribological interface before, but we know which principles apply and are well positioned to take advantage of it for design.”

TLT: Why do you use molecular dynamics simulations to study nanotribology?

Martini: Molecular dynamics is a numerical technique, like many others that tribologists might use such as finite el-

“As a college instructor, my goal is to make students know what tribology is and are aware of it as a career path.”

ement analysis, except that it captures things that happen on very small scales.

Nanotribology is the study of nanoscale interface phenomena, so it is important to use a modeling tool that can capture what is happening on those length scales. With molecular dynamics simulation, we model how atoms and molecules move. We set up a model based on what we know about those molecules and use the simulation to predict how the system will evolve over time.

formulation and tribosystem design?

Martini: I certainly hope so! That is the goal that we are all working toward. Tribology is such a complicated combination of different engineering disciplines. Developing models that are useful as predictive design tools is no easy task. However, even in the relatively short time I have been in the field, I have seen significant growth in collaboration between tribologists with different educational backgrounds.

There are two important roles these simulations play that complement experimental measurements: (1.) They help explain experimentally observed behaviors and (2.) They make predictions about what might happen under circumstances that either can’t be or haven’t yet been measured. For example, one can measure the sliding friction between two materials separated by a nanoscale gap and characterize how that friction changes with conditions such as load or speed. The role of a model, in that case, could be to explain what the atoms and molecules of the surfaces and the lubricant are doing that causes variations in friction. The experimental techniques available to study nanotribology are truly amazing, but their reach can be extended significantly by a modeling effort that helps explain what’s going on inside the interface.

I really believe a multidisciplinary approach is the key to development of useful design tools. There are breakthroughs that can be made through collaboration between a mechanical engineer and a chemist that might not even have been considered by either of them individually. Tribology is a field where important expertise may be tucked away where we don’t think to look for it, and bringing together those insights from different fields is a challenge.

TLT: Mechanical engineers can rely upon a variety of proven models for machine design and control. Do you think tribologists will ever develop a similar set of tools for lubrication

But in the end, it will leave us with a better fundamental understanding of the science and a set of practical design tools usable in a wider array of applications.

You can reach Ashlie Martini at amartini@ucmerced.edu.

Reprinted with permission from the June 2012 issue of TLT, the official monthly magazine published by the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers, an international not-for-profit technical society headquartered in Park Ridge, Illinois (USA).

JoP, April-June 2012

49

Asset Reliability

STLE Certification What Does It Mean?

In a word-trust. You can trust that a STLE-Certified individual is qualified to handle your lubrication program.

Dr. Robert M. Gresham / Contributing Editor

T

he last few years have been a pretty rough time for people in U.S. Manufacturing industries.

certificate verifi es that the individual took the course and passed the test. This is not a certification.

Despite the typical recessionary pressures to cut costs and increase market share, quality from design to fi nal assembly cannot suffer. Indeed, recessionary pressures highlight the need for maintaining high quality standards to remain competitive.

A true certifi cation seeks to measure whether the individual has the experience, insight and factual knowledge to solve realworld problems. Thus, certifi ed individuals usually have not only taken many courses and read many books on the subject but also have spent a number of years in a manufacturing operation gaining real-world experience and honing their problem-solving skills. Thus, in a true certification, an individual demonstrates this needed experience and proves his knowledge and problem-solving capabilty through a rigorous examination process. This describes STLE’s Certified Lubrication Specialist (CLS), Oil Monitoring Analyst (OMA I or II) and Certified Metalworking Fluids Specialist (CMFS) certifications.

Manufacturers for such OEM industries as automotive, agricultural, military, engine (gasoline, diesel and gas turbine), aerospace and the parts suppliers to these companies frequently turn to such outside vendors as chemical management suppliers, outside test laboratories and consultants to keep employee rolls and capital investment to a minimum. In addition, they need to mitigate risk and demand top quality performance by assuring their own employees and the people they hire from the outside have the best, most qualifi ed people on site—and back in the laboratory supporting their work.

How do users of lubricants, metalworking fl uids, test labs and consultants know that their employees or suppliers are really competent to do the job correctly? Worse yet, how many mistakes (sometimes very costly mistakes) have to be made before they know whether their own employees, chemical managers or consultants should be The Problem Solver— the go-to person to whom they can trust their operations and capital equipment? The answer is much easier if the in-house problem solver or the supplier can demonstrate that they have earned the appropriate STLE certifi cation documenting their competency in the needed skills, experience and insight.

Certificate Versus Certification What is certification? The certifi cation process is different from the many certifi cate programs that exist. With certifi cates, an individual most often takes a classroom or online course and then takes a test on the material presented. The

What are these certifications?

The CMFS certifies the individual to evaluate and select the proper MWFs to use, as well as the appropriate fluid control measures. This individual controls inventories, conducts surveys, trains operating personnel, recommends operating parameters and fluid-handling equipment and troubleshoots MWF applications on the shop floor. Facilitating effective communication between fluid suppliers, end-users, peers and other stakeholders is an essential function of a CMFS. This individual has a basic knowledge of fluid chemistry, machining processes, tooling, filtration, metallurgy and waste treatment.

OMA I certifies the individual who conducts first-echelon oil monitoring and analysis as it applies to lubrication analysis and machine condition monitoring. The emphasis of this exam is the routine operation of an oil analysis program.

OMA II certifies the individual who conducts secondechelon oil monitoring and analysis, as it applies to lubrication analysis and machine condition monitoring. The emphasis

The CLS certifies the individual who might be designated a lubrication engineer by his or her employer. This is an individual who evaluates and selects the proper lubricants to use. He or she assists in the purchasing and specifying of these products, conducts lube surveys, trains lubrication personnel and establishes lube frequencies on all equipment. This individual also designs and modifies lube-dispensing equipment, develops quality assurance and used lubricant analysis programs, oversees waste control and, of course, troubleshoots lubrication problems on the shop floor.

tion for Competency Assurance and

by ISO 17024. These best practices include such issues as the establishment of a committee of industry-recognized subject matter experts who rigorously define the scope, requirements and skills of a typical certification holder. Committee members define a body of knowledge of peer-reviewed documents from which examination questions are drawn where possible.

They assure that the examination process is fair, equitable and confidential.

Further, through the help of a qualified psychometrician, the committee assures a process of continuous improvement of the individual examination questions and maintains a process for assuring the reliability and validity of the examination.

Can the industry trust STLE’s certifications? STLE’s certification programs are overseen by a certification board that assures the programs are uniformly administered consistent with the best certification practices as recognized by the National Organiza-

STLE’s certification programs measure and document knowledge, experience, insight and competency in the field. As a measure of this competency, Lubes ‘N’ Greases magazine has documented, through its salary surveys, that STLE certification

of this exam is on the design, implementation, control and management of an oil analysis program.

holders command higher salaries.

Thus, STLE’s certification programs provide a popular industry service by assuring users of lubricants, MWFs, test labs and consultants that they can have confidence that their employees or suppliers are truly competent to do the job correctly.

Reprinted with permission from the June 2012 issue of TLT, the official monthly magazine published by the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers, an international not-for-profit technical society headquartered in Park Ridge, Illinois (USA).

Bob Gresham is STLE’s director of professional development.

You can reach him at rgresham@stle.org. " TSI ( Tribology Society of India ), in association of STLE USA, organises this certification programme every year. For details please see website: www.tribologyindia.org or contact Mr Ashok K Mehta, ED TSI (mehta.tsi@gmail.com ) "

TSI conducted 1st STLE certification program in India First Stle Certification Programme in Tribology in conducted by TSI on, 2325 Th April 2012 At IiPM, Gurgaon Tribology Society of India (TSI) has been serving the Indian Tribology community since its inception by promoting the awareness and practice of Tribology through various technical programmes, tribological activities, courses, National and International conferences etc. Leveraging on the strength and experience gained over the past three decades, TSI entered into a pioneering collaboration with Society of Tribologists & Lubrication Engineers (STLE), USA, in 2009 to promote professional education and training in Tribology in India.

In continuation of our past successful ventures with STLE, TSI organized 1st TSI-STLE Certification Program in Tribology, during 23-26 April 2012 in Gurgaon (Haryana), India. This proved to be a golden opportunity for the industry, Lubricant End Users, Equipment OEMs, Oil Analysis Personnel, Consultants, Lubricant Suppliers and R&D

personnel to enhance their knowledge and understanding of Tribology through close interaction with renowned experienced Tribologist Mr. Ray Thibault, faculty of the course. The successful participants who passed the examination at the end of STLE s certificate course, were declared “Certified Lubrication Specialist (CLS)” and awarded certificate to this effect by STLE.

There were 27 participants for the CLS Class taken by Mr. Ray Thibault. The STLE Certification Examination was taken by 28 participants including 27 for CLS and 1 for CMFS. The participants represented almost all segments of lube industry, including Lube Additive, Industrial R&D, Bearing Industry, Lube Manufacturers, Oil PSU Technical Services and user industry.

JoP, April-June 2012

51

CSR

ONGC – A company that cares The Maharatna PSU earned a net profit of Rs 18924 Crore during FY 2010-11 ONGC contributes 2% of its profit for CSR activities

O

NGC- the Maharatna PSU, is amongst the largest E&P companies as per Platts Top 250 Global energy companies’ list. ONGC contributes 60% of India’s Oil and gas with cumulative production of 1430 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent (MMToe).

ONGC has discovered six of the seven producing basins in India and holds 73% of the hydrocarbon reserves of the country. It truly is India’s energy anchor.

The Maharatna PSU earned a net profit of Rs18924 Crore during FY 2010-11, a rise of 13% over last years’s figure.

ONGC is not only working towards reducing the country’s burden of oil imports through its exploratory endeavours, but it also contributes2% of its profit for CSR activities in and around its operational areas. It has taken up several projects as a part of is ongoing CSR initiatives.

Varisthajana Swasthya Sewa Abhiyan ‘Health Care’ forms one the prime focus areas of ONGC which has led to the introduction of major CSR initiatives envisaged to improve access to preventive, promotive and curative ‘health for all’ across India. The most widespread and comprehensive health care program running across 20 different locations in India is the ‘Varishthajana Swasthya Sewa Abhiyan’ aimed at the growing population of elderly in India, currently estimated at 90 million.

Two-thirds of this elderly population lives in rural areas where health care is often inadequate and inaccessible.

ONGC has joined hands with HelpAge India to expand the outreach of community based health services to destitute elderly persons in rural areas through Mobile Medicare Units.

The program was initiated in May 2010 to be run in 20 different locations at the following operational sites of ONGC including North-East (Silchar, Geleky, Jorhat, RDS Area, Lakwa Area, Agartala), East (Bokaro and Kolkata); Ankleshwar, Hazira and Vododara,) and South (Rajahmundry, Karaikal, Kakinada) All the 20 Mobile Medicare Units are operational and a total of 2, 23, 611 treatments have been provided for across the country under this scheme (as on 31st December, 2011).

ONGC-NSTFDC: Hathkargha Prashikshan This CSR project aims to economically empower the tribal handloom artisans (women/youth) in and around ONGC’s operational locations in Sibasagar, Majuli, Jorhat and Golaghat in Assam. This project is a collaborative attempt by ONGC and National Scheduled Tribe Finance and Development Corporation (NSTFDC) aimed at livelihood development for the economically marginalized tribal population in this region.

The main objective of the program is empowering the tribal handloom artsans by upgrading their existing skill, developing entrepreneurship and providing marketing support.

The training program which is of 300 hours/3 months duration on skill development for 100 beneficiaries has been completed. Implemented by Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship, the program was conducted with the help of dif-

ferent NGOs by using their training infrastructure.

ONGC-GICEIT to provide free job/ entrepreneurship oriented Computer Education The main objective of this initiative is to help students in the weaker sections of the community irrespective of caste, creed and religion to become computer literate and secure placement in the job market with full confidence to face the interviews.

Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan is a premium NGO of national repute. Bhavan’s Gandhi Institute and Oil and Natural Gas corporation Ltd. Have jointly taken up the project to provide free job/ entrepreneurship oriented Computer Education in India to benefit the youth candidates belonging to the low income group. Under the aegis of Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, the Gandhi Institute of computer Education and information.

Technology (GICEIT) was launched in July 1996 to provide free Computer Education Programme in India to benefit the low-income group. The project involves setting up and running five centers named as ‘ONGC Gandhi Institute of Computer Education & Information Technology’ at ONGC work centers at Dehradun, Sibsagar, Mehsana, Karaikal and Rajahmundry. Out of these, two

ONGC believes in sustainable business practices and inclusive growth of communities wherever it operates. These beliefs are anchored in its sound and clearly articulated policies and CSR initiatives.

Geleky in Assam. Teacher will be a local educated youth, preferably a lady as a teacher selected on advice of Gram Samiti. The project will impart education to the children of 6 to 14 years age group daily for 3 hours at a common place in the village.

ONGC is a global operator that cares for its stakeholders.

ONGC- Vasudev Kutumb initiative for value education in 20 schools at Dehradun

centers have already been launched at Dehradun and Sibsagar while the other three will be commencing soon. The project reaches out to over 3600 beneficiaries over the duration of 3 Years.

Education essentially consists of two components, academic education and value education. While academic education is good for one to attain a good “standard of living”, value education is vital for one to achieve a good “standard of life”, meaning to live a humane and meaningful life. The schools are taking care of the academic part and for the value education, the children learn by observing family, role models and teachers.

While academic education is more in the area of “information”, value education concentrates on “transformation”,

ONGC Gram Ekal Vidyalaya ONGC and Bharat Lok Siksha Parishad have joined hands to execute the project “ONGC Ekal Vidyalaya” for Tribal and Rural areas in the state of Assam” with the purpose of reaching the community with alternative educational initiatives.

The objective of the project is to reach out to the rural and the tribal areas with ‘One School One teacher’ concept. This aims to promote awareness towards health and hygiene and to promote innovative learning through songs, storytelling, games, art and yoga.

The project envisages setting up of 30 ‘One teacher one school’ low cost model Ekal Vidyalayas in Lakwa and

ONGC through its collaboration with Vasudev Kutumb has decided to emphasize on the importance of value education as National Activity by providing value education to as many as 5000 children taken from more than 70 schools through annual activity “LAKSHYA” and regular monthly session in schools.

Source: CSR Vision

Parliamentary panel for mandatory 2% spending on CSR A Parliamentary panel has suggested that 2 per cent spending by corporates on CSR activities in the new Companies Bill should be made mandatory to prevent them from escaping the liability by citing one reason or the other.

three years’ average profit towards CSR activities.

“The clause seems to provide a security valve for companies by stating... that if a company fails to meet the desired standard, it may get away by providing the reason.

However, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs seemed in no mood to make the clause mandatory and said it would only discourage companies.

Such a statement may, in practice, defeat the very purpose of clause 135,” the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance said in its report on Companies Bill 2011.

Clause 135 of the Bill prescribes that every company with a networth of Rs 500 crore or more, or turnover of Rs 1,000 crore or more, or net profit of Rs 5 crore and above in a fiscal will have to spend 2 per cent of

In case, a company fails to spend the 2 per cent prescribed, it would have to explain to the shareholders the reason for such a failure.

“Keeping in view the need for balancing of various interests involved, the provisions on CSR as provided in clause 135 of the Bill... appear to be reasonable.. The broad objective is to instil the spirit of CSR amongst corporate sector. The provisions, therefore, may be retained as proposed,” the MCA said.

It added that the provisions would be reviewed after enactment of the legislation and watching the experience of companies covered under the clause.

Also, to make sure that there are not loose ends in the clause, the Committee has suggested that “Clause 135(5) of the Bill mandating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) be modified by substituting the words ‘shall make every endeavour to ensure’ with the words ‘shall ensure’“.

The Committee recommended that it should also be provided CSR activities of the companies are directed in and around the area they operate.

In his dissent note, Member of Parliament Mr Gurudas Kamat said: “It is a well-perpetuated fallacy that corporate are run on the promoters’ or shareholders’ funds alone. The fact of the matter is that most of the capital required by corporate — both long-term and medium-term is provided by the banking/financial system, which is operated out of the public funds”.

Source: Economic Times. New Delhi

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CSR

CSR

A Lawful Conformation Today The hardened cynics amongst us would deem the social connotation of corporate behavior a paradox. The debate today has graduated form granting adequate recognition to CSR as a nation to CSR as a notion to CSR becoming a lawful conformation. The ideology of ‘giving as an obligation versus giving as a charity’ needs to stand the test of time. CSR today has advanced from a phenomena to a concept, has moved on from an abstraction, a mere appearance to a belief with supposition of a lot of credence. Further, CSR as a concept is now evolving into an industry as consultants and enterprises are emerging, offering CSR services to business. Some of these services pertain to social auditing and reporting as well as ‘risk assessment’ services. We need to investigate further to find out how and why CSR classifies itself from just a popular perception, a passing fad, to a fundamental pillar of evolving business strategies. Further, we also need to quantify the positive impact of CSR and question how sound and robust a framework of all round development does it promise to push sustainable development towards to ultimate achievable limits.

Dr U D Choubey Director General, SCOPE, New Delhi

T

he business community is an expression of major economic, social and to a great extent, political force. It is smart, sharp, astute, farsighted, pioneering, immensely resourceful and totally in sync with the entrepreneurial pulse of the world. Trust it to unscramble various evolving business strategies, try and test them continuously with a view towards pushing profitability to new heights while maintaining a comfortable social standing. Its challenge is to stay true to their raw mercenary instincts while answering the social calls. So how much is interested this business community in CSR? In what sequence do they prioritize their objectives of different flavours, economic, social and environmental? What and which percentage of this community believes in ‘the business of business being just business?

There is undeniable friction between strong proponents of CSR as a tool to further the social obligations of business and see social problems as economic opportunities, and the ones who adhere to Milton Friedman’s assertion that the “social responsibility of businessmen is to increase its profits”.

It is the latter view that is found socially and environmentally unstable.

Different countries stand at different juncrures when faced with the CSR and sustainability matrix. While undoubtedly the world faces social and environmental crisis indiscriminately, a frequent question which plagues our minds is “should the onus and subsequent cost of incorporating CSR and Sustainability be shared equally? The economically and

socially developed countries have been exploiting natural and human resources unwarrantedly. Colonialism and later new-colonialism have served their purpose of empowering the already powerful.

As such, 25% of the world’s population consumes 75% of the energy and one American child requires thirty times the resources of an Indian child. India, is a developing country.

Its strategic Asian location has constrained it’s geo-political and economic implications to that of a struggling economy since its independence. Today, it can’t be denied its right to develop which requires 9% growth rate per year, which in turn entails substantial and commensurate claim to natural, and human resources.

Nevertheless, it can’t shy away from its accountability in carrying forward the sustainable development responsibilities. Gradual strengthening has ensured that the fundamentals of its economy are healthy and resilient enough to insulate the country from harsher repercussions of recurrent global recessionary trends. The corporate world’ is thriving in the right business atmosphere with policies conducive to rapid development. It is time now for them to look at the other side of the fence and usher into an era, which tries to undo the damage done by unscrupulous scramble for limitless exploitation of finite resources and environment.

India is a surging economy juggling high growth with issues related to poverty, child rights, community welfare etc

Breaking CSR down, it can mean either of the two.

ONE Over-riding fixation with the philanthropic ideals, so much so that the economic objectives become parallel if not subservient to the social and environmental ones, inviting obligatory/compelling compliance.

This idea is driven by the need for addressing global environmental, social and economic concerns as soon as possible.

TWO

and hence is a hotbed for an innovative CSR scenario, which is still shaping up. A measured and balanced approach calls in a sincere effort towards building up of responsible entrepreneurship and transposing the best global practices of sustainable development into the developing country setting. And it is no more an option or a matter of choice.

Given the time line, we are placed anywhere but close to comfort levels and the time to start is now.

While there is no doubt that CSR has not only found popular acknowledgement and acceptance amongst the biggest and elitist corporate circles, the striking revelation is that today, it has garnered enough attention, comprehension and debate to justify its viability as a mandatory strategy. The KPMG International survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2005 showed that voluntary reporting on sustainability is on the increase across all the countries. Sustainability Reporting is emerging as a key vehicle to implement CSR and measure its progress in organizations.

In other words, corporates are comfortably ahead in this dialogue to at least understand that non-conformation of their core business practices with CSR can be penalized in the form of losing their ‘license-to-operate’. In light of the increasing critique of their economic activities within the last few years, concerning their social role. True enough, more and

more people are devoting time and resources to decode the ideology and are busy calculating its coefficient of correlation with the productive, profitable, commercially and financially remunerative aspects of the business sense.

Our contemporary way of life as a global community is not environmentally or socially sustainable.

Sustainable development The link between CSR and sustainable development is subject to much fruitful exploration. For example, the World Business council for Sustainable Development defines CSR rather succinctly as “the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the

The challenge in the India context lies in stripping CSR of its vagueness and establishing its strong network with sustainable development the clarity thus achieved should be encased in all legality to be enforceable such the there is an order in the scheme of things and that the entire corporate body follows a single code of conduct to move in the same direction. The following point cut a clear picture in what is required to make CSR a formidable tool.

Giving economic and profit making objectives an upper hand while following it up with the social objectives in a relaxed, pliable, voluntary, tailor-made to suit the particular entity, in which the entity is given total freedom and flexibility to choose its themes in social commitments as against the actual requirement of community / society.

quality of life the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.”

The underlying themes are human rights, worker rights, environmental impacts and community involvement and supplier relations. Sustainable Development essentially refers to the process of maintenance of the quality of environmental and social systems in the pursuit of economic development and aims to change to more sustainable forms of production and consumption. A great way to capture sustainable Development is to change business methods to endorse sustainability in stead of profitability as the prime objective.

Today, action in favour of CSR is not left as an option, it has rather become critical to our sustained existence. Our contemporary way of life as a global community is not environmentally or socially sustainable. Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand and businesses are not exempt from their share of responsibilities.

A) Bring about clarity in definition.

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Our contemporary way of life as a global community is not environmentally or socially sustainable.

Clear out myths which liken CSR with charity, corporate donations, sponsorship, other philanthropic activities without a proper structure and direction and that financial resources are enough to meet CSR and sustainability needs without bringing human resources in the equation.

B) As misplaced as it sounds, proper awareness and education is still lacking at the lower levels of personnel who are actually given the responsibility to carry forward a firm’s CSR and Sustainable development initiatives. CSR managers often have little or no background on CSR issues and are not trained and compensated adequately. Additionally, media can play a constructive role in furthering different aspects of CSR amongst a greater audience.

C) CSR as a subject or discipline should be made popular and essential at business schools and in colleges and universities to sensitize students about social and development issues and the role of CSR in helping corporate houses strike a judicious balance between their business and societal concerns. This in turn will encourage and motivate young minds, prepare them face future development challenges and help them work towards finding more innovative solutions to the concerns of the needy and the poor.

It is recommended that participation

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of professionals from the corporate sector, non-governmental organizations and business schools would be instrumental in ensuring youth participation in civic issues.

D) Similarly, SMEs should also be educated about CSR as a powerful tool and long-term investment rather than a short-term cost. Business strategy as CSR is no more just a mandate of big corporate houses.

They should be disciplined to look an expensive one.

E) Inculcate the system of sustainability reporting to keep all stakeholders, internal and external, involved and informed. Establish proper/reliable reporting and CSR progress.

In this context. Global Reporting Initiatives guidelines and sustainability reporting and CSR progress.

In this context. Global Reporting Initiatives guidelines and sustainability reporting have been developed and these should be adopted.

The KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2005 showed that voluntary reporting on sustainability is on the increase across all the countries. Sustainability Reporting is emerging as a key vehicle to implement CSR and measure its progress in organizations.

F) These companies continue to decide their own projects depending on a number of parameters. These efforts are driven purely by the company’s

operational perspectives and ease of implementation of their CSR projects. As there are a number of companies involved in CSR activities, it is recommended that an accreditation mechanism should be put in place for companies through an independent agency for mainstreaming and institutionalizing CSR in the main business framework of the companies.

G) Government should consider rewarding and recognizing corporate houses and their partner non-governmental organizations implementing projects that effectively cover the poor and the underprivileged.

Private sector could be incentivized to boost their social commitments by offering steady partnership with local administration, easy grant of 12A, 80G and Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license and other such fiscal incentives like projects. This will smoothen the process of initiating the individual CSR activities of corporate houses.

H) The concerns plaguing Rural India have to find a prominent place amongst the objectives under CRS activities. More often than not, these grass root level social deficits become subservient to urban and semi urban ones where infrastructure is comparatively conducive to such CSR initiatives.

I) The association of competitive advantage with CSR needs to be exhaustively researched, debated and advertised/popularized as an infallible business method. Secondly, it should be acknowledged, through various studies that the voluntary aspect of CSR is not effective enough to address the pressing global social and environmental needs in a sustained way because they lack a proper structure.

Dr U D Choubey is the Director General, SCOPE, New Delhi.

He may be contacted at choubeyud@yahoo.com Source: CSR Vision

Back2School: E&P

Fundamentals of E&P

The success of expensive oil projects hinges on the judgments of highly skilled engineers and geologists

G

oogle Earth and military reconnaissance photos are part of everyday life: Thanks to satellite and aerial mapping. We can all see what fills virtually every square kilometer of our planet’s surface.

But that only takes us skin-deep. Finding out what lies hundreds or thousands of meters be health the surface is much harder. It often just a matter of educated guesswork, even for experienced geologists.

That uncertainty provides much fodder for debate in university lecture thealres, but if you are working in the oil and gas industry. Knowing what’s down there is far from just an academic matter. Reservoir engineers, seeking to maximize the amount of oil or gas out of every cubic metre of rock, must make multi-million-dollar decisions based on tiny amounts of hare information.

It’s an empirical process. Once a well is drilled, they must listen to how the reservoir responds and adapt to events as quickly and creatively as possible. They develop a theory, act on it and test it. Then they get the result, interpret them and intervene to optimise their plan. But there is a degree of risk and uncertainty that they have to live with all the time.

Risk is inherent in all stages of the oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) process. Operation often takes place in remote locations and physically harsh environments, with little or no infrastructure. After Oil exploration: a brutally heavy industry requiring amazing finesse Discovery, oil must be brought to the surface, transported refined and delivered to the end user – safely, profitably and with out spillages.

And the financial stakes are very high: the bill for an offshore wildcat well – where the well planners have little knowledge of the subsurface geology – can easily run to $100 million.

In 2007, Brazilian oil company petro bras drilled one off the Brazilian coast the cost $240 million.

So how do you go from surveying dunes in a desert or waves on the ocean to the point of being prepared to spend $240

million finding out what lies beneath it? The short answer is: science and technology.

True, the first steps in the exploration process are political and commercial, not technical Development permits must be secured, and companies must carefully weigh up geological potential, political risk and the investment terms on offer before embarking on an expensive exploration campaign. Once those hurdles have been cleared the scientist’s move in, Technology cannot change geology, but it can – and has – improved the chances of finding oil and gas and, equally importantly, finding ways of producing it profitably.

When oil exploration began in the US, 150 years ago, drilling was mostly done around visible oil seeps at the Earth’s surface. Now E&P operations are common in waters far offshore in depths of over 2,000 metres and technology continues to push the boundaries of what can be commercially produced, in that century-and a-half. Millions of wells have been drilled and exploration techniques have been gradually refined, reducing the risk of drilling ad dry well the explorer’s nightmare-to as low as one in three or four.

The kit has got better, too. In the mid 19th century, wells were drilled by hammering steel pipe into the rock. Now, a rotary drilling bit – a revolving steel bit at the bottom of a string of pipe – grinds its way through the rock layers, lubricated by special drilling fluid.

But first, earth scientists must identify the night rocks. An oil field is like a sponge not some vast underground oil lake Oil and gas accumulate within porous rock formations in the earth’s crust over millions of years. A layer of impermeable rock on top stops the Oil and gas from escaping.

Geophysicist’s stat to identify suitable rocks by measuring their gravitational and magnetic: properties. Soft.

Sedimentary rocks, such as limestone, which are capable of holding hydrocarbons, are less dense than heavy, igneous rocks. Aero planes measure the earth’s gravitational

are lowered into the hole from the drilling rig – or derrick – and new sections of drill pipe are added, as the hole becomes deeper, telescoping down in ever-decreasing sizes. When the total depth of a well can amount to many kilometers that requires precision engineering. Oil exploration is a brutally heavy industry requiring amazing finesse.

Get drilling

pull: small daffiness caused by variations in the density of the underlying rocks provides vital clues about the geology. Variations in the earth’s magnetic field can provide useful data too. The less magnetic the better – sedimentary rocks are virtually non-magnetic.

This sort of evidence is enough for the petroleum industry’s earth scientists – geologist, geophysicists, geochemists and paleontologists to begin to build a picture of what the subsurface is likely to hold. But it’s nowhere near enough to be $100 million on, the next step is seismic surveying – which is where exploration starts to get really serious.

Seismic shocks Seismic surveying works by sending man-made seismic waves through subsurface rocks. By analyzing the speed and structure of the waves when they are refitted back to the surface, Scientists can gather information on what types of formation are down there.

Doing that can identify promising places to drill, but the evidence at this stage remains circumstantial. Drilling is the only way of getting hard proof that hydrocarbons are present. Lengths of drainpipe, tipped with the drill bit,

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When drilling starts, rock fragments flushed out by the drilling fluid – know as mud- are regularly sampled and examined by geochemists for traces of oil. As the well is drilled deeper, a more detailed picture is built up of the stratigraphic sequence out-lined by seismic, through a process called well logging. Derived form the word log in the sense of a record logging involves lowering a tool down the well on an electrical wire to measure the properties of the rock around the borehole.

The core measurement is resistivity- a process pioneered by brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger in 1927.

They measured the electrical resistivity of rock in oil wells to determine its nature and whether it could, theoretically, hold oil.

The measurement of the speed of sound along the borehole walls and the compilation of radioactivity logs also yield data on the thickness and depth of reservoirs and their probable content.

After a discovery has been made appraisal wells are drilled to determine the size and composition of the reservoir, which will consist of water plus oil or gas – often both.

The all-important question that the expiration company needs answered is whether the reservoir can be produced profitably.

There are lots of reasons why a discovery might not be economic even if oil and gas are present. The field might consist of multiple reservoirs and faults, which make it more difficult- and expensive-to produce from if it’s offshore it may not be practical to drill the necessary number of wells from one platform. Perhaps the oil is too thick and viscous to pump to the surface without special – and expensive – equipment.

Heavy duty After drilling, steel pipe called casing is set in the hole and is cemented into

tags of up to $100 million start being waved around it will not be economic to drill more than a few wells, so placement is the name of the game. In this situation, directional wells, which can be steered downwards, sideways, horizontally and even upwards, are often used.

In the right circumstances, they can prove a much more effective way of tapping an oil field than vertical wells.

place (see diagram). A heavy-duty system of valves called a Christmas tree is positioned at the wellhead to control the flow of the oil gas and water and prevent a blow-out high pressure down hole can cause oil and gas to spurt out of a well. Often with dangerous results The well casing is perforated at the ritht depths to make holes for the oil and gas to flow into the drilled shaft-or well bore – and up to the surface.

The first recovery phase is called primary recovery. Underground reservoirs of oil, gas and water are under considerable pressure and their contents flow naturally once perforated.

But eventually the reservoir runs out of natural energy and the oil needs a helping hand to move to the surface.

That’s where enhanced – recovery techniques come into play in some places, in –fill drilling will work sinking clusters of wells into the same area so the oil does not have to migrate as far through the rock to reach a wellbore. But in deep water, when price

The North Sea’s Clair field, off the Shetland Islands’ west coast, was discovered in 1977. But although chair was estimated to contain 5 billion barrels of oil – putting it on a par with the prolific Forlies field, a giant of the North Sea – BP had to wall 27 years to start developing it .

working offshore on the Sakhalin- 1 oil and gas project in Russia’s far east, drilled a well that broke records for both depth and horizontal displacement. Reaching down 12.35 kilometers, it also had a horizontal reach of 11.48 kilometers.

The end –game Once the field’s recoverable reserves are exhausted, infrastructure must be decommissioned. After years of intense exploration a wave of decommissioning is occurring in mature provinces such as the US and the UK North Sea. It has become imperative for decommissioning to be handled with the utmost sensitivity to the local environment. Yet. Once E&P teams are long gone, oil fields have another use: they can serve as storehouses for the carbon dioxide that is produced by fossil-fuel processes and removed through the evolving technology of carbon capture and storage (see p99). So they can be part of the future as well as part of the past.

The problem? Clair’s oil is contained in a very fractured reservoir and in the 1970s there was not way of producing commercially from any section of the field. Indeed, many experts predicted at the time that it would never be exploited. Improvements in seismic mapping and the arrival of horizontal drilling changed that.

Horizontal wells cut through a greater length of the reservoir and can link up isolated sections. Well for well, horizontal drilling is far more expensive than vertical drilling is far more expensive than vertical drilling. But in the right circumstances, productivity gains make the extra investment worthwhile.

The results can represent staggering technological feats. For example, in 2011 a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, JoP, April-June 2012

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Back2School: Refining

Distillation Troubleshooting

Distillation is a core refinery process that remains fundamental to economic operation. Successful job performance for process engineers and operators depends on quality distillation monitoring and troubleshooting.

D

istillation is the “bread and butter” of refinery process engineering. Nearly every operating unit has some form of distillation or fractionation column. Refinerlink has previously outlined the importance of properly monitoring and controlling refinery distillation.

Despite the importance of quality distillation, many operators and engineers have forgotten (or worse ignored) the principles of distillation.

But never fear, Mr. Distillation is back again to help remind everyone about key distillation principles and some quick distillation troubleshooting and monitoring techniques.

Distillation Fundamentals Distillation is simply the separation of molecules (or components) based on their relative volatility. Another way of thinking about it, distillation separates components based on their relative boiling points. Since chemicals or components such as gasoline, jet, and diesel boil at different temperatures distillation columns can separate mixed feed streams into distinct product streams.

Distillation columns are made of several distillation stages.

Each distillation stage can be thought of as a simple flash stage.

Flash separation is one of the simplest forms of separation. In each flash separation stage, vapor leaving the stage is assume to be at its bubble point and liquid leaving the stage is assumed to be at its dew point.

It’s important to remember that a vapor or liquid’s dew point is a function of the stream composition, temperature, and pressure. Since oil distillation isn’t as simple as two-component separation, it’s necessary to use equilibrium ratio or K factor to understand the relative volatility of separations. The K factor is the ratio of vapor moles and liquid moles in a separation

stage. When thinking about distillation basics it’s important to remember the basic fundamentals of the McCabe-Thiele method and Raoult’s Law. Practical Distillation Basics

1. Distillation must mass balance 2. Distillation must heat balance 3. Distillation must pressure balance The most important distillation basic is that in a distillation column mass cannot be created. While that shouldn’t be a surprise for most, this important fundamental can be used to help troubleshoot many operational problems.

Every distillation column should have a routine mass balance monitoring pro. This is as simple as calculating the mass into the column versus the mass out of the column. Mass balances can help engineers and operators verify that unit telemetry devices (orifice plates, flow meters, and level controls) are operating properly.

The second distillation basic is that a distillation column must be energy balanced. Nearly every distillation column has a reboiler and a condenser that adds and removes energy from the distillation column. This driving force creates the temperature gradient in the equilibrium flash stages to separate light and heavy molecules.

Mass balance the column. Engineers should have routine monitoring in place to understand the column mass balance. This can be used to diagnose faulty flow meters, level controllers, or lab/analyzers results. Reliance on good flow and level instruments is important for further troubleshooting efforts.

The principle of evergy balance is critically important for separation efficiency and quality. For instance, if a distillation column pump-around takes out to much energy, then the distillation will result in poor separation quality or no separation at all. Conversely, too much heat input to the column can be just as detrimental to separation efficiency.

Finally, an important distillation principle that is often over looked by operators and engineers is that the distillation column must pressure balance. Put another way, distillation column pressure gradients are important for understanding separation quality and efficiency.

Just like temperate, the gradient of pressure up and down the column is what allows for the gradient of compositions in the equilibrium flash stages.

Of all the above basic, pressure is often the easiest to monitor and diagnose because it takes the least amount of computational analysis. An engineer or operator can plug in a pressure gauge almost anywhere in a distillation column to understand the pressure gradient between stages (trays).

Distillation Troubleshooting Tips and Tools Don’t trust the instruments. Whenever possible, use basic tools to understand the temperature, pressure, and flow in the distillation column. Half the time the root problem in a distillation column is a faulty temperature, pressure, or flow reading.

Understand the column heat balance.

While this analysis is easy to conceptually understand, the practical application can be rather difficult. There are several layers to column heat balance.

A simple overall heat balance can be an invaluable tool. At minimum, a distillation column should have a good heat balance around the condenser, reboiler, rectifying section, and stripping section.

The ambitious engineer would also benefit from a tray by tray heat balance.

Temperate gradient survey. A “bootleg” energy balance can be achieved by monitoring the temperature gradient throughout the distillation column.

This can be achieved through internal or external shell temperature couples.

The most important aspect is to ensure that there is a temperature gradient down the distillation column. This ensures the that there is a separation gradient down the column as well.

Distillation temperature gradient.

Another simple monitoring method around the heat balance is to monitor the distillation temperature difference between products. By simply measuring the 95% point of the light component versus the 5% point of the heavy component an engineer can understand if the separation quality is changing over time. A deviation of “normal” can be a sign that something is wrong with the distillation process.

Understand the pressure balance. Routine monitoring of the pressure gradient between stages is critical to understanding the performance of a distillation column. It’s important to remember to measure pressure drop of the liquid in the column so don’t forget to calibrate the pressure readings to the specific gravity of the fluid in the column.

Higher than normal pressure drop can indicate flooding. Lower than normal pressure drop can indicate weeping. Both flooding and weeping significantly reduces the performance of a distillation column. Anoth-

er good idea is to understand the pressure drop as a ratio of the distillation column tray spacing. Anything greater than 25% probably means flooding.

Understand Reflux Ratio. Every distillation column has a critical vapor and liquid ratio in the rectifying section of the distillation column. Engineers and operators should understand the affects of varying reflux ratio on the distillation quality. Understanding “normal” can help diagnose problems when they arise. (But don’t forget the mass balance relationship) Understand Stripping Ratio. Similar to the reflux ratio importance, understanding the vapor and liquid ratios in the stripping section as function of heat input to the column can help diagnose distillation problems as they arise. (But don’t forget the mass balance relationship) X-Ray the distillation column. Depending on the size of the distillation column, X-Raying the distillation column can help an engineer understand the physical structure inside a column.

This can be very helpful when suspecting a mechanical defect or to aid with the other troubleshooting tips above.

Gamma Scan. Gamma Scanning is performed using a small radioactive source and a sensitive electronic detector. The source and detector are kept external to the tower and positioned on opposite sides at a fixed distance apart. Gamma rays travel from the source through the tower to the detector where they are counted.

A density profile is generated when gamma rays are moderated by the contents inside the vessel. Vapor allows more gamma rays to pass through and therefore appears less dense than a liquid or solid. This can be used to confirm the flooding, weeping, or physical damage inside a distillation column.

Distillation is probably the most important process in a refinery. Therefore, adequate control and monitoring are critical to the success of the refinery.

Distillation monitoring and troubleshooting help keep energy cost down and profits up. The importance of simple distillation can be illustrated by the economic penalty of burning propane in refinery process gas.

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Special Feature: Women in Business

Women Leaders of Indian Oil Industry Arpana Anand – The Petrofed Women Executive of the Year, 2011 Excerpts from the recent interaction of Ms Arpana with Team Petrotech Arpana Anand

Senior Project Manager (Telecom and Instrumentation), IOCL B. Sc. Engineering from B.I.T. Sindri As Senior Project Manager(Telecom & Instrumentation) at Pipelines Division Head Office of IndianOil, Ms. Arpana Anand is extensively involved in conceptualizing, designing, engineering of Pipeline projects spread across the country. She has been involved in Web page designing for the Projects wing of Telecommunication and Instrumentation department of Pipelines Headquarter of Indian Oil Corporation Limited and also in ensuring development and updation of systems with study of new technology and preparation of new specifications in the on – going projects. She has been monitoring the maintenance activities and she keeps strict vigil on any shutdown on daily basis for all pipeline location spread across country.

I

started my career in IndianOil as an Engineer Trainee in 1993.

Earlier, I worked with the then Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) for two years as Assistant Executive Engineer, and gained varied experience in Electronics and Communication. I joined IndianOil at Karnal, Haryana and worked in Kandla-Bhatinda Pipeline Project. Then I moved to Haldia for working for Haldia-Barauni Crude Pipeline Project and then to the Project Cell and Instrumentation Maintenance Department of Haldia Refinery.

During the 18 year span of my career, I have worked in the areas like Construction of Pipelines, Special Project Cell at Haldia Refinery, Instrument Maintenance at Haldia Refinery and Telecommunication and Instrumentation Projects in Pipelines Head Office.

I was keen to learn various aspects of technology and my involvement in various projects gave me a wide experience in project management in both Pipelines and Refineries technologies.

It was a great challenge to balance my work with family with two children. I had a great sense of achievement, when my persistent efforts led to the meeting

of several milestones at project front.

During my stint at Haldia Refinery, I was placed for six years in Special Project Cell for design, engineering, material procurement and implementation of Instrumentation and Distributed Control System in different in-house projects like NMP, Soaker and Vacuum distillation Unit. Thereafter, I got the opportunity to work in Instrument Maintenance and was in-charge of Planning and Workshop Maintenance of all Instrumentations and Programmable Logic Controller of Fire control station.

I was the coordinator of SAP, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Integrated Management System (IMS) and Training. I got the chance to play an important role in implementing SAP in Instrument Maintenance and was honored to be known as SAP expertise holders for my efforts in my department. I initiated the importance of SAP in preventive maintenance; indent/works tender preparation etc. and conducted training on Maintenance and Material module of SAP. I was actively involved in Instrument Workshop modernization with new Scandura Master Equipments/ bench for calibration of various instruments used in Refinery. As a team, we

A sportsperson, singer, dramatic, debater, social worker, trainer, homemaker, mother and competent engineer, successful manager, Arpana is a multifaceted bundle of rare talent in the male dominated oil industry.

Recently she won coveted Petrofed Women Executive of the Year Award-2011.

“Petrofed Women Executive of the Year, 2011” award - felicitated by Shri Jaipal Reddy, Hon’ble Minister, MoPNG, on 8th June, 2012 at Hyatt Regency, New Delhi.

chance to prove my aptitude for leadership in completing the maintenance activities in time and smoothly handing over the units to Operation group.

I was involved in the maintenance of prime safety gadgets like Closed Circuit TV spread all over the Refinery, Access Control system and Environment Monitoring gadgets like SOX Gas Analyzer, Total Hydrocarbon Gas Analyzer, RSPM(Respiratory suspended particulate matter@10micron) Analyzer, NOX Analyzer. I played a pivotal role in the implementation of these analyzers’ data on Management Desktop through LAN. My zeal to work towards Green and Clean Environment made me put thorough efforts in this direction.

Conducting programs at Pipelines-HO

Visiting Goonj for donating old clothes, toys, books and newspapers

First Prize in TT organised for Pipelines Division Head Office employees

also took initiative in repairing obsolete non-working Instruments/cards and thereby contributed to increase in Instrument availability and cost control to the tune of Rupees one crore per year.

Continuous maintenance work required substantial physical endurance from me and my team’s side. This was more visible when we were tasked with working for more than 12 hours daily during Total Shutdown of Refinery and got a

In Pipelines Division-Head Office, Noida, I worked in Project Monitoring cell and with Primavera tool, I contributed to project planning, scheduling and monitoring. I was involved in generation of MIS, preparation of presentation on project activities and Web designing for the department. I have been instrumental in developing and revisiting specification of Fire Fighting system facilities to meet the standards of the Oil Industry Safety Directorate.

I have also worked for pipeline projects across the country like PanipatBijwasan Naphtha Pipeline Project, Panipat-Tikrikalan Pipeline Project, and Paradip blending project, Augmentation of Barauni-Kanpur and ChennaiTrichy-Madurai Pipeline Project, Kolkata ATF Pipeline Project, Guwahati ATF Pipeline Project. In these projects, I have worked on design, engineering and specification/tender preparation for Instrumentation system and other related activities. In ATF lines, I have also worked in control system, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System) and Transient model based leak detection system (LDS) envisaged for the project. I have also initiated and created Web page (Web designing) of Telecom and Instrumentation department for online access of Standard specifications, Standard installation drawings, e-Engineering books, Telecommunication and Instrumentation data base of all Pipeline sections of IndianOil including stations, current status of all on –going projects, process maps of Integrated ManageJoP, April-June 2012

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ment System. My endeavors in preparing and standardizing 35 different kind of Instruments and accessories used in Pipeline stations and Telecom and Instrumentation database of all Pipeline section including stations have been appreciated as great step towards system improvement.

As faculty, I have conducted a workshop on “Express your mind” for women employees. I have spear headed many workshops and training programmes as WIPS (Women in Public Sector) Coordinator.

Apart from my career, I strongly believe in “giving back to the society” and I get immense pleasure by doing this. I have been a mentor to a tribal widow and her child at Ranchi by giving social security and financial support for furthering the education of her child. I also extended financial support for marriage of tribal girls, who worked as help in my house.

As Coordinator of WIPS (Women in Public Sector), we have arranged for Braille sheets for Blind children and specially abled children. As a member of support group, I took initiatives in providing various facilities to Orphanages in Noida under the Corporate Social Responsibility programme of IndianOil. It has always been my endeavor to act as bridge between the NGOs, working for upliftment of society, and the IndianOil. I take interest in the activities of World Wildlife Fund for Nature India and Oxfam, which are working towards a world without poverty and injustice.

Looking ahead, I feel proud to be a part of Global Energy Company – IndianOil. IndianOil has nurtured me to be innovative and caring towards society, Passionate towards my work. This great organization renders a platform to all its employees, to excel in different fields. Right from the beginning of my career in IndianOil, I have been given challenging opportunities where my hard work and determination made me cross all hurdles in my life. I remember, when I was picked up for Maintenance job in Haldia Refinery, my younger child was 6 months old and was very weak due to pre-matured delivery. I knew that Maintenance being men’s’ world, I would be required to work two times than my men counterpart but this didn’t deter me. In line with our Cor-

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Awarded Best Female Singer at Pipelines Division Head Office

Conducted workshop on “Express your Mind” for women employees

porate Values of Care, Passion, Innovation and Trust, I have always delivered in work front and have empathy towards the under privileged sections of society.

IndianOil has nurtured me immensely through training programmes like Cutting Edge Programme (Mini MBAespecially tailored for Middle Management Executive for 42 days – conducted

by Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad) and technical training on Programmable Logic Controller at Singapore. IndianOil has also given me opportunities to organize & conduct cultural events, participate in sports, music, elocution and other cultural activities. I find these programmes relaxing, as they are my hobbies as well.

My firmness and go getting attitude are two virtues which I have imbibed from the great Indian legend Mrs. Gandhi. I admire Mrs. Gandhi for her

determination to reach her goals, in spite of the hurdles she faced in her varied endeavour. There is no doubt, that it is the immense support of the IndianOil Management that in this world of business uncertainty and rapidly changing technology, I could contribute to my society while dealing with technological swing in career, ups and downs in day-to-day life.

I am grateful to my company- the IndianOil for their confidence in me, and for providing me opportunities and challenging assignments to enable me grow and excel into a multifaceted person. It however, would not have been possible without the encouragement of my parents, in-laws, and unfailing support of my husband and my children.

When I look back I feel blessed, to have been part of the extended family of IndianOil, which imbibes its core values of Care, Innovation, Trust and Passion in word and action.

TechScan Potential carbon capture role for new carbon dioxide-absorbing material

New carbon dioxide-removing catalyst For Separation of CO2 from Flue Gases

A novel porous material that has unique carbon dioxide retention properties has been developed through research led

by The University of Nottingham. The findings, published in Nature Materials, form part of ongoing efforts to develop new materials for gas storage applications could have an impact in the advancement of new carbon capture products for reducing emissions from fossil fuel processes.

Livermore’s new molecule to capture carbon dioxide from the flues of coal-fired power plants is designed to be tethered to a gaswater interface in the same way that these mosquito larvae cling to a water surface.

It focuses on the metal organic framework NOTT-202a, which has a unique honeycomb-like structural arrangement and can be considered to represent an entirely new class of porous material. Most importantly, the material structure allows selective adsorption of carbon dioxide—while other gases such as nitrogen, methane, and hydrogen can pass back through, the carbon dioxide remains trapped in the materials nanopores, even at low temperatures.

The current method of removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the flues of coal-fired power plants uses so much energy that no one bothers to use it. So says Roger Aines, principal investigator for a team that has developed an entirely new catalyst for separating out and capturing car-

Unique material

Lead researcher Professor Martin Schröder, in the University’s School of Chemistry, said: “The unique defect structure that this new material shows can be correlated directly to its gas adsorption properties. Detailed analyses via structure determination and computational modeling have been critical in determining and rationalizing the structure and function of this material.”

The research team—which is included Sihai Yang, PhD, Professor Alexander Blake, Professor Neil Champness, and Elena Bichoutskaia, PhD, at Nottingham—collaborated on the project with colleagues at the University of Newcastle and Diamond Light Source and STFC Daresbury Laboratory. NOTT-202a consists of a tetra-carboxylate ligands—a honeycomb-like structure made of a series of molecules or ions bound to a central metal atom—and filled with indium metal centers. This forms a novel structure consisting of two interlocked frameworks.

Innovative solutions

X-ray powder diffraction measurements at Diamond Light Source and advanced computer modeling were used to probe and gain insight into the unique carbon dioxide capturing properties of the material.

The study has been funded by the ERC Advanced Grant COORDSPACE and by an EPSRC Programme Grant ChemEnSus aimed at applying coordination chemistry to the generation of new multi-functional porous materials that could provide innovative solutions for key issues around environmental and chemical sustainability.

These projects incorporate multidisciplinary collaborations across chemistry, physics, and materials science, and aim to develop new materials that could have application in gas storage, sieving and purification, carbon capture, chemical reactivity, and sensing.

Source: The University of Nottingham

bon dioxide, one that mimics a naturally occurring catalyst operating in our lungs. With this success, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has become a leader in designing catalysts that mimic the behavior of natural enzymes.

This small-molecule catalyst, dubbed “Cyclen,” mimics carbonic anhydrase, which separates, captures, and transports carbon dioxide out of our blood and other tissues as part of the normal respiration process. Carbonic anhydrase is the fastest operating natural enzyme known. For years, researchers have considered adapting it to capture carbon emitted in industrial operations. But carbonic anhydrase cannot take the heat in the intense conditions of industrial processes. Hot, high-pH flue gas quickly degrades it.

The Livermore team’s best designer molecule behaves like carbonic anhydrase but has so far indicated that it is one tough cookie. “In fact,” Aines said, “it has turned out to be thermodynamically stable. It is far more rugged than we had expected.”

A team performing quantum molecular calculations led by computational biologist Felice Lightstone examined potential candidate molecules. They determined optimal designs to protect the essential zinc ion in the molecule that activates the catalyst. Synthetic chemist Carlos Valdez took the next step. Only about 2% of the computationally derived structures made it to the synthesis state. Newly synthesized molecules were tested by chemist Sarah Baker and her team to determine their kinetic behavior and stability. The team made nine catalysts in a year and a half. The name for the finalist comes from JoP, April-June 2012

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TechScan the chemical term for the ring around the zinc ion.

“Our tests effectively determined Cyclen’s chemical kinetics,” Aines said. “Pilot tests at the Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group in Ohio will push Cyclen to measure its industrial kinetics.”

The company, a supplier of steam-generation and environmental equipment for the electric utility market, will provide benchtop and full-scale testing and process modeling to determine how to implement Cyclen in new processes. A kilogram of the stuff is on its way to Babcock & Wilcox, which is plenty for use in its array of tests. One challenge with Cyclen remains. The catalyst is designed to create a monolayer that clings to a gas-water interface much as mosquito larvae do. However, the Cyclen layer is too thin and some of the carbon dioxide is able to pass through it without being captured. Aines is not worried. “We have demonstrated that quantum molecular calculations can translate into real-world results and that we can synthesize catalysts that do the job.”

Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Small solid oxide fuel cell reaches record efficiency Individual homes and entire neighborhoods could be powered with a new, small-scale solid oxide fuel cell system that achieves up to 57% efficiency, significantly higher than the 30 to 50% efficiencies previously reported for other solid oxide fuel cell systems of its size, according to a study published in this month’s issue of Journal of Power Sources.

“Solid oxide fuels cells are a promising technology for providing clean, efficient energy. But, until now, most people have focused on larger systems that produce 1 MW of power or more and can replace traditional power plants,” said Vincent Sprenkle, a co-author on the paper and chief engineer of PNNL’s solid oxide fuel cell development program. “However, this research shows that smaller solid oxide fuel cells that generate between 1 and 100 kW of power are a viable option for highly efficient, localized power generation.”

Sprenkle and his co-authors had community-sized power generation in mind when they started working on their solid oxide fuel cell, also known as a SOFC. The pilot system they built generates about 2 kW of electricity, or how much power a typical American home consumes. The PNNL team designed its system so it can be scaled up to produce between 100 and 250 kW, which could provide power for about 50 to 100 American homes.

What is an SOFC?

Fuel cells are a lot like batteries in that they use anodes, cathodes and electrolytes to produce electricity. But unlike most batteries, which stop working when they use up their reactive materials, fuel cells can continuously make electricity if they have a constant fuel supply.

SOFCs are one type of fuel cell that operate at higher tem-

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The smaller system, developed at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, uses methane, the primary component of natural gas, as its fuel. The entire system was streamlined to make it more efficient and scalable by using PNNL-developed microchannel technology in combination with processes called external steam reforming and fuel recycling.

PNNL’s system includes fuel cell stacks developed earlier with the support of DOE’s Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance.

peratures—between about 1100 and 1,800 F—and can run on a wide variety of fuels, including natural gas, biogas, hydrogen and liquid fuels such as diesel and gasoline that have been reformed and cleaned. Each SOFC is made of ceramic materials, which form three layers: the anode, the cathode and the electrolyte. Air is pumped up against an outer layer, the cathode. Oxygen from the air becomes a negatively charged ion, O2- , where the cathode and the inner electrolyte layer meet. The ion moves through the electrolyte to reach the final layer, the anode. There, the oxygen ion reacts with a fuel. This reaction creates electricity, as well as the byproducts steam and carbon dioxide. That electricity can be used to power homes, neighborhoods, cities and more.

The big advantage to fuel cells is that they’re more efficient than traditional power generation. For example, the combustion engines of portable generators only convert about 18% of the chemical energy in fuel into electricity. In contrast, some SOFCs can achieve up to 60% efficiency. Being more efficient means that SOFCs consume less fuel and create less pollution for the amount of electricity produced than traditional power generation, including coal power plants.

Sprenkle and his PNNL colleagues are interested in smaller systems because of the advantages they have over larger ones. Large systems generate more power than can be consumed in their immediate area, so a lot of their electricity has to be sent to other places through transmission lines. Unfortunately, some power is lost in the process. On the other hand, smaller systems are physically smaller in size, so they can be placed closer to power users. This means the electricity they produce doesn’t have to be sent as far. This makes

TechScan smaller systems ideal for what’s called distributed generation, or generating electricity in relatively small amounts for local use such as in individual homes or neighborhoods.

Goal: Small and efficient

be produced in the end. Lab tests showed the system’s net efficiency ranged from 48.2% at 2.2 kW to a high of 56.6% at 1.7 kW. The team calculates they could raise the system’s efficiency to 60 percent with a few more adjustments.

Knowing the advantages of smaller SOFC systems, the PNNL team wanted to design a small system that could be both more than 50% efficient and easily scaled up for distributed generation. To do this, the team first used a process called external steam reforming. In general, steam reforming mixes steam with the fuel, leading the two to react and create intermediate products. The intermediates, carbon monoxide and hydrogen, then react with oxygen at the fuel cell’s anode. Just as described before, this reaction generates electricity, as well as the byproducts steam and carbon dioxide.

Steam reforming has been used with fuel cells before, but the approach requires heat that, when directly exposed to the fuel cell, causes uneven temperatures on the ceramic layers that can potentially weaken and break the fuel cell. So the PNNL team opted for external steam reforming, which completes the initial reactions between steam and the fuel outside of the fuel cell.

The PNNL team would like to see their research translated into an SOFC power system that’s used by individual homeowners or utilities.

The external steam reforming process requires a device called a heat exchanger, where a wall made of a conductive material like metal separates two gases. On one side of the wall is the hot exhaust that is expelled as a byproduct of the reaction inside the fuel cell. On the other side is a cooler gas that is heading toward the fuel cell. Heat moves from the hot gas, through the wall and into the cool incoming gas, warming it to the temperatures needed for the reaction to take place inside the fuel cell.

According to researchers at the University of Freiburg in Germany, it is beyond dispute that carbon dioxide has an effect on global warming as a greenhouse gas. But we still pump tons and tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day.

Efficiency with micro technology

The key to the efficiency of this small SOFC system is the use of a PNNL-developed microchannel technology in the system’s multiple heat exchangers. Instead of having just one wall that separates the two gases, PNNL’s microchannel heat exchangers have multiple walls created by a series of tiny looping channels that are narrower than a paper clip.

This increases the surface area, allowing more heat to be transferred and making the system more efficient. PNNL’s microchannel heat exchanger was designed so that very little additional pressure is needed to move the gas through the turns and curves of the looping channels.

The second unique aspect of the system is that it recycles. Specifically, the system uses the exhaust, made up of steam and heat byproducts, coming from the anode to maintain the steam reforming process. This recycling means the system doesn’t need an electric device that heats water to create steam. Reusing the steam, which is mixed with fuel, also means the system is able to use up some of the leftover fuel it wasn’t able to consume when the fuel first moved through the fuel cell.

The combination of external steam reforming and steam recycling with the PNNL-developed microchannel heat exchangers made the team’s small SOFC system extremely efficient. Together, these characteristics help the system use as little energy as possible and allows more net electricity to

“There still are significant efforts required to reduce the overall cost to a point where it is economical for distributed generation applications,” Sprenkle explained. “However, this demonstration does provide an excellent blueprint on how to build a system that could increase electricity generation while reducing carbon emissions.” The research was supported by DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy.

Source: DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Posted In: R&D Daily

Green fuel from carbon dioxide and hydrogen

A research team at the Freiburg Materials Research Center (FMF) led by the chemist Prof. Dr. Ingo Krossing has now developed a new system for producing methanol that uses CO2 and hydrogen. Methanol can, for example, be used as an environmentally friendly alternative for gasoline. The goal of the scientists is to harness the power of CO2 on a large scaleand integrate it into the utilization cycle as a sustainable form of energy production.

In order to produce methanol, Krossing’s doctoral candidates combine the carbon dioxide with hydrogen in a high pressure environment, a process known as hydrogenolysis.

Doctoral candidate Elias Frei has already been conducting research onmethanol for several years.

“Our goal is to develop new catalyst systems and methods for accelerating the chemical reaction even more,” explains Frei.

The researchers at FMF use the metal oxides copper, zinc, and zirconium dioxide as catalysts, enabling the reaction to happen at lower temperatures. In this way, the gases don’t have to be heated as much. Together the catalysts form a socalled mixed system of surface-rich porous solid matter with defined properties. If the catalysts consist of nanoparticles, their activity is increased even more.

Frei and his colleague Dr. Marina Artamonova are also testing techniques in which the catalysts are impregnated with ionic liquids, salts in a liquid state that cover the catalyst like a thin film. They help to fix CO2 and hydrogen to the catalyst and remove the products methanol and water from it.

This conversion leads to the production of pure methanol, JoP, April-June 2012

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TechScan which is used as a component in the chemical industry and as a fuel. When used as an alternative to gasoline it is less dangerous and less harmful to the environment than conventional fuels. In around two years, the researchers aim to be able to produce methanol on a mass scale according to this technique.

Then the CO2 will be filtered out of the waste gas stream of a combined heat and power plant and used to produce methanol.

When methanol is burned in a motor, CO2 is released again.

If the same molecule were used twice, it would theoretically be possible to use 50% less CO2 to create the same amount of energy. The amount of methanol that could be converted from 10% of the yearly CO2 emissions in Germany would cover the country’s yearly fuel needs. Methanol is also used as a chemical means of hydrogen storage and could thus also be used to power the fuel cells of automobiles in the future.

The process, which uses carbon dioxide (CO2) as a biproduct, was recently discovered by James Liao of UCLA’s Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Chair in Chemical Engineering. Liao and his team genetically engineered a microorganism inside an electro-bioreactor to produce the liquid fuel isobutanol and 3-methyl-1-butanol. CO2 was also present whileelectricity provided the sole energy input.

Currently, electrical energy is still difficult to store efficiently. Chemical batteries, hydraulic pumping and water splitting either lead to low energy-density storage or else are not easily compatible with current transportation infrastructure.

“There is enough energy out there, but it needs to be stored,” says Frei. “As a sustainable means of energy storage, methanol has potential in a wide range of areas. We want to use that potential, because the storage and conversion of energy are important topics for the future.”

However, Liao said his new process offered a number of advantages. “The current way to store electricity is with lithium ion batteries, in which the density is low, but when you store it in liquid fuel, the density could actually be very high,” Liao said in a press statement.

Source: University of Freiburg, Posted In: R&D Daily

In addition, he said the liquid fuel could be introduced at the pumps as a direct replacement to gas, meaning there would be no need to change the way cars are produced.The UCLA team’s method actually mimics photosynthesis – the process by which plants convert sunlight into energy. Photosynthesis is divided into two parts – a light and a dark reaction. The light reaction converts light energy to chemical energy and needs sunlight. The dark reaction, which converts CO2 to sugar, can occur in the absence of sunlight.

Purdue University researchers develop cost-effective process for creating biofuels WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University researchers have developed a new cost-effective, high-yield process for converting biomass into liquid fuels.

An economic analysis shows that the cost of the thermochemical H2Bioil method is competitive when crude oil is about $100 per barrel. If a federal carbon tax were implemented, the biofuel would become even more economical.

H2 Bioil is created when biomass, such as switchgrass or corn stover, is heated rapidly to about 500 C in the presence of pressurized hydrogen. Resulting gases are passed over catalysts, causing reactions that separate oxygen from carbon molecules, making the carbon molecules high in energy content, similar to gasoline molecules. The conversion process was created in the lab of Rakesh Agrawal, Purdue’s Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.

He said H2Bioil has significant advantages over traditional standalone methods used to create fuels from biomass.

“The process is quite fast and converts entire biomass to liquid fuel,” Agrawal said. “As a result, the yields are substantially higher. Once the process is fully developed, due to the use of external hydrogen, the yield is expected to be two to three times that of the current competing technologies.”

Liquid Fuel from Electricity? UCLA Researchers Say Yes:

The UCLA team’s method actually mimics photosynthesis Researchers at UCLA say they have come up with a method

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for converting electrical energy into a liquid fuel, in a development that could lead to regular petrol cars being powered by electricity.

JoP, April-June 2012

“We’ve been able to separate the light reaction from the dark reaction and instead of using biological photosynthesis, we are using solar panels to convert the sunlight to electrical energy, then to a chemical intermediate, and using that to power carbon dioxide fixation to produce the fuel,” Liao said. “This method could be more efficient than the biological system.” He said the use of solar panels offered an advantage over biofuelssince the panels could be located out in the desert or on rooftops and would not need to take up valuable farmland, a common complaint against biofuels which require large areas of agricultural land to grow the plants needed to make them.

In theory the hydrogen generated by solar electricity can drive CO2 conversion in lithoautotrophic microorganisms but because of the low solubility and low mass-transfer rate and the safety issues surrounding hydrogen, the researchers did not consider using the gas. Instead they found that formic acid was a favorable substitute and efficient energy carrier.

Liao said the next step would be to see if the electricitydriven bioconversion of CO2 could be used to make a variety of chemicals. “We’ve demonstrated the principle, and now we think we can scale up,” he said.

Source: R&D Today, June 2012

Industry Kaleidoscope ONGC shines at Petrofed Oil & Gas Industry Awards 2011

Continuing its journey on road to recognition, ONGC swept the Petrofed Oil & Gas Industry Awards 2011 by taking home 3 prestigious awards in the categories of “Environmental Sustainability: Company of the Year”, “Human Resource Management: Company of the Year ” and “Innovator of the Year: Team (Won by IOGPT)”.

Sudhir Vasudeva, CMD, ONGC accompanied by the ONGC Board of Directors – A K Hazarika, Director-Onshore, K S Jamestin, Director-HR, U N Bose, Director-T&FS, S V Rao, Director-Exploration and A K Banerjee, Director-Finance – received the awards on behalf of ONGC from the Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas S Jaipal Reddy in a function attended by the doyens of the Indian energy sector and distinguished bureaucrats at New Delhi.

Butola, Chairman, Mr. RK Ghosh, Director(Refineries), Mr. M Nene, Director(Marketing) and Mr. VS Okhde, Director (Pipelines).

The other awards in the IndianOil kitty were “Oil & Gas Marketing Company of the Year” and Project Management (above Rs.2000 crore)- Company of the year. In the Individual category, Ms. Aparna Anand, Senior Project Manager was felicitated as the “Woman Executive of the Year in the Oil & Gas industry”.

MoUs signed between

IndianOil honoured with four Petrofed Awards-2011

The good run of IndianOil at the PetroFed Awards continued this year too with the Corporation bagging four awards for the year 2011. At a glittering ceremony hosted by the Petroleum Federation of India (PetroFed), New Delhi, awards were given away to the best and brightest of India’s oil & gas sector by the Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr. S. Jaipal Reddy.

IndianOil led the honours of the evening when it was declared the Leading Oil & Gas Corporate of the Year. The award was received amongst thunderous applause by Mr. RS

ONGC-CNPC-An MoU for hydrocarbon cooperation was signed between ONGC and CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation), by Sudhir Vasudeva, CMD, ONGC and Jiang Jiemin, Chairman, CNPC, in new Delhi recently. With this MoU, the companies have agreed to foster cooperation either directly or through their subsidiaries by expanding cooperation in upstream E&P areas, refining or processing of crude oil and natural gas in midstream or downstream projects, marketing and distribution of petroleum products and construction and operation of oil and gas pipelines.

IOC – L&T - A Memorandum of Collaboration (MOC) was signed recently with L&T for joint development work in JoP, April-June 2012

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Industry Kaleidoscope Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on campus June 18. The MOU established a joint collaboration between the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) on behalf of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center. Pictured left to right: Dr. N.K. Anand, TEES associate director and executive associate dean of the Dwight Look College.

Solazyme Commissions Algal Biorefinery in Peoria the area of gasification. The MoC was signed by S.K. Sarangi, ED, (AE) and Y.S. Trivedi, Executive VP, Member, Heavy Engineering, IC Board, in the presence of Dr. R.K. Malhotra, Director (R&D), Indian Oil and M.V. Kotwal, Director (Heavy Engineering Division), L&T. As per the MoC, the integrated concept of gasification of Indian Oil (R&D) will be taken forward and prototype gasifiers will be developed by L&T and tested jointly.

NTPC- IIT - To encourage its employees acquire higher qualification; develop research skills and enable them ac-

complish scientific studies for the development in energy sector, NTPC Limited, inked an MoU with IIT Delhi. The MoU was signed by S.P. Singh, Director (HR), NTPC and Prof. R.K. Shevgaonkar, Director, IIT Delhi, in the presence of D.K. Agrawal, ED (NETRA), NTPC and other senior officials of both the organizations. With this, NTPC plans to give prestigious M.Tech. program in selected domains to two more batches of 10 engineers each.

RGIPT-Taxus AM University- Representatives from the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center and the Rajiv

Solazyme, Inc. has just announced the successful commissioning of its first fully integrated biorefinery (IBR) in Peoria, Illinois, to produce algal oil. Solazyme has been running routine fermentations at commercial scale since 2007 and began running fermentation operations at the Peoria facility in Q4 2011. With the successful production of algal oil from the integrated facility this month, Solazyme has met its startup goals for the facility on schedule.

The IBR was partially funded with a federal grant that Solazyme received from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in December, 2009 to demonstrate integrated commercial-scale production of renewable algal-based fuels. The demonstration/ commercial-scale plant will have a nameplate capacity of two million liters of oil annually, and will provide an important platform for Solazyme’s continued work on feedstock flexibility and scaling of new tailored oils into the marketplace.

To maximize capital efficiency, Solazyme bought the existing Peoria fermentation facility in May 2011 and began retrofitting the former PMP Fermentation Products plant into an integrated demonstration/commercial-scale facility that will produce renewable tailored triglyceride. Solazyme has been operating at semi-commercial scale through contract manufacturers since 2007. The company has seen linear productivity in its scaleup efforts, including multiple toll manufacturing facilities and multiple successful 128,000- liter scale fermentations at Peoria.

“Bringing the Peoria IBR online is a major milestone for Solazyme and our ability to provide a new source of renewable oils that are specifically tailored to offer enhanced alternatives to conventional sources of oil. The Department of Energy has proven to be a valuable partner in demonstrating how important new technologies like Solazyme can positively impact this country’s economy, long-term job creation and energy independence efforts,” said Rogerio Manso, Chief Commercialization Officer.

Copyright ©2010-2012 AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reprint this article in its entirety. Must include copyright statement and live hyperlinks. Contact editorial@algaeindustrymagazine.com.

A.I.M. accepts unsolicited manuscripts for consideration, and takes no responsibility for the validity of claims made in submitted editorial. of Engineering; Dr. J.P. Gupta, director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, Rae Areli, India; and Dr. Sam Mannan, director of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center.

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Book Scan The New Sustainability Advantage Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line

Author: Bob Willard

The New Sustainability Advantage shows how the benefits of the “triple bottom line” can increase a typical company’s profit by at least 51 to 81% within five years, depending on the company’s size and industry sector, while avoiding risks that could jeopardize its financial wellbeing.

Fully revised and updated, this 10th anniversary edition clearly demonstrates that, by focusing on seven powerful yet easy-to-grasp sustainability strategies, businesses can: • Increase revenue • Improve productivity • Reduce expenses • Decrease risks.

Expressed in clear business language and presented in an appealing, graphically rich format, this practical guide and the accompanying online Sustainability Advantage Simulator Dashboard enables executives to enter their own data and quickly identify high-leverage benefit areas for their organization. More detailed downloadable Sustainability Advantage Simulator Worksheets help them drill down into specific areas of interest and fine-tune the assumptions to their specific situation.

An indispensable tool for both sustainability champions and senior management, The New Sustainability Advantage proves that the quantified business case for sustainability is more compelling than ever before.

Bob Willard gave up an award-winning, successful career in senior management at IBM to devote himself full-time to building corporate commitment to sustainability. Widely in demand as a speaker, he has delivered hundreds of presentations demonstrating the business case for sustainability to companies, consultants, academics and NGOs worldwide. Bob is the author of The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook, The Next Sustainability Wave, and the original edition of The Sustainability Advantage. He was recently appointed an inaugural member of the Sustainability Hall of Fame by the International Society of Sustainability Professionals.

Street Smart Sustainability The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Profitably Greening Your Organization’s DNA (Social Venture Network)

Author: David Mager (Author), Joe Sibilia (Author) In this book, David Mager and Joe Sibilia do include 10 reasons sustainability makes economic and ecological sense, they’re not here to convince you why.

Street Smart Sustainability is about--with detailed, nuts-andbolts, step-by-step advice on--how to green business green profitably.

ee buy-in to and motivate your company into becoming sustainable. Then they cover how to get started--auditing your current sustainability position, developing a plan to move forward and quantitatively measuring your progress.

Street Smart Sustainability is a roadmap to the sustainable low-hanging fruit at a time when the public is hungry for businesses that demonstrate genuine respect for the environment. It provides simple tools so you can make continuous, cost-effective improvements in your sustainability practices--practices that diffuse into the organizational DNA and become fixtures, shifting the prevailing corporate culture.

The Greater Goal

By Ken Jennings and Heather Hyde

By the coauthor of the bestselling The Servent Leader, shows how superior performance is driven by aligning every person and every function around an inspiring purpose Written in a universally accessible fable format—critical for this highly collaborative process

For decades we have been hearing about how strong organizational purpose drives customer and employee loyalty.

Committees draft stirring mission statements and slap them on their websites, stick them on their annual reports, frame them on their lobby walls—and forget about them.

So what does it take to put an inspiring purpose into practice? How can you ensure that the highest values inform every aspect of your company’s operations and sustain high performance for years to come?

Through years of management consulting experiences, Ken Jennings and Heather Hyde have learned what it takes to connect purpose and performance. In this vivid business fable they lay out a five-point road map called “the Star Model” to guide leaders through the process of engaging executives, managers, and employees in creating a profoundly motivating purpose that becomes a basis for action at all levels. Jennings and Hyde tell the story of Alex Beckley, a new company president who receives a dramatic wake-up call that demands he live and lead differently. The Star Model transforms not only his work life but his personal life as well.

Purpose gives everyone the feeling of working for a cause, not just a company. But simply having a greater goal is not enough. Leaders must also make this greater goal the foundation of their overall strategy and execute that strategy while staying true to the larger purpose. With Jennings and Hyde’s expert assistance, you’ll discover how to articulate your higher purpose, use it to create shared goals among all stakeholders, align all functions around the shared goals and higher purpose, and thereby drive organizational performance to unprecedented levels.

Mager and Sibilia begin by discussing how to get employJoP, April-June 2012

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Petrotech Activity 2nd Seminar on Drilling Technology

Petrotech in collaboration with ONGC IDT organized a 2nd Seminar on Drilling Technology on 10th-11th April 2012 at IDT Dehradun. The faculty members from institutes/universities viz. IIT Bombay, Delhi University, IIT Roorkee, ISM Dhanbad, MIT Pune, Mizoram University, MS University Baroda, NGRI, NW College Pune, Osmania University, UPES and University of Kerala and senior executives/managers from Oil India Ltd, GAIL (India) Ltd and Engineers India Ltd participated in the seminar.

Mr. U N Bose, Director (T&FS) ONGC inaugurated the seminar. He appreciated the efforts of Petrotech and IDT for brining the academia industry closer to provide conduit for the flow of knowledge from the current generation of industry stalwarts to the future young blood of the nation. Mr. Bose also expressed his views on important topics like R&D at academia and industry requirements and the quest of cutting edge technology starts from the labs only. He also mentioned about the flow chart which governs the stages of technology is ‘N 3 I’ i.e. Need, Idea, Innovation and Implementation. He wished the seminar a grand success.

Mr. Anand Kumar, Director Petrotech proposed Vote of Thanks on the occasion and brought out important issues of Conventional and Unconventional oil resources and steps for improvement in the field of collaborative research.

Seminar on Sustainable Development: Carbon and Water Management

Mr. Ashok Anand, Director General Petrotech welcomed the august gathering and expressed his gratitude towards Mr. U N Bose Director (T&FS) and Mr. S Dutta, ED-Head, IDT for their continued support for organizing this event annually for the benefit of academia and industry. During his address he also appreciated IDT for training 13,000 officers in the field of drilling.

Petrotech in collaboration with ONGC’s Carbon Management and Sustainable Group Department organized a two days seminar on Sustainable Development – Carbon and Water Management on 10th-& 11h May 2012 at Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi. 93 Senior Executives from major oil & Gas companies viz. ONGC, IOCL, OIL, BPCL, HPCL, EIL, GAIL, Uhde India, Technip KTI participated in the seminar.

Mr. Vinod Sharma, GM (Chemistry), IDT apprised about the contents of two days seminar. Mr. S Dutta, ED-Head IDT delivered the keynote address. During his address he brought out the objectives and achievements of IDT and emphasized on training which plays a vital role in achieving or completion of projects successfully.

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Mr. Ashok Anand, Director General, Petrotech welcomed the august gathering & expressed his gratitude towards Mr. A K Hazarika, Director (Onshore), ONGC, Mr. Rajkumar Ghosh, Director (Ref) IOCL and Mr. A B Chakraborty, ED-Chief CMG for their continuous patronage in Petrotech’s activities. He emphasized that there is need to have clean environment for current and future generation through sustainable Development and the same is possible if we see the whole world as system – a system that connects space and a system that connects time.

Petrotech Activity es: KPMG Report 2012 and World Energy Scenario between developed and developing countries and the initiative and action being taken by CM &SG in ONGC activities.

Mr. Anand Kumar, Director, Petrotech proposed Vote of Thanks on the occasion & appreciated Mr. Hazarika for giving 6 dimension of Land & Resources. He thanked Mr. Hazarika and Mr. A B Chakraborty for taking a lead and helping other organization by creating a very active department of CM&SG. He also mentioned that awareness, improvement and motivation of people plays a vital role in sustainable development.

7th Summer School on “Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals Mr. A B Chakraborty, ED-Chief CMG apprised about the outlines of two days programme. He mentioned that this is the 5th programme in a row on the subject without any repetition. Considering the fast changing world, he brought out 3 important aspects on the issue: (i) To create awareness amongst young leaders, (ii) To impart knowledge gathered (iii) Actionable points to implement and building of contacts to share knowledge. He appreciated the efforts of Team Petrotech and Team CMSG ONGC for conducting the seminar

Mr. R K Ghosh, Director (Refinery) IOCL started his special address with a saying by an engineer that every refinery has a latest Refinery within it and he also mentioned Sustainable Development is the development which meets the needs of current generation without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs

Mr. A K Hazarika, Director (onshore) ONGC inaugurated the seminar with a very informative presentation and covered: (i) Sustainability: Business Imperative from global point of view, (ii) Sustainability: Indian Perspective, (iii) Sustainability: E&P Sector, (iv) Sustainability: ONGC & SD an overview.

He also brought out during his presentation (i) Sustainability Mega Forc-

The summer school programme is a unique platform provided by Petrotech, IndianOil (R&D) and IiPM for exchanging views, experiences and perceptions between chemical engineering academia and the Industry and also providing an understanding and a clear vision of the requirements of Petroleum Oil Industry to academia. 25 Professors from different Institutions viz. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham; Annamalai University; BIT Mesra Ranchi; BIT Sindri; BITS Pilani; BITS Pilani Hyderabad; Delhi Technology University; GGS Indraprastha University; ICT Mumbai; IIP Dehradun; IIT Kanpur; JNT University Hyderabad; MIT Pune; PDPU Gandhinagar; RGIPT Rae-Bareli; Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering; SSN College of Engineering and 15 professionals from Refineries and R&D Centre of different Indian oil companies like IndianOil, MRPL and BPCL attended the program.

Mr. R.K. Ghosh, Director (Refineries) inaugurated the 7th summer school on “Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals” at IiPM in the presence of Dr. C. R. Prasad, former CMD, GAIL and CMD Everest Power Pvt. Ltd., Mr. S. Rajagopal, ED (RT), IndianOil, Mr. Anand Kumar, Director, Petrotech and Mr. N. K. Bansal, ED (IiPM).

Petrotech Activity Mr Ashok Anand, Director General, Petrotech visited University of Alberta on 5th June 2012 to finalize the 5th Industry Educational Tour to Canada.

He also took the opportunity to discuss with University of Alberta, Harvard Business School and IHRDC to explore the possible tie up in future for mutual benefit.

Mr. Ghosh complimented the continued efforts of Petrotech Society, IiPM and IndianOil (R&D) for organising the programme. He described Petroleum as the major source of global energy at least for next 100 years although petroleum oil refining would be more and more difficult both technologically as well as financially and refiners would face greater challenges in processing more and more heavy and dirty crudes. While expressing his concern about increasing demands of petroleum products to keep pace with the growth in this sector, he advised that both the academia and industry should join hands in finding solutions to the future technological challenges.

Mr. N. K. Bansal, ED (IiPM) in his welcome address appreciated the joint effort of Petrotech and IIPM in organising the programme with the objective of bringing the academia and industry on a common platform. He described Petroleum as the major constituent of energy basket. The collaborative approach between industry and academia will lead to mutual benefit in finding to efficient and cost effective production and usage of this energy resource.

Mr. Anand Kumar Director, Petrotech appraised about the summer school and described energy as the most essential requirement for the growth of human civilization with ever increasing demand. He further highlighted the consistent track record of chemical engineering academia & professionals in overcoming hurdles through innovation from the very beginning of Petroleum Oil Industry.

Mr. S. Rajagopal ED (RT) IOCL-R&D in his keynote address described the opportunity for interaction between industry and academia to bridge the gap as the primary goal of the summer school programme. He further added that the need of the hour for the two pillars of the society, Industry & Academia, is to bring solutions jointly to the technological challenges, being faced by refining & petrochemicals industry today. He also appraised the gathering on the topics being covered during 5 day programme which includes a one day visit to Panipat Refinery.

During his visit, Mr. Anand also met Honorable, Roxanna Benoit, Dy Minister (International & Intergovernmental Relations) who accepted the invitation on behalf of Premier and Oil Minister Alberta for the Petrotech-2012, the 10th International Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition

DG, Petrotech & Dy. Minister (International & Intergovernmental Relations), Govt. of Canada

DG, Petrotech attending the Class Room Session in Harvard Business School

Meeting with Chard Gordon, Executive Education at Harvard Business School

Meeting with President, IHRDC