Abstract
The resource rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria, where oil and gas exploration and production activities are commonplace, gas flaring has characterized much of the landscape of the region, with the searchlight now firmly focused on these flares and necessitating urgent measures to help address the resulting environmental scourge. Modular gas processing facilities have long been an efficient means of utilizing flared gas in standalone flare sites with a high degree of success recorded over time. Having such modular plants in multiple locations would require that the output products from these plants be transported by pipelines and/or conveyed via trucks (or vessels in the case of swamp and offshore operations) to the market or consumption centers. Piping from each gas plant all the way to the market will introduce a complex web of piping crisscrossing multiple communities, with a potential for exposure to vandalism and other hazards associated with pipeline infrastructure in the region. Nigeria has roughly 181 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of proven gas reserves plus much more in undiscovered gas resources. However, despite having the largest gas reserves in Africa, only about 25% of those reserves are being produced or are under active development today. The foregoing challenges would require that a safer and more effective strategy would be to lay pipelines from processing facilities located within a Petroleum Mining Lease, acreage or producer cluster to a centralized gas gathering station where each gas delivery line will be metered into a manifold which connects the gas gathering station to the national gas network via a single injection line making gas from the cluster accessible to offtakers from anywhere on the national gas network system. This paper presents a practical case study of one such system, the Kwale Gas Gathering (KGG) facility at Umusam, in Delta State of Nigeria, which highlights the benefits of cluster gathering of natural gas resources from the OML 56 producer cluster.
