(457a) Meeting the Challenge of Making Use of Advanced Chemical Engineering Models in Oil and Gas Production

The accurate design of oil and gas production systems as well as the safe and optimized operation of such systems rely more and more on modelling techniques that bring together physico-chemistry, multiphase flow and thermodynamic advances. The progress made takes the form of new closure laws, i.e. new hydrodynamic point models, of new thermodynamic models representing better for example hydrate or wax formation and also of new unit operation models that better describe certain pieces of equipement.

For these advances to be experimented and then routinely used, it is necessary to make them readily available in the software tools used for the design and operation of production systems. The availability has to be quick and widespread. Interoperability is then the key to achieve this.

CAPE-OPEN is a freely available interoperability standards for process simulation tools. It has been implemented in many major commercial process simulation tools. A number of key providers of advanced modelling technologies for multiphase flow and thermodynamics targeted at oil and gas production have already moved to CAPE-OPEN in order to expand the accessibility to these technologies. It is a strategic option to be considered in the early stages of any new model development.