A Monte Carlo Methodology for Environmental Assessment Applied toOffshore Processing of Natural Gas with High Carbon Dioxide Content

Offshore production of oil and natural gas with high carbon dioxide content and high gas-to-oil ratio entail stringent processing conditions that require innovations and first-of-a-kind designs, which bear uncertainties derived from the scarcity of commercial-scale projects, hindering to move along technology learning curves. Consequently, unpredicted scenarios and unachieved specifications cause economic and environmental losses. Such uncertainties force offshore plants to be designed under stochastic factors seeking best statistical performance. The Monte Carlo Method is suitable to such finality. This work proposes a computer-aided engineering framework ‘MCAnalysis’ automatically applying a probabilistic environmental assessment of offshore gas processing. ‘MCAnalysis’ integrates HYSYS simulator with ‘Waste Reduction Algorithm’ to assess potential environmental impacts, whose most relevant categories were identified via Principal Component Analysis. An offshore plant processing natural gas with high carbon dioxide content was submitted to probabilistic raw gas flow rate under two scenarios of carbon dioxide content. The higher carbon dioxide content scenario presented the highest probabilistic potential environmental impacts, being the atmospheric category the most relevant